Him in all four quadrants of the city. Marion barry was held as a hero for the things he did and he embarrassed the people that loved him. I am not surprised. I think marion barry was a big figure. Four turns as mayor and as city council member. Brian because there are a number of officials from virginia, not from virginia yet, but from maryland, Public Officials that are in jail. We wanted to do an update. Lets start with i have some video of you interviewing someone that the audience might remember because of his father, ron brown. This is michael brown. He is in prison where . Tom he is in a small prison in alabama. A minimum security prison. It was a spectacular falling for michael brown. He had all of the gifts you could possibly want. From his father, ron brown who was so close to clinton. Michael brown was not a lawyer. But he was paid a lot of money to work with law firms. He was elected to the council. He ran on his fathers name. Brian he was on the city council. Tom what brought him down was that he offered to help two businessmen get through the maze of contracting in the city. What he did not realize was that the two businessmen were fbi agents and he took bribes. Brian in 2012, you interviewed him on the kojo nnamdi show. [video clip] tom people do not feel that you or the councilmembers at this point have a strong opinion that the ethics laws need to be enforced. We have a new Ethics Committee that still does not have an office space. It has to start working this fall. It seems like ethics is a back burner issue when it should be the engine. I dont know if it is back burner, tom, i understand what you are saying. As we deal with ethics and Campaign Finances which are two separate issues tom not in the publics mind. We have not seen a lot of evidence of pay or play politics. I have not seen that. Brian he used to have an office in this building. A very nice guy to see every day. What happened to him . Tom he was corrupt. It is unfortunate but he was corrupt. He skated through a lot of his life because of his fathers reputation. He had doors open to him that people would cry to have open for them. He fell in love with dressing well and having fancy cars. And acting up and having a good time as a public official. Something went off in his brain or he did not have it to begin with. When people say that money is the milk of politics, the mothers milk of politics, it is. It is a cliche but it is true. Brian how did he get the money . Was it cash . Tom there was money in a Washington Redskins can. He got the money. Look at the delight on his face even there. As a citizen of this city, which gets maligned in this nation as a corrupt town, looking at his face like that, it annoys the hell out of me. This person wasted his life. He is smart. He had access. And he could have done a lot for the city but instead he chose to do for himself. Brian the former governor of maryland died. We have some video from back in 2015 which came to me a short time ago. It is from nbc baltimore. Martin mandel also went to prison. Tom he did. Brian it was commuted. I will ask you about that in a moment. [video clip] his local career started when the political machine helped him to get appointed to a vacant seat in the maryland house of delegates. He became House Speaker in 1963. When spiro agnew resigned, he was appointed to serve out the rest of the term. His accomplishments were overshadowed. The record will show that during my administration, nothing was ever done to defraud the public of the state of maryland. Federal prosecutors claim that he accepted cash, favors, and gifts, in exchange for pushing through legislation that would benefit the old owners of the race track in Prince Georges County. Brian what can you say about him . Tom a fabulous politician. Like marion barry but i do not mean to compare the two except to say that Marvin Mandel wrote his own book in 2010 an accidental politician. Things happened. Spiro agnew just happened to be indicted. He knew people. He was a classic politician. He changed the way the state paid for education. He changed things so there was a clear understanding of how we fund the schools in maryland. He took a State Government with over 250 agencies, a morass of agencies, very Little Organization structure. He changed it to 12 department heads. A cabinet that would report to the governor about what was happening. He did a lot of things like that to make the state become much more modernized. It was a rural backwater before. Brian he did go to prison. Tom he did because he got caught up in the racetrack in Prince Georges County which is a suburb of washington. It needed more racing days. The number of days a racetrack could have is dependant the racetrack was going bankrupt. Some of his friends, i am not sure how much he had to do with it, got a bill killed in the legislature that would allow them to have more racing days. These same friends went and bought the racetrack and then they got permission for more racing days and made a fortune. They could sell the racetrack for a lot more money. And that is what the prosecutors went after mandel for. In the process, he got money for helping that. It was later overturned. I am not a lawyer so i dont want to get into why it was overturned. He served 19 months in prison. It was overturned because there was another case in new jersey or somewhere else where the prosecutors had reached too far to say he was corrupt. Brian this is the case that got to the Supreme Court and went back to the appeals court. Very confusing. Tom Ronald Reagan commuted his sentence. Brian he is still a hero based on the coverage in maryland. Tom people look at politicians, and we sometimes have a rosy view. Looking at donald trump. Im going to do this and that and i cannot be bought. Politicians have to do a lot of compromising to get things done. If you get things done, just as marion barry did and Bob Mcdonnell got things done in virginia, when you are exposed to having some corruption or crime, the people who are most involved, those who benefited from you being governor or mayor, give you more balance on that. Mandel was a remarkable, personal politician, like clinton. You were a friend for life. Same thing with bill clinton and marion barry. When people have a builtup history like that, the fact that they do something wrong does not wipe the slate clean. Brian we are in maryland for the moment. Can you remember spiro agnew . Tom i remember him. I do not know why he was picked as Vice President ial candidate. He cheated money for groceries. He had small potato corruption color his time. Small potato corruption. Michael brown, the councilman we talked about a moment ago, a few thousand dollars here and there while his income was 130,000 as a councilman. He sold himself so cheap. If you are going to cheat brian he actually took cash money when he was Vice President. Tom it was an entitlement thing that he could take it. Brian what do you think about the fact that he pled no contest and did not have to go to jail, and went on to make millions. Tom he was out of Public Office. It was like ron machen investigating the former mayor gray. Even eric holder, the attorney general. He wrote a letter for all of the u. S. Attorneys. If the people who represent us are corrupt, then we have to get them out of office. Sometimes, he left office. He went on to make a successful life afterwards. He was shamed and ridiculed. Brian since 1989, you have been with channel four here in town. Tom i cover mainly City Politics as well as development issues. And how the federal government treats the city. It is a ward of the federal government. The Nations Capital is the most unamerican city in america. Its people that call it home do not have a vote in congress. We have a delegate that can vote in committee but not on the house floor. We have no representation in the senate. The constitution says that congress should have full legislative authority over the district. It is a remarkable place and i cover all of those interactions. When bill clinton in 1992 and 1993 sat on georgia avenue, and said we will help make this street come back, in 20 years, nothing has happened. Brian lets go to ron machin because i want you to explain him. Who is he . Tom he was the u. S. Attorney for the District Of Columbia for five years. He left office voluntarily on his own accord april the first of this year. He was a very aggressive prosecutor on public corruption issues. He was a successful lawyer before this and he is now in private practice and he is now successful in private practice. He led the investigation into the allegations of corruption over mayor vincent gray. There were, within a few months, there were allegations that money had been spent and not accounted for to get him elected. That unfolded with an fbi investigation that has now lasted over five years. Brian why did he step down . Tom i think he was the longestserving u. S. Attorney in the district for 38 years. It has over 300 lawyers. The u. S. Unlike anywhere else in america, the u. S. Attorneys office prosecutes all of the major crimes in the District Of Columbia. You would think the state courts would do in other places. They have to prosecute anything above a misdemeanor. After five years, it is a grueling thing and there is some criticism that he stepped down without concluding the case against mayor gray. He said, i have done this for five years. It is a demanding job. He thinks he did it well. A lot of people think he did it well except for the mayor gray thing. He was ready to move back into the private sector. I dont begrudge him that. Brian you did an interview with him after he stepped down for a show. Tom there is a place on capitol hill called the hill center. For the last couple of years, every few months, we invite a politician or a person to come in who is in Public Office to talk about themselves more than they do what they do for work. Where they come from, where they went to school. Ronald was on and i asked him things like you played football. We give people a chance to see people in public, like you talk to people. Brian this was back in november 2013 he was still in office. Tom yes. I dont know which clip you will show. [video clip] tom the business of d. C. Is politics. Corruption if you go down the laundry list of our cases you will see over the last four years, the largest federal contracting scheme in our nations history. Over a billion dollars in contracts and 30 billion in bribes involving officials in the u. S. Army corps of engineers. We know about the three councilman who have been convicted of felonies. The chief of staff to another councilman who has been convicted. We know about the two congressman who have been convicted. Here in d. C. , corruption is the name of the game here in d. C. Bread and butter. We have had over 125 public corruption and actions. It is critical and it is a priority because you have to go after leadership. And you do not have people who believe in the system of government and believe that officials are on the day, it tears at the fabric of our democracy. People lose trust in the system. Tom first thing i want to say is that i have more than one tie. Brian 125 public Corruption Cases while he was there. Is that