After issuing subpoenas and receiving testimony during a series of high-profile round tables in which Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and private business owners were accused of “possible criminal wrongdoing,” D.C. Councilman Harry Thomas last week named Robert P. Trout special counsel for an investigation that began five months ago.
That’s when the council learned the Department of Parks and Recreation’s $86 million in capital budget appropriations were transferred to the D.C. Housing Authority, which used some of those funds to award, through competitive bidding, a project management contract to Banneker Ventures/Regan Associates. But, the DHA didn’t receive prior approval from the legislature for that contract, as required by law. That failure, and the fact that Fenty friend Omar Karim is Banneker’s president, triggered the council investigation.
“This is not any different from the fact-finding that Robert Bennett did,” Thomas told me, referring to the special counsel whose investigation prompted Marion Barry’s censure. “[In the Fenty administration] case, the council did most of the work. [Trout’s] going to review the information and tighten it up and give us a report.”
Undoubtedly the contracts, and Fenty’s possible circumventing of procurement laws, deserve scrutiny. But the council marred its own effort with politics and procedural irregularities. Trout’s appointment at this stage is more of the same.
The council didn’t vote to approve Trout’s appointment, according to a spokesperson from Chairman Vincent C. Gray’s office, as it did Bennett.
Bennett conducted his own fact-finding. Trout will rely on materials gathered by council members, who have drawn conclusions, publicly asserted those conclusions and advocated a remedy.
“I have always said this should go to the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Thomas told me before Trout’s appointment.
Bennett didn’t injure reputations during his investigation. Trout enters an environment where council members have engaged in McCarthyesque tactics, blacklisting private businesses whose greatest offense appears to be their association with the mayor.
Trout told me he isn’t going to “start a whole new investigation; there is no reason not to rely” on previously collected evidence. “[The council] is bringing us in to really look at this,” he continued. “At the end of the day, we could look at it and say there’s no there there.”
That goal of objectivity could be affected by the fact that Trout’s appointment already is perceived by some as an attempt by Thomas and other legislators to inoculate themselves against potential injury for their Barry censure vote. That move was unpopular in many African-American communities, including Ward 5, where Thomas is up for re-election. Gray is considering a run for mayor; he’ll need a solid majority of black voters to beat Fenty.
“You know how many African-American constituents I may have lost with that vote. [But] I don’t want this to seem capricious, like I have a vendetta against the mayor,” Thomas said.
It may be too late to change that perception.
This much is indisputable: Unlike Bennett, Trout has the burden of producing a fair and credible report from a tainted investigation.
Jonetta Rose Barras can be reached at [email protected].
