A day later, LL's ready to assess the fallout from Marion Barry's unprecedented smackdown:

Winner No. 1: Adrian Fenty. Once again, the Barry circus has distracted local political reporters from Hizzoner's political troubles. The Washington Post dropped a Sunday A1 story about his pillow-soft support in the black communtiy, but it was quickly forgotten amid all the Barry news.

Winner No. 2: Michael A. Brown. The council's most junior member got a significant boost in power by taking over Barry's housing and workforce development committee right the the middle of a budget cycle. In terms of raw numbers, Brown now oversees a serious portion of the city budget, outpacing some of his more senior colleagues. And the accompanying $350,000 staff budget doesn't hurt, either.

Winner No. 3: Vincent Gray. The council chairman handled a difficult job with aplomb. He convinced big-name attorney Robert S. Bennett to investigate Barry's misdeeds, he let him do his job, and acted on his recommendations when it was all said and done. For the first time in years, Barry saw real consequences for his misdeeds, and Gray made sure all of his colleagues were behind it. Perhaps a launching pad to the mayoralty.

***

Loser No. 1: Anthony J. Motley. If the close Barry confidante previously had any hope of mounting a serious challenge to At-Large Councilmember David A. Catania, it has faded into oblivion. Bennett's report raised questions about his conduct serious enough to cast doubt on his ability to occupy an ANC seat, let alone citywide office. Some city precincts might still buy what he's selling, but not many.

Loser No. 2: Area building contractors. A Brown-sponsored measure threatens to force union labor on all projects that get even a modicum of city assistance. The bill had been referred to the housing committee, where Barry—who has always known how to look out for the deep pockets, in spite of his reputation—was widely expected to spike the union-friendly provisions. But with Brown in charge, who knows?

Loser No. 3: Gray. Despite his laudable performance in shepherding the Barry investigation and sanctions to a laudable conclusion, the chairman remained true to his collegial, plodding, incrementalist nature. He made little attempt to keep Barry on a leash as the process played out, which perhaps could have spared the council embarrassment. Gray left him on the finance committee long after he proved his repeated failure to pay income tax. He refused to call for Barry's resignation. And instead of abolishing an earmark process fraught with potential for abuse, he left the door open for its future use. Gray's made himself a creditable mayoral candidate, but not yet a winner.

LL would love to hear additional suggestions in the comments.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

For Barry's response, see page 18. For the response of Barry confidant Anthony Motley, see page 27.

Bennett, for the record, "found nothing in [Barry's response] that alters the conclusion that Mr. Barry's conduct not only created an appearance of impropriety but was in fact improper."

ARLINGTON EDUCATION SYSTEM: THANK YOU MARYLAND: Back in the '80s, James E. Vandelly, my government teacher at Wakefield High School, told us about the Constitution's Full Faith and Credit clause. He noted that he and his wife had gotten married somewhere that wasn't Virginia, and "cohabitated" their way back home. In every state they stopped in, he said, they were legally married, because the Full Faith and Credit clause meant that all states recognized a marriage performed in another. I have always wondered why this wasn't the case with same-sex marriage, but I have never actually, you know, looked it up. Maryland is not just doing the right thing by recognizing same-sex marriages performed elsewhere, it's also validating Mr. Vandelly's legacy! I believe he is also available to play accordion at your reception!

ITALIAN BIKE TOUR TO START IN D.C.! For some reason. UPDATE! MAYBE NOT! (I should have made a call. Bad! Bad!) ALSO: HANDMADE BIKE SHOW IN RICHMOND. Darrow and I were gonna go to this but we totally forgot. It's probably just as well.

MOTLEY? GONE. STRASBURG? JESUS. POST? MAKING MONEY! CREPES? NOW AVAILABLE! RUSSIA? CRUSHED BY CANADA!

Both have been forced to respond to findings of misdeeds contained in Robert S. Bennett's report on council contract and earmarks. But where Barry issued a short statement yesterday in the sanctuary of a church, taking no questions, Motley today publicly detailed his response to the report and took questions in a hourlong press conference.

Motley spoke to the two reporters who showed in a small conference room at the Bellevue Resource Center, a storefront space on the 4400 block of East Capitol Street SW. There, he claimed that Bennett and his team "approached this investigation with a prosecutor's posture and tone" and "have drawn some of their conclusions and made insinuations, inferences, and assumptions based on their perception of the facts and not the facts themselves."

As for those "facts themselves"?

