Reporters finally got to question Mayor Vince Gray today about the news that his mayoral campaign paid off Sulaimon Brown. Gray just got back from a retail conference in Las Vegas trying to lure some Wegmans stores to D.C.

After a brief news conference touting the District's efforts to help small businesses in Adams Morgan (59 new trees, and LED lights coming!), Gray faced a group of reporters who wanted to know if he still stood by his earlier story that he didn't know anything about any payments to Brown.

Gray responded with a series of lame no comments:

"I'm not going to comment on it at this stage, we'll let this investigation play out as well as it should and then we'll see where we are."

Note that Gray used to protest with maximum outrage at any notion that he'd been aware of any wrongdoing involving Brown. When WUSA9's Bruce Johnson pointed that out, Gray replied: "Bruce, we're going to let this investigation play out."

When LL asked the mayor if he was expecting to finish out his term—which is the sort of question you'd think any politician could muster up a "yes" for—Gray mumbled a similar type of no comment.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Things just keep getting worse for Mayor Vince Gray.

Howard Brooks, who worked as an aide both for Gray's campaign and transition, has been charged in federal court on a single charge of making a false statement to the FBI. The type of court filing used indicates that Brooks will almost certainly plead guilty, which is hardly a surprise considering he very likely wore a wire and helped the FBI in their investigation.

Brooks first broke onto the scene last spring, when an angry and recently unemployed Sulaimon Brown took a wild story about being paid with cash to run for mayor, then promised a city job, to the Washington Post. Brown told the Post that Brooks and Gray's campaign chairwoman Lorraine Green gave him cash-stuffed envelopes in return for attacking then-Mayor Adrian Fenty on the campaign trail. It turns out, we all know by now, that Brown wasn't kidding.

From the beginning Brooks seemed to know he was in trouble. Check out his apperance in that first Post story:

Brooks initially said he met Brown during town hall meetings and didn't remember calling him. Told about the phone records, Brooks said that he talked to several candidates during the election and that he reached out to Brown to compliment him on his performance during a debate. "He came off the stage, and I told him how clever it was," said Brooks, who declined to comment further without an attorney present.

Brooks went into lockdown mode after that. He didn't talk to the press, and he skipped the D.C. Council's public investigation of Brown's claims. A month after the Post story ran, Brooks lied to FBI agents.

Yesterday, Gray's de facto campaign treasurer Thomas Gore pleaded guilty to making illegal money order payments to Brown's campaign with the help of "Person A," who is almost certainly Brooks. The court records appear to indicate that when Gore and Person A talked on Sept. 22, 2011, about what to tell the FBI about the Sulaimon saga, the conversation was recorded.

All that cooperation has apparently led to a light charge, and probably a very light sentence. Brooks' attorney, Glenn Ivey, was not immediately available for comment. He's likely to appear in court tomorrow.

Brooks' court records, after the jump: Read more Howard Brooks Charged With Lying to the FBI

And LL thought he had trouble getting Freedom of Information Act requests answered.

An email obtained by LL suggests that records set on fire last Friday at the fire department's training academy may include records that the Fraternal Order of Police union had requested through a FOIA request.

A deputy director of the department's recruitment bureau wrote to his staff on May 17 that there was to be a "file burn" the next day and the staff should get the items ready that they wanted destroyed. (See the email below.)

The next day, a fire engine company was called to the training academy to put out three burning dumpsters and an abandoned car that had been set on fire. The firefighters noticed what looked like personnel records of firefighters and police officers in the blazing rubble. Police and fire union officials asked the city's Office of Inspector General yesterday to investigate.

The FOP and city officials have long butted heads over recruitment and retention issues. Last fall, Gray announced he'd found extra money to hire 300 new police officers, the first new cops in a while. In February, the FOP filed a FOIA asking for records related to MPD's recruitment efforts.

When the city didn't produce the records, the FOP sued the District. The date of that lawsuit: May 14—three days before the email went out to recruitment staff telling them to get their records ready for burning. Assistant Chief Patrick Burke was copied on that email.

An MPD spokeswoman today referred LL to a response the department issued yesterday, saying the department is investigating and would also cooperate with the OIG.

The email:

More as LL gets it...

Thomas Gore pleads guilty, Sulaimon Brown partially vindicated, Vince Gray stays silent [Post Times]

Harry Jaffe's sources says Gray pal Vernon Hawkins, Jeff Thompson associate Jeanne Harris and campaign driver Mark Long have all been talking to the feds [Washingtonian]

Fred Cooke Jr. says more charges coming [NBC4] Read more Morning Clicks

Mayor Vince Gray's close pal and trusted campaign aide Thomas Gore pleaded guilty today to illegally steering funds from Gray's mayoral campaign to fringe candidate Sulaimon Brown's campaign, then destroying the evidence of the crimes in order to stymy an FBI investigation.

A few noteworthy tidbits from today's court hearing:

1) Don't take notes when you're breaking the law.

Another Gray campaign aide, Howard Brooks, could very likely have been wearing a wire to help the federal investigation, which would confirm what some of the old lions of TV reported way back in October. Court records describe a "Person A" who conspired with Gore to "secretly [divert] funds" from Gray's campaign to Brown's campaign in order to keep Brown in the race so he could continue to badmouth then-Mayor Adrian Fenty. The records also say that Person A's family member and people connected to that family member are connected to the Gray-campaign-financed money orders that wound up going to Brown's campaign. Those details, plus the serial numbers of the money orders, all point to Person A being Brooks.

