From the reliably Liberal WaPo:

Gray knew of ‘shadow campaign,’ Thompson prosecutors say; mayor says it’s all a lie

Mayor Vincent C. Gray had detailed knowledge about an illegal fundraising operation that helped him capture the 2010 election and personally asked a prominent D.C. business executive to finance the scheme, prosecutors said Monday.

At a court hearing likely to roil the current mayoral race, prosecutors for the first time alleged that Gray (D) knew about businessman Jeffrey E. Thompson’s conspiracy to pump more than $660,000 in illegal donations into the campaign.

In fact, prosecutors said, Gray and the businessman devised a plan in which Gray would refer to Thompson as “Uncle Earl” to conceal his identity. At one point, Gray gave Thompson a one-page, $425,000 budget request that the businessman then funded, according to the plea agreement.

The new details about the mayor’s purported involvement emerged at a hearing in which Thompson pleaded guilty to funneling more than $2 million in illegal donations to federal and local campaigns over a six-year period.

“Jeff Thompson’s guilty plea pulls back the curtain to expose widespread corruption,” U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. said at a news conference after the hearing. “His plea gives the citizens of D.C. an inside look at the underground, off-the-books schemes that have corrupted election after election, year after year.”

Machen said that investigators would “hold accountable all of those who conspired . . . to withhold the truth from the public” and urged Thompson’s collaborators to “come forward and own up to your conduct.”

Gray, who has long denied wrongdoing, invited reporters to his office Monday and accused Thompson of lying. He vowed to serve out his term and continue campaigning for reelection ahead of the April 1 Democratic primary.

“It’s shocking to me,” Gray said, his voice measured during an interview. “Lies. These are lies.”

Thompson, the mayor said, was seeking to implicate him in order to reduce his jail sentence. At the same time, Gray confirmed that he referred to Thompson as “Uncle Earl.” But he said he was seeking to keep the businessman’s identity hidden from his opponent in 2010, then-Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, who was also receiving money from Thompson.

Thompson said in court that his secret spending went well beyond his support for Gray and that he made illegal contributions to more than two dozen federal and local candidates between 2006 and 2012.

In the most high-profile instance, Thompson in 2008 secretly spent more than $600,000 on canvassers and campaign materials to reach voters on behalf of Hillary Rodham Clinton during five primary contests with then-Sen. Barack Obama. While Machen did not identify Clinton by name on Monday, he specifically said that the presidential candidate referenced in court documents was not aware of the illegal effort.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crim...7942_print.html