Among other things, he claims that sharing of funds and other resources is normal practice for the groups he's involved with—Inner Thoughts and the JOBS Coalition, as well as the payments to contractors before services were rendered. And like Barry, he claims ignorance of the details of the earmark process, which sent $100,000 to Motley's groups in 2009.

Motley went to pains to show that his groups did real work for the earmarked funds, for instance showing plans for a community center in Ward 8 that he helped put together.

However, Motley did admit to retroactively creating records for the Bennett investigators to document certain expenditures—a big no-no—though he points out he was totally upfront about it. He says the missing records still have not been located.

And then there's his role in creating the infamous Ward 8 "councils"—nonprofits set up on Barry's command to receive earmarked funds. Motley says he took money from a scholarship fund set up in Barry's name to incorporate the groups. But he says the move was kosher because the fund—the Marion Barry Scholarship and Educational Fund—allows general "educational" uses. And the councils were educational, natch.

The press conference was accompanied by an announcement that Motley would be stepping down as the president and executive director of the JOBS Coalition. But Motley said his D.C. Council candidacy goes on. "We're still moving toward Nov. 2," he says, "unless something changes."

LL was finally able to clear up with Anthony J. Motley today why embattled Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry's been tooling around in a 1997 Mercedes registered in his name.

"It's my car," he says. And Barry's driving it, essentially, as a loaner.

It's happened on two occasions, once when Barry own Mercedes broke down some years ago, and more recently when Barry "blew his engine" in a BMW he owns.

Motley addressed the matter today at a press conference he called to address allegations made against him in Robert S. Bennett's report on council contracts and earmarks. The report's cast a long shadow over Barry, who is Motley's patron, close associate, and a key supporter of his current at-large council run. (More on Motley's response later.)

Turns out Barry exercises the same care regarding automobile upkeep that he exercises in upholding ethical standards. Said Motley, "You know why he blew the engine?" Because he didn't service it properly."

But Motley says that Barry has been doing a decent job maintaining the loaner Mercedes—maintenance is the only thing Barry's required to do in exchange for the loaner—but the mayor-for-life is wearing out Motley's patience.

"I'd like to have it back," says Motley, who says he's driving a 2005 Honda Accord in the interim. Last week, he says, Barry told him his BMW would be out of the shop soon.

Anyone who carries on personal and political dealings with Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry lives under something of a cloud: Sooner or later, you're going to be interrogated or investigated by authorities. Girlfriend Donna Watts-Brighthaupt, key aide Brenda Richardson, other staffers—they all come in for some prime-time analysis in the report issued earlier this week by attorney Bob Bennett.

The light of scrutiny shines hard on the Rev. Anthony Motley, one of Barry's closest confidants and a 2010 independent candidate for an at-large D.C. Council seat.

Motley's name surfaces in Bennett's report in connection with those various Ward 8 "councils," shorthand for the nonprofits that Barry helped create and to which he steered city funds. Motley told investigators that he launched the groups in order to be Barry's "eyes and ears and legs on the ground."

Besides eyes and ears and legs, Motley's also had a key role regarding Barry's wheels.

Unlike most other councilmembers, Barry's ride doesn't sport special council plates, but rather a plain-old District tag, CU-5768. Marion Barry without vanity tags is a puzzling thing, because if there's one thing the career pol loves, it's the perks of public office.

And if the councilmember drove a car registered in his own name, it's a good bet that he'd have "Ward 8 Councilmember" emblazoned on those red-white-and-blue tags. But his ride, a 1997 Mercedes E320, isn't registered to the councilmember. It's registered to Motley, according to public records available through Lexis-Nexis.

The car has been in Motley's name since May 2007, and Barry has been driving the car at least since June 2008, when it was found inconsiderately parked on Washington City Paper's parking deck. It's regularly parked in front of the John A. Wilson Building—where it was parked yesterday.

So why would Barry drive a car not registered in his name?

Actually, a better question: Why not?

Like tardiness and nasty quips and the press, Barry has trademarked the art of tying his fortune to that of his cronies. To wit, the Bennett report finds that Barry ordered girlfriend Donna Watts-Brighthaupt to give him cash paid to her via a city contract he awarded.

The report doesn't discuss the councilmember's odd automobile arrangement, but it does outline what Motley has received through his association with Barry: He "personally received at least $54,000 from [fiscal 2009] earmark grant recipients"—earmarks all requested by Barry.

Anthony Motley — file photo by Darrow Montgomery

However, there's another reason why Barry might not want to have a late-model Mercedes registered in his name. Under the terms of a settlement agreement with federal prosecutors in his long-running federal tax-fraud case, Barry has to fully report his income and spending to authorities on a monthly basis in order to determine how much of his income is seized in order to pay back taxes. If Barry were to include payments on a luxury vehicle, they could demand an adjustment to Barry's repayment schedule.

If prosecutors determine that Barry has been shrouding income—say by driving a car registered in someone else's name—it could lead them to seek yet another contempt finding against Barry.

Motley did not return numerous calls for comment.

LL reached Barry this afternoon and asked him why his car is registered to Motley. His reply: "Goodbye." Dial tone.

The automobile arrangement isn't the only affair raising questions about Motley's fitness for public office. The Bennett Report is rife with instances of bad behavior involving Motley.

When the Ward 8 "councils" were first incorporated, it was Motley who paid for the corporate registration process—by withdrawing money from the Marion Barry Scholarship Fund, money meant for needy kids. Motley told investigators he did so of his own volition, but a Barry aide, according to the report, said it was done under Barry's orders—raising the prospect that Motley was covering for Barry.

As noted above, Barry-directed earmarks were a key source of income for Motley.

Of the $54,000 that Motley received from the "councils," $39,000 reimbursed the Barry associate for serving as executive director of nonprofits named Inner Thoughts and Jobs Coalition.

Motley got another $14,500 through another earmark recipient, a group called the National Association of Former Foster Care Children of America. Motley had no direct connection to the group, but because the NAFFCCA didn't meet the council's minimal rules for receiving earmarked funds, they needed a "fiscal agent"—a third-party group to oversee the group's spending. That group was Inner Thoughts—and the money that the NAFFCCA paid as fees for serving as a fiscal agent went directly into Motley's personal bank account.

Here's what Motley gave by way of explanation: "Rev. Motley said that he believed that the fiscal agent fees received from NAFFCCA were compensation for services he personally provided; therefore, he deposited the funds into his personal account. Rev. Motley said the fee went towards his administrative efforts, and he estimated he spent between four and six hours each month on matters related to NAFFCCA." That works out to at least $202 per hour—not a bad rate.

Investigators also "identified numerous irregularities with regard to the earmark grantees with which Rev. Motley was associated." For one, there's "substantial evidence that Rev. Motley treated earmark funds from all three grantees, including those of the bankrupt NAFFCCA, as one pool of money." That means, for instance, that NAFFCCA earmark checks went into the Inner Thoughts bank account. The funds were then used to pay NAFFCCA expenses to both Jobs Coalition and Inner Thoughts—$48,000 worth. Some of those expenses were paid without the approval of the NAFFCCA board.

The report calls this an "apparent breach of fiduciary duty and self-dealing."

Motley explained to investigators that he thought "Inner Thoughts was entitled to retain grant funds awarded to NAFFCCA so long as Inner Thoughts performed work that was related to the purpose of the NAFFCCA grant."

And here's another gem: "Motley admitted that he manufactured supporting documentation for certain grantee expenses—in some instances, after receiving [the Bennett team's] document subpoena"—including backdated employee timecards and a lease with a fictitious landlord.

In an interview aired yesterday, Motley told WJLA-TV: "These are legitimate entities that were established to provide services to the citizens of Ward 8."

Mayor

• Incumbent Adrian M. Fenty—Duh. Dude's got at least $2 million in the bank.
• Sulaimon Brown—D.C. Wire had the scoop on this 38-year-old former Fenty volunteer's challenge. He established his committee on May 5. His Web site fronts a pic with him and Barack Obama where Barack Obama does not seem to be acknowledging his existence.
• Faith, the exotic dancer turned trumpet-tooting, horse-riding perennial candidate, filed her papers on May 1.

Ward 3

• Incumbent Mary Cheh, as of May 15, is officially running for re-election.

Ward 6

• Incumbent Tommy Wells is in. He filed his papers on June 11.

At-Large Council

• Democrat-turned-independent Anthony Motley, who in March said he wanted to "explore the possibilities" of running, is in for real as of June 3. LL ran into the erstwhile minister and Marion Barry confidante at Monday's meeting of the Missionary Baptist Ministers Conference, where he was handing out fliers for his campaign kickoff—to be held a week from Saturday at Tony's Gym and Fitness Club in Ward 8. His Web site has details on that event, and his new slogan: "Lets Make It Happen!" We'll be making it happen without apostrophes, apparently.

  Also of note: Because Motley had to leave the Democratic party, he had to resign his elected seat to the Democratic state committee. On Saturday, the Ward 8 Democrats will be electing a replacement. The candidates are Darrell Gaston and Charles Wilson, both of whom ran against Barry for Ward 8 councilmember last year, plus Ward 8 Business Council President James Bunn and advisory neighborhood commissioner and Bluetooth-earpiece aficionado Anthony Muhammad. Motley says he's endorsing Muhammad.

As first reported by LL last month, Motley is the first non-incumbent to declare for the 2010 at-large race, but there was some question over whether he would run as a Democrat or not. Motley is an elected member of the D.C. Democratic State Committee, but rumors and a sign posted at his Web site had him running as an independent. Ahem, "Independent Democrat."

No more suspense, though: At last night's DCDSC meeting, Motley announced to the group that we was officially resigning his seat, and that by next week, he would no longer be registered as a Democrat. He received, according to a member present, "polite applause."

Why the party maneuvering? That would be the District charter's prohibition on electing more than three of the five at-large council seats to members of the same party. The effect of that provision in a majority-Dem town is that three of the five seats (council chair and two at-large seats) are reserved for Democrats, while the other two seats are reserved for members of other parties (Hilda Mason, Carol Schwartz), persons whom no party could contain (David Catania), or for Democrats posing as independents (Michael A. Brown, Bill Lightfoot).

Motley's move puts him in de facto competition with Catania, should he choose to run, rather than having to face a bruising primary battle with Phil Mendelson, who beat Motley supporter A. Scott Bolden handily in 2006 and held his first 2010 fundraiser last night. Motley's scheduled a meeting tomorrow with backers at Bolden's law office.

In other DCDSC news, the party passed a pair of resolutions that could be seen as rebukes to Mayor Adrian M. Fenty. One was to support the efforts of Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and House leaders Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi to keep gun legislation off the D.C. House Voting Rights Act—not to take voting rights, guns and all, like Fenty has suggested. The other was to support a full public holiday for Emancipation Day. As first reported by LL, Fenty's 2010 budget proposal turns it into a "private holiday" in order to save on overtime costs.

DCision 2010 begins in earnest: We have our first official D.C. Council challenger.

That would be the Rev. Anthony Motley, the Congress Heights minister and civic activist. Earlier this month, he sent a letter to a select group of friends, informing them that he has "decided to launch a campaign for an At-Large City Council seat in 2010" and inviting them to an April 4 meeting at the downtown law offices of A. Scott Bolden to discuss it.

In an interview, Motley, 59, says he simply "want[s] to explore the possibilities."

"I've been asked by a number of people to consider doing it," he says, name-checking his own pastor, Raymond C. Bell of First Rising Mount Zion Baptist Church as well as a mysterious "dear friend of mine in upper Ward 4." Bolden, he says, is "a friend, and Scott had been encouraging to me." (Bolden, of course, ran in this race four years ago as a Democrat and was trounced in the primary by Phil Mendelson.)

The big question is whether he has the backing of Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry. Motley is a confidant of Barry's and is often seen in public with the mayor-for-life, including after his recent kidney transplant surgery. Motley says that surgery has precluded any real talks with his patron: "He's been ill, so we haven't really talked a lot about this, but hopefully once he gets better, gets on his feet, I'll sit down and talk to him about it and hopefully he'll be supporter."

His rhetoric, unsurprisingly, jibes with Barry's last-least-and-lost chestnuts. In his letter, Motley wrote, "It is my desire to reach out into our beloved city and touch those whose lives are being impacted by the conditions which have compromised the safety and stability of our neighborhoods, and created uncertainty among our employees, families and businesses. It is my hope that I can share my vision of a city that cares for its people, protects its most vulnerable, our seniors and youth, and secures a future for our children and their children."

Another tricky issue is his party affiliation: Motley's an elected member of the D.C. Democratic State Committee, but his thus-far bare-bones Web site takes a page out of the Michael A. Brown playbook and bills the candidate as an "Independent-Democrat." A Democratic run would pit him against Mendelson, who is expected to run for a fourth term, while any other affiliation would put him up against David A. Catania, should he choose to run for a fourth full term.

Motley says he isn't yet sure about his affiliation: "I'm a registered Democrat. I believe in the Democratic principles, but we haven't made a decision yet."