Council Recommends Expulsion of Jack Evans
By • December 4, 2019 0 791
The Council of the District of Columbia met Dec. 3 and recommended the expulsion of its Ward 2 member Jack Evans because of ethics violations.
All 12 members voted to expel Evans, who was not present at the Tuesday meeting. Each spoke about deception by Evans and how he used his public office to help private clients for his personal and monetary gain.
“He has betrayed each and every one of us,” said Ward 3 Council member Mary Cheh, according to the Washington Post. “You would speak to him about council things, but he was speaking for the people who were buying him.”
“Expulsion requires the votes of 11 of 13 members,” reported the Post. “Tuesday’s vote is the first step for expulsion. … It was agreed that the council would need to reconvene no sooner than one week to hold a hearing before casting a formal vote to remove Evans.”
The D.C. Council must meet twice and then cast a formal vote on Evans’s expulsion. The Council-ordered investigation on its longest-serving member reportedly found numerous ethics violations on the part of Evans, who has not been charged with any crime.
The Council and individual members had contemplated various options. Many members publicly said that Evans should resign, but Evans has not shown any sign that he intends to. Also, under consideration was censure, which an apparent majority of the 13-member Council favors, and stripping Evans of his committee memberships.
The Dec. 3 decision is any extraordinary step in the Evans saga — something the Council has never done.
Last week, Evans, through his attorneys, challenged the validity of many of the 5,500 signatures gathered by leaders of a group pushing for a recall vote. Attorneys for Evans claimed that more than 2,000 signatures were questionable or invalid. The matter is being examined by election officials.
Evans has not yet announced if he will seek reelection to his Ward 2 seat next year, beginning with a June Democratic primary. A number of challengers have already declared their intention to run against him.
Stay tuned for updates at Georgetowner.com
