The highly anticipated testimony of Fenty confidant Sinclair Skinner is going on now before the D.C. Council. You can watch the hearing streaming live on Channel 13. Mike DeBonis is also live-tweeting from the John A. Wilson Building, if you want to catch up on the first 20 minutes or so.

Leading the questioning is independent attorney Robert Trout, who is in charge of the council’s special investigation into the city’s recreation construction contracts. Skinner is appearing today only after a court order was issued to enforce the council’s subpoena. Much of the testimony so far has focused on the qualifications of Skinner’s firm, Liberty Engineering & Design, to perform the surveying work for which it was awarded recreation subcontracts. A recent story in the Hill Rag described a process in which Liberty was awarded the subcontracts by Omar Karim’s Banneker Ventures at inflated rates. Liberty, which was apparently unqualified to perform the surveys alone, then engaged an outside engineer to do the actual work at a cut-rate price.