The court records says Gore and Person A met Sept. 22, 2011, at Gore's office to plan how to deal with the federal investigation into Gray's campaign. The court records quote Gore verbatim saying that he "used to keep a record of what went to" Brown and that he "shredded" those records. In court today, when the judge was going over the court records to make sure Gore knew what he was pleading guilty to, Gore said that conversation "was a statement taken from a wire." That's Gore's guess, of course, and he could very well be wrong.

Brooks' attorney, Glenn Ivey, says he had no comment. Either way, if Gore hadn't written down records of the donations, he wouldn't have had to destroy evidence in a federal investigation—by far the most serious charge he pleaded guilty to today.

2) If you're going to meet with the FBI, don't lie to them.

Court records also say that less than a month after Gore met with Person A to talk about how to deal with the feds, he voluntarily met with FBI agents. (He'd been given a subpoena to appear before a federal grand jury a week before the FBI meeting.) During the interview, Gore lied to the FBI three times. First, he said he hadn't spoken to Person A about any records. Second, he said he never kept any records of paying Brown. The FBI must have called him on that lie, because his third lie was saying that he destroyed the records of Brown's payments after the general election, when in fact he did that on the very same day Brown's allegations of a quid pro quo first landed on the front page of the Washington Post.

Read more Four Points From Thomas Gore’s Guilty Plea

300 Block of 3rd Street NW, May 22

D.C. police and firefighters union officials are asking for an investigation into what they say was a giant blaze involving three dumpsters and an abandoned car's worth of personnel records, including medical files containing private information.

In a letter sent to the Office of the Inspector General today, the heads of the two unions say that last Friday around 5 p.m., a D.C. fire engine company was dispatched to the city's fire department training academy to put out three dumpster fires. After the firefighters started putting out the fires, they realized that some of the documents were personnel files of cops and firefighters, the letter says.

The letter continues: "In addition to the burning documents, there were unburned documents scattered on the ground throughout the training facility and unburned documents in an abandoned car. Members of FEMS were able to identify their own training and medical records in the documents in the abandoned car."

Read more Is the District Setting Personnel Records on Fire?

Thomas Gore, longtime pal to Mayor Vince Gray and the mayor's de facto campaign treasurer, set to plead guilty in federal court today to destroying evidence. The first casualty in l'affaire Sulaimon. [Post]

Bruce Johnson says prosecutors have other plea deals lined up [WUSA9]

Video of Tom Sherwood knocking on Gore's front door [NBC4]

"Let's get it done," says Mary Chch [Times]

Great day for Sulaimon Brown B-roll [Fox5]

"District residents are right to wonder why Mr. Gray — if he has nothing to hide, as he contends — isn’t expressing shock or disappointment or anger" [Post]

A couple of bad news cycles? [Examiner] Read more Morning Clicks

LL was out interviewing Ward 5 Councilmember-elect Kenyan McDuffie today when news broke that Mayor Vince Gray's de facto mayoral campaign treasurer, Thomas Gore, is almost certain to plead guilty in the near future to destroying evidence and using Gray's campaign funds to make illegal payments to former minor mayoral candidate  Sulaimon Brown. Lucky for you, dear reader, LL is now back in the office to break it down:

How Bad Does This Look For Gray?

Horrible. Court records say Gore destroyed a "spiral notebook" containing records of payments to Brown the same day that Brown went public in the Washington Post alleging that he got cash payments and the promise of a city job in return for attacking then-Mayor Adrian Fenty on the campaign trail. They also say Gore used Gray's campaign money to make illegal payments to Brown's campaign.

Gray's always denied knowing of or approving any Brown-related shenanigans, and Gore's court records don't prove otherwise. But Gore's close association with Gray sure puts a big dent in the mayor's image, if not his story. Gore is a longtime friend of Gray who handled the campaign's day-to-day finances. It's not clear how close they've been since the election, but a Wilson Building source says Gore was spotted in the mayor's suite as recent as this past winter.

If Gray's story pans out—he didn't know anything about the Sulaimon payments—then Gore's case will be yet another glaring example of Gray's misplaced trust in a top deputy. If Gray did know Gore was paying Brown with campaign money, then the District will have a mayor with zero credibility.

Gray, who used to take any and all opportunities to profess his innocence in l'affaire Sulaimon, has been referring questions about Gore's case to his lawyer, Robert Bennett, who declined to comment.

What's Next? Read more Is Vince Gray Fucked? And Other Questions

Federal officials have just made public documents charging Thomas Gore, the assistant treasurer on Vince Gray's 2010 mayoral campaign, with breaking D.C. campaign finance laws, then destroying evidence to stymy the U.S. Attorney's probe into the campaign.

Gore, who handled day-to-day finances of the campaign, allegedly made three contributions to another candidate, using money orders bought by the Gray campaign. The documents don't say who the other candidate was, but the federal investigation of Gray's campaign was originally started by Sulaimon Brown's allegations that he was paid to stay in the race and attack then-Mayor Adrian Fenty.

Prosecutors say Gore also destroyed a spiral notebook that had records of various contributions to the other campaign on March 6, 2011, which as the Washington Post's Tim Craig noted, was the day the Post reported that Brown said he was promised a job in exchange for help in the election (and had the text messages to prove it). Destroying the notebook would be a violation of laws against destruction of evidence in federal investigations, a more serious charge than the other three.

Gore was very senior in the Gray campaign. Earlier this year, one former aide told LL he basically ran the finances, even though he was listed as the assistant treasurer, not the treasurer: "Day to day, Thomas was the guy to go to." He was also the campaign treasurer for Gray's 2004 Ward 7 D.C. Council race and his 2006 election as council chairman.

Stand by for more updates soon.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery