Photo by michael starghill.

After mounting a spirited defense of his second job last week, Councilmember Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) is again facing uncomfortable questions about conflicts of interest related to his positions as a legislator and an attorney at Patton Boggs.

Late last week, the Council’s chief lawyer seemed to clear Evans of longstanding allegations that he had played both sides in the deal to a build a new hotel near the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. According to the Post, Patton Boggs hadn’t represented Marriott — who is building the hotel with the help of the city — at the time, so no conflict of interest existed. (Evans felt so vindicated, it seems, that he called his chief accuser “a fucking idiot.”)

Yesterday, however, the City Paper reported that while Patton Boggs didn’t represent Marriott, it did represent ING, a bank whose involvement allowed the hotel’s developers to up their contribution to the project significantly. (The District is kicking in $272 million for the 1,167-room hotel, which is set to cost $550 million.) Evans claimed that regardless of the news, no conflict existed since ING never dealt directly with the city.

Still, the saga seems to highlight some of the gray areas that the council is looking to tackle with comprehensive ethics legislation that’s expected by the end of the month. Evans is right that ING didn’t work with the city, but to the layman it could certainly appear like a conflict of interest that he played both sides, so to speak. (Evans did recuse himself from votes on the project in 2009, but never explained why as is required by law.)

He wouldn’t be the first sitting councilmember to see such a potential conflict, either — Councilmember Michael Brown (I-At Large) was accused by the Post earlier this year of having moved legislation legalizing online gambling while being in the employ of a law firm that had interests in the issue. (Brown later pushed back at the accusation.)

In the end, Evans’ headache might be an opportunity for Fiona Greig, his recently announced challenger in the 2012 Democratic primary. It may also provide further ammunition for people like Councilmember Vincent Orange (D-At Large), who is pushing to ban outside jobs for city legislators.