unusual . Tom listening to him again, unfortunately, he does not say that in d. C. , that those cases were in the federal government. They prosecute all manner of corruption. There are 200 thousand federal workers in the metropolitan Washington Area. There are fraud cases. They do a lot of fraud cases with people milking the government. When you hear when hundred 25 cases, that is not District Of Columbia employees or citizens. We have had a too long list of corruption in the city but a lot of that is federal. Brian you mentioned that vincent gray who was the mayor of this town but was defeated in the primary by marion bowser. Everyone was waiting for an indictment that never came. Tom and still has not yet come. People have thought that this will be a time for the next person to come in. Vinny who is the acting u. S. Attorney, we thought vincent will come in to say that they are not going to bring charges against him but that has not happened. Within the last 24 hours, i checked in, they tell me again and again that the investigation is continuing. It was a complex scheme where 650,000 was spent in 2010 to get people to buy Campaign Material and do all kinds of things. None of the money was reported. The person who controlled the money pleaded guilty. Jeffrey thompson said Jeffrey Thompsons word in court is not very good. At least six people have pled guilty in this scandal. Including Jeffrey Thompson. People who handled the money. Do they have enough to nail the mayor . Last year, it was reported that he turned down a plea bargain on a federal felony charge and there is some suggestion that he even turned down a misdemeanor plea bargain where he would just have to ignore knowledge that he knew about the scandal. He is out of office. Brian where is Jeffrey Thompson . Tom he is around town and going down to the caribbean islands. He is still doing business. He used to have an Accounting Firm but he got out of that. He is a welltodo man. He is living the life. Someone sent me a picture of him buying shoes at nordstroms. He travels but he has to get permission from the prosecutors to go out of town. Brian any person for him . Tom that is one of those things that has a lot of people angry. He pled guilty in court a year ago in april in march of 2014. He orchestrated the money, and provided the money and he may face six months in prison. Brian when will he have to go to prison . Tom after the case is concluded. There are several people who pled guilty but they have not spent any time because they are waiting for the next shoe to drop, waiting for the mayor to be charged. The Defense Attorneys i have spoken with, people familiar with the prosecutors, and everyone who is involved, still think that there will be some sort of legal action against vincent gray. Brian in july, 2013, a writer for the Washington Post let us let her explain something a little more. [video clip] Jeffrey Thompson had been in the news. He is a local businessman who is at the center of a major federal investigation and no one really knew who he was. I told my editor that i wanted to write the definitive profile of Jeffrey Thompson. He is at the center of d. C. Politics and some folks say he is actually at the center of d. C. Politics falling apart. For years, behind the scenes, he had been giving to candidates, he had several contracts with the city, huge contracts. One was worth 322 million a year. No one really knew who he was until things came to light in 2011 over problems with the current mayor, vincent c grays campaign for mayor in 2010. Tom she is a terrific reporter and this ghetto would probably not have happened without her work. She now works for the New York Times and she is covering mayor de blasio among other things. Jeffrey thompson was not popularly known in the publics mind. But he was very well known in the districts community. Extremely wellknown. Back in the 1990s, 1995, the District Of Columbia was nearly bankrupt when marion barry was mayor. The congress put together a Financial Authority control port to control the citys finances. It left marion berry the authority to appoint a cfo. Out of the blue, marion barry picked Anthony Williams who had been working at the Agriculture Department as cfo. It turns out much later, we found out that the person who recommended to marion barry to hire Anthony Williams was Jeffrey Thompson. Brian thompson tom thompson was well known in the African American business community. Brian does he still have that business . Tom he left the Accounting Firm and that business. Brian he is still wealthy. Tom i have not seen his books but he seems to be wealthy based on his travel. He even had a business agreement with eric holder. This surprised me. We put it in an updated version of our book. When the Washington Nationals were still in montreal, the Major League Baseball said the team could move to washington, someone had to buy the team. There were 45 bidders and one of them was a group of businessmen put together that included Jeffrey Thompson and eric holder. I asked eric holder, did you have any other businesses with Jeffrey Thompson that you can tell us . It took them two weeks but he told me no. Brian i want to put up a map so people who do not live in this area can get some understanding of what this area looks like. It is between baltimore and Northern Virginia, about 9. 5 billion people. Tom it is between baltimore to the north and richmond to the south. Brian to the side of the District Of Columbia is a county called Prince Georges County. What can you tell us about jack jackson who was the former executive of the county . Tom jack johnson built him