update deskU.S. News

DC council member, who has said Jews control the weather, arrested by FBI

It wasn't immediately clear as to why Trayon White was being investigated.

Ward 8 council member Trayon White speaks during a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Jefferson Douglass Bridge over the Anacostia River in Southeast Washington, D.C., on Feb. 13, 2018. Credit: Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program, Creative Commons.
Ward 8 council member Trayon White speaks during a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Jefferson Douglass Bridge over the Anacostia River in Southeast Washington, D.C., on Feb. 13, 2018. Credit: Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program, Creative Commons.

Trayon White, who said in 2018 that Rothschilds control the weather, has been arrested by the FBI, multiple news outlets reported on Sunday.

The arrest “appeared to take other city officials by surprise,” The Washington Post reported. “The circumstances of the arrest and the nature of the allegations against White, a Democrat who represents Ward 8 in Southeast Washington and appeared on track to win a third term in November, were not immediately clear.”

The lawmaker apologized for his 2018 remarks, but when he toured the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in April 2018, he left the visit early, per the Post.

White said “he did not realize Jews might consider his comments offensive. He attended a Passover Seder and a bagels-and-lox breakfast with local Jewish leaders at city hall,” per the Post. “He did not publicize his visit to the museum off the Mall in Southwest Washington.”

“Moments later, White was nowhere to be seen,” the Post reported, noting that Rabbi Batya Glazer, of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, who was involved in White’s rehabilitation, “texted him to ask his whereabouts.”

“He wrote back that he hoped to see her outside the museum but he had to leave soon for an event in Ward 8,” per the Post. “The tour, scheduled to last 90 minutes, was halfway done.”

Glazer was “perplexed by his abrupt exit,” the Post reported, and said, “I do not know what happened, and I find it confusing.”

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