(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

After four and a half years with a corruption probe hanging over his head, Vincent Gray is in the clear—but he has hardly forgiven and forgotten.

“It’s hard not to be bitter. But being bitter really requires a lot of energy. I’m certainly angry, there’s no question about that.” Gray told Fox 5 this morning. “But I really want to do what I’ve done my entire life and that is focus my energy on doing good for people to try to make the city a better place. But I have to work my way through the sentiments that were generated by this grossly unfair experience.”

Gray added that he thinks that former U.S. Attorney Ron Machen owes him an apology, and that he is considering his legal options.

He attributed Machen’s highly publicized press conference—in which the identity of “Mayoral Candidate A” and the scheme to fund an illegal shadow campaign in 2010 was only thinly veiled—as the reason for his loss to now Mayor Muriel Bowser, citing turnout numbers in his strongholds. “I think it froze people. They didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t so much we lost, it’s that people didn’t show up to vote.”

Gray also said he hasn’t made any decisions yet about running again—but he’s certainly considering it (his former campaign manager, Chuck Thies, was with him at the Fox 5 studio—though Gray said it was only as a friend). “There’s a possibility of an At-large position on the Council, there’s the possibility of the Ward 7 seat, and, of course, there’s the possibility of nothing,” Gray said.