Va. Congressman Calls For Metro Board Chair To Resign

Calls are intensifying for embattled Metro Board Chairman Jack Evans to step down. This time, it's Virginia Congressman Gerry Connolly, according to reports.

Connolly -- a Democrat who represents Virginia's 11th District, which includes most of Fairfax County and some of Prince William County -- released a statement saying it was "long overdue for Jack Evans finally to do the decent thing and resign from the Metro Board," according to NBC 4 transportation reporter Adam Tuss.

"The evidence is now clear that Mr. Evans actively used his Chairman's position to aggrandize himself by promoting the interests of a parking company that became his client while deliberately using that same office to denigrate and disadvantage a competing firm that was not his client," the statement reads. "And he covered up these unethical activities and then lied about them."

Connolly also accused Evans of lying about the findings of Metro's ethics investigation and called him a "walking billboard for the ethically challenged."

BREAKING: Va. Congressman Gerry Connolly calls for the immediate resignation of Metro Board Chair Jack Evans in a strongly worded statement:@ElectConnolly@JackEvansWard2 @wmata pic.twitter.com/cIntyvQ1AV
— Sam Sweeney (@SweeneyABC) June 20, 2019

Evans already announced that he wouldn't seek reelection as chair, but that means he would stay on until his term ends on June 30, according to a Washington Post report.

WMATA announced in March it would conduct an ethics investigation of Evans over allegations that he benefited financially from his official role.

Evans, a member of the D.C. Council, "faces a potential reprimand, removal from committees or potentially harsher penalties (including request to DC Council for his removal), as laid out in Metro's code of ethics," Washington Post transportation reporter Faiz Siddiqui tweeted.

Evans chairs Metro's Ethics Committee, but it was the vice chair who held the meeting and Evans did not participate, Siddiqui noted.

Evans apologized in a news conference following the initial accusations, but did not respond to questions.

D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson proposed a reprimand, but D.C. Council Member David Grosso said the reprimand didn't go far enough, and "true consequences" were necessary in this case, according to reports.