Anonymous wrote:Whether Gray is dirty is kind of like asking if Barry continued to do drugs after his comeback. Of course he is - but whether there is enough evidence to prove it in court, or whether the will of the people in his district is enough, is an open question. Convicts, especially of the pederast kind, don't make particularly good witnesses.

Once again, DC will continue to shoot itself in the foot by electing crooks to council and mayoral positions. And we wonder why the rest of the country has a difficult time taking us seriously.

Caveat - All allegations are of course alleged.

That's your opinion and you are entitled to it, right or wrong. But unless you want others to accuse you of something with mere innuendos and speculation without evidence, you might want to refrain from setting a bar lower than you would want used against you and yours.

The rest of the country taking DC seriously? Please, when I lived in Florida there were all kinds of allegations of corruption and malfeasance, DC is not unique. I don't care how much you Washingtonians think you are. Btw, when people talk about Washington politics, they are mostly talking about what's going on in the actual Capitol building and White House.

Whether Gray is dirty is kind of like asking if Barry continued to do drugs after his comeback. Of course he is - but whether there is enough evidence to prove it in court, or whether the will of the people in his district is enough, is an open question. Convicts, especially of the pederast kind, don't make particularly good witnesses.

Once again, DC will continue to shoot itself in the foot by electing crooks to council and mayoral positions. And we wonder why the rest of the country has a difficult time taking us seriously.

Caveat - All allegations are of course alleged.

Anonymous wrote:So Gray is dirty and they can't use Thompson to nail him. Nice.

Nice try PP, but no can do. It says that Thompson says that Gray was knowledgeable about Thompson's dirt. However because his credibility is suspect they can't trust that a jury would trust Thompson's testimony. And no, before you go on your adhominem attack, I don't like Gray. I do think Machen and company were dirty and close to corrupt in how they handled this prosecution to influence a local election.

The Post needs to close comments more often.

It looks to me that the Feds were tipped that Thompson was in to underaged boys (and possibly girls). That tip may not have been accurate and, in any case, the Feds couldn't find evidence of it. But, the Feds did find that Thompson was into young -- if not underaged -- men and, I assume, also found him not particularly reliable when discussing that topic. Because Thompson was essentially compromised regardless of whether or not he was involved with children, the Feds couldn't count on him as a reliable witness.

Pure speculation on my part and not intending to suggest anything, but if Gray had a good lawyer, that lawyer might have planted such a bug in the Feds' ears. Coincidentally, Gray had a good lawyer. But, again, I'm not suggesting anything.

Anonymous wrote:They can't run it as the lead, because at this point all they have is the fact that prosecutors have raised questions. They don't have any evidence to print.

Well, that's a switch for the Post. Maybe Bezos is not so bad after all.

They can't run it as the lead, because at this point all they have is the fact that prosecutors have raised questions. They don't have any evidence to print.

I would guess they're just trying to not make it sound too tabloid-y. If you read the whole article, it had plenty of salacious details.

So Gray is dirty and they can't use Thompson to nail him. Nice.

Wow. Seems like there's a backstory here that's not in the Post. Hope some enterprising journalist delves into this and gets to the bottom.

The Post this week broke a bombshell of a story, but you almost wouldn't know it from the way they covered it. The story is here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/case-against-ex-dc-mayor-gray-stalled-over-claims-key-witness-had-credibility-issue/2016/04/14/1f20553e-018f-11e6-9203-7b8670959b88_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_thompson_320pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&tid=a_inl


The headline was pretty tepid: "Case against ex-D.C. mayor Gray stalled over claims key witness had credibility issue." I almost didn't read it, it seemed like a boring procedural story. It was about how Jeffrey Thompson was the star witness in the case against Vincent Gray, and the case fell apart due to questions about his credibility. Ho hum.

But when I read further, my jaw dropped. Buried a few paragraphs in:

Investigators last year began asking questions about the ages of Thompson’s sexual partners to determine whether he had committed a crime, according to witnesses who spoke to federal agents and The Washington Post. Prosecutors also conducted interviews about money and gifts Thompson gave young men, and about whether he did so to hide sexual relationships, the witnesses told The Post.

Holy bury-the-lead, Batman!

I could hardly wait to read the comments. But wait, what's this:

Comments are now closed. We turn off the comments on stories dealing with personal loss, tragedies or other sensitive topics. For more details, please see our our discussion guidelines.

It just seemed like the way the story was handled was very strange. The Post didn't suppress it, but they downplayed it. I imagine Jeffrey Thompson still has some juice, and the Post has a long history of deferring to those in power. So I wonder...