Rep. Maxine Waters charged with three violations

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Politico:

The House ethics committee released its formal charges against Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) on Monday, accusing her of three counts of violating the letter and spirit of House rules and federal regulations by assisting a bank in which her husband owned stock.

The 10-page "Statement of Alleged Violation" focