D.C. Council Chairman Kwame “Fully Loaded” Brown told reporters today that he has no plans to resign his office and that he broke no laws during his 2008 re-election campaign, which federal authorities have been investigating for about a year now.
The comments come after several days of intense speculation at the Wilson Building over Brown’s fate, and whether he’ll soon be facing charges as a result of the federal probe. Here’s a breakdown of Brown’s comments from a press gaggle:
On his morning encounter with WTOP’s Mark Segraves:
“Mark ran up on me in the room that only councilmembers and staff are allowed. I didn’t know who that was jumping this close to me. So I told Mark, and I’ve known Mark for a long time, I told him I apologize if he felt as though he was being shoved. That was not my intention at all. [Turning to address Segraves directly] And I apologize. Mark, you know I apologized to you for that. I’m sorry if you felt, you know, that it was some sort of situation where I was being offensive. I wasn’t trying to do that. … If this was on the basketball court, this would be a different story.”
[A bit later]
“Mark ran up on me. I mean I don’t know, you come hang out where I hang out … He knows it wasn’t a big shove. It wasn’t a Shaquille O’Neal shove. But let me say this, I told Mark that I apologize if he felt threatened. He came up on me and we’re past that.”
On his future plans:
“I have no plans to resign. So that’s all I’m going to say about that. I don’t have no plans at this time to resign. Next question.”
On where he thinks the rumors of his pending political demise are coming from:
“I spend no time thinking about it.”
On his regrets:
“I regret the fact that we’re even having this conversation. I regret the fact that we’re sitting here today talking about the 2008 campaign. I’m very sorry that residents have been dealing with these distractions. Residents deserve better.”
On whether he broke any laws:
“I don’t think I broke any laws in the 2008 campaign.”
On the media:
“You know, I do apologize that this is the first time in seven, eight years that I’ve seen so many cameras talking to me about an issue out of all the issues that we’ve been able to get accomplished here in the District of Columbia. … This is the first time I’ve seen this many cameras on a real single issue, and I do apologize for that.”
On his message to residents to how this situation ends:
“Kwame is going to continue to work hard, we’re going to keep moving has hard as we can to move this city forward.”
Photo by Darrow Montgomery