D.C. Council member Marion Barry proclaimed Monday that he had never smoked crack cocaine.
“Never smoked crack — as simple as that,” Mr. Barry, who was D.C. mayor in 1990 at the time of an infamous cocaine bust at the city’s Vista Hotel, said on MSNBC’s “Daily Rundown.”
Mr. Barry made the claim while promoting his memoir “Mayor for Life.”
MSNBC countered the claim by showing the FBI surveillance video tape of Mr. Barry smoking a crack pipe in the hotel room.
“The federal government never proved there was crack in that pipe. Jurors didn’t believe it,” said Mr. Barry.
He has long maintained that his crack bust was a setup by the feds.
After his downfall, Mr. Barry staged a political comeback. He won a fourth term as mayor in 1994 and later won a seat on the city council that he still occupies.
He said that history should not judge him on the crack scandal alone.
That’s a little sliver of time in my whole career. That ’90s is over,” he said. “I want people to judge me by my entire life. Not that little sliver.”
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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