Barry might have a relative somewhere.
Interesting that this comes up now. His story of corruption was the beginning of the end for this country IMO. Back when he was first accused, I was shocked that the voters would re-elect him. And they didn't just re-elect him once but multiple times. It was clear that the voters didn't take this kind of corruption seriously. It was an eye opener for me.
Having lived up in Arlington for 3.5 years....I can attest to the fact that people in DC...think differently than you or I.
DC’s politics revolves around the six neighborhoods in the district. Each has a different priority. If you live in the northwest, you want cop protection...so they get the bulk of DC’s cops to roam their neighborhoods and ensure ‘peace’. If you live in southeast (Anacosta), you want jobs off the city, so they create fake requirements and hand out decent-paying jobs to the locals. The southwest folks don’t complain about crime, because the jobs mean more to them than cop protection.
As for Barry? Whatever they asked for....Barry knew the methods to deliver that. In a real town, Barry would have been sent off decades ago. But DC came to appreciate Barry in some odd way. You can’t find any occasion where he actually took money....especially over the past decade as a city council guy. There are five or six city council guys who’ve been caught on this problem, but Barry was clean. He was a cocaine user for at least a decade, then got cleaned up.
The guy had a long and epic life....worth a movie. Two years ago, the city council had to make up a rule about controlling profanity in the public council meetings....mostly because of profane verbal attacks by Barry on other members of the council. I don’t think the rule ever worked....Barry just continued on.