D.C. Legislator Who Said Jews Control The Weather Allegedly Donated To Anti-Semite Farrakhan’s Event

The Washington, D.C. council member who triggered a volume of criticism for insinuating Jews control the weather and later ditched a U.S. Holocaust Memorial tour halfway through the tour, has now been accused of making a donation to the very event at which vehement racist and anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan made virulent anti-Semitic remarks.

Trayon White Sr. (D-Ward 8) has been asked for details of the $500 donation he made to the Nation of Islam’s Saviours’ Day Event in Chicago, where Farrakhan declared “powerful Jews are my enemy,” and stated Jews “were responsible for all of this filth and degenerate behavior that Hollywood is putting out turning men into women and women into men.”

White’s January 29 donation is particularly egregious because it came from his constituent services account, which is comprised of funds of private money raised by lawmakers for community causes. As The Washington Post reports, “The funds must benefit D.C. residents, according to campaign finance law. They are often used for things such as helping a constituent in a bind pay a utility bill or to send flowers to someone in mourning.”

White said he was unaware of the $500 donation but the fund’s treasurer, Darryl Ross, contested that, saying, “He said to me, ‘I want you to make a payment to the Nation of Islam for Saviours’ Day.’ So I went on the website to get the information I needed in order to make the payment.”

According to campaign finance officials, White has until May 3 to explain the donation.

Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, who leads a synagogue in White’s district, said White’s apparent ties to the Nation of Islam signal that his anti-Semitic comments about Jews may not have been an aberration, and that Jewish leaders should have waited before they accepted his apology. He said, “The Jewish community let him off easy because he never explained how he came to have these views. He has never denounced the people with whom he’s associated. Him giving that money to Farrakhan is basically endorsing the vicious anti-Semitism that we all heard.”