Trayon White, the liberal Washington, D.C., council member who said Jews manipulate the weather in a scheme to "own" American cities, was arrested by the FBI on Sunday for taking part in a $156,000 bribery scheme.
White, who appeared poised to secure a third term on the council this November prior to the arrest, was detained by federal authorities at his "luxury high-rise apartment building" in D.C.'s Navy Yard neighborhood, according to the Washington Post. White allegedly took "thousands of dollars in cash" and other gifts in exchange for ensuring city contracts went to a local businessman, according to CNN, which said the Democrat "agreed to take $156,000 in cash for his work—or 3 percent of the contracts’ value."
White was reportedly caught asking for cash on in taped conversations with the unnamed businessman who was acting as an informant after pleading guilty to separate federal bribery charges.
White's attorney, who also represented famous D.C. "Crack Mayor" Marion Berry, said he is "trying to get in contact" with White "and decide how we are going to proceed." White was fined $40,000 earlier this year by the city’s campaign finance office after audits revealed discrepancies with his financial records. Around $59,000 in campaign funds were reportedly unaccounted for.
White is best known for claiming Jewish bankers control the weather, a scheme he said they deploy to decimate American cities through natural disasters, thus making those cities easier to "own."
"Man, it just started snowing out of nowhere this morning, man. Y'all better pay attention to this climate control, man, this climate manipulation," White said in a 2018 video post on his Facebook page. "And D.C. keep talking about, 'We a resilient city,' and that's a model based off the Rothschilds controlling the climate to create natural disasters they can pay for to own the cities, man. Be careful."
In separate remarks around the same time, White said Jewish bankers "control the World Bank, as we all know, infusing dollars into major cities."
"They really pretty much control the federal government, and now they have this concept called resilient cities in which they are using their money and influence into local cities," he said.
White subsequently attended the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to repair his image. He did not appear to have a working knowledge of the Holocaust and left his museum tour early. At one point, he argued that Nazi stormtroopers were actually "protecting" a German girl paraded through a street in Norden with a sign that read, "I am a German girl and allowed myself to be defiled by a Jew."
White subsequently ran for mayor in 2022, receiving roughly 11,000 votes in the Democratic primary, which put him in third, well behind incumbent Muriel Bowser. He won his primary for his city council seat by roughly 1,800 votes in June.