The House congressional committee with oversight of the District has issued a report that largely discredits former mayoral candidate Sulaimon Brown’s claims that he was offered cash and a job in exchange for attacking former Mayor Adrian Fenty on the campaign trail last year.
Monday’s report, issued by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., is one of several reactionary investigations into Browns claims. The U.S. attorney general launched a full investigation, including a grand jury probe, into Mayor Vincent Gray’s 2010 campaign earlier this year.
Issa’s report says Brown has a “history of erratic behavior ” and “significant credibility issues.” Although there is circumstantial evidence supporting his claims that he was promised an administration job if Gray was elected, the report concludes Brown’s unreliable testimony casts doubt upon what the evidence might suggest. The report says it isn’t possible to conclude whether Brown was promised employment by Gray’s campaign workers, as Brown alleges.
The conclusion differs from the city council report issued in August, despite using most of the same testimony an evidence. That report, conducted by a special committee after hours of hearings and interviews, concluded the Gray campaign was wraught with cronyism, nepotism and improper hiring practices — including that of Sulaimon Brown. That report also concluded that “Brown was either explicitly promised a job or that he was made a promise that reasonably would be understood as a promise of a job in the Gray administration.”
The council report recommended Brown be charged with falsifying his statement on his job application for the city while the Congressional one says the charge should be perjury. Brown’s statements before the council committee differ from his D.C. employment application where he stated he was not solicited nor offered anything in exchange for his job. Brown was fired from his $110,000-a-year position at the Department of Health Care Finance in February.
