D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles said he won’t work in the administration of D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray, who beat Mayor Adrian Fenty this week in the Democratic primary.
But Nickles said he intends to make sure the transition to a new administration runs smoothly.
“My commitment was to Mayor Fenty,” he told The Washington Examiner.
Fenty has said he will not try to run as an independent or write-in candidate.
Nickles, a close friend and confidant of Fenty, has been a lightning rod while serving as the District’s top law enforcement officer. He fought against an inquiry into the donation of a city firetruck and ambulance to a Caribbean resort town, for example, and has negotiated settlements after the federal government sued the city for fraud.
“The amount of damage Peter Nickles has done to the District is going to take years to calculate,” said Kristopher Baumann, who chairs D.C.’s Fraternal Order of Police.
Gray has been clear from the outset that he has had “serious reservations” about Nickles being the attorney general for D.C., said Gray spokeswoman Traci Hughes.
The council chairman hasn’t minced words as to what he believes should happen to Nickles, and he will not have a place in the Gray administration, Hughes said.
“That is the one personnel decision that he made some time ago,” she said.
Nickles will be weighing his options over the next 30 days, he said.
Still, not all is frosty between the Fenty/Gray camps. The took part in a unity breakfast Thursday morning at Israel Baptist Church in Northeast, and Fenty said that he’ll be rooting for Gray.
