The D.C. Council is scheduled to vote on an emergency bill Tuesday to take Sulaimon Brown, and others, to court for not responding to a subpoena that could prove to be a test of some council members allegiance to Mayor Vince Gray.
Brown and Cherita Whitting were scheduled to testify at the fourth installment of ongoing council hearing on the Gray administration’s hiring practices. Brown says he never got the subpoena and Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh says he signed for it when it was delivered by certified mail. Whitting just didn’t show.
The committee has also decided to take Peyton Brooks to court over his statement that he’d plead the fifth to any and all questions the council puts to him. The committee says Brooks isn’t likely to be incriminating himself when answering some questions.
Brown, of course, is the accuser-in-chief who claims Gray promised him a job to stay on the campaign trail last summer and keep up his verbal attacks on then-Mayor Adrian Fenty. He also says Brooks’ father, Gray for Mayor campaign worker Howard Brooks, passed him cash-stuffed envelopes for the same reason. Peyton Brooks was later hired by the Gray administration, just like Brown and Whitting — who didn’t mark down a felony conviction on her job application.
Some council members might be reluctant to vote in favor of a bill Tuesday that could end with testimony being forced from witnesses that could be damaging to Gray. But they’ll also be in a position to vote in favor of respecting the “council process,” one council source suggested. That means they can vote in favor of the bill and hide behind the need to protect the council’s investigative system.
Look for some council members to opine about process before voting in favor of the measure. Those that do are likely closest to the mayor.
