A complaint made public Monday against D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown’s 2008 campaign, raises questions about potential criminal activity and asks the elections board to send the case to federal prosecutors. “There’s a criminal component to the complaint,” D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics counsel Kenneth McGee told The Washington Examiner. “The office of campaign finance can’t refer potential criminal activity to the U.S. Attorney’s Office on its own, only the board of elections and ethics can refer.”
The complaint, which is supported by an audit released in April that found Brown’s 2008 at-large council campaign failed to report $133,000 in contributions and more than $203,000 in expenses, doesn’t mention specific criminal activity. But it does ask the elections board to consider referring the case to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for criminal prosecution following a hearing.
“We want the board to determine if there’s enough evidence to show actions were done willfully, which would make it criminal activity,”an OCF spokesman said.
Neither Brown nor his attorney responded to requests for comment.
The complaint also raises new questions about the role Brown’s brother, Che Brown, played in Kwame Brown’s 2008 campaign.
The audit found that the campaign paid $400,000 to a company owned by a former Kwame Brown campaign treasurer. That company in turn paid $240,000 to a company owned by Che Brown. The complaint says the 2008 campaign has not responded to requests for invoices showing exactly how the cash was spent. It also says Brown’s campaign failed to report a bank account — called the “side account” by the campaign — that held $60,000 in campaign cash and had Che Brown as a signatory. The account was opened on Aug. 20, 2008, just weeks before the Democratic primary in which Brown was running uncontested. Having Cheh Brown as a signatory on the campaign made him an officer of the campaign, the complaint says. But Brown failed to report both the account and Che Brown’s role, which would violate campaign finance laws.
The complaint was made public just hours before the council held a hearing on an ethics reform bill proposed by Kwame Brown and Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh. The bill would create a new ethics office that operates under the board of elections. The hearing was held one week after Ward 5 Councilman Harry Thomas was accused in a lawsuit filed by the D.C. Attorney General of funneling around $300,000 of city money meant for youth baseball into his wallet instead, and then spending it on an such luxuries as an Audi SUV and golfing trips to Las Vegas and Pebble Beach.
D.C. Attorney General Irvin Nathan testified that the council should “scrap” the bill in favor of adding more “powers, resources and respect” to his office.
“Improve the system, don’t add a new layer to it,” Nathan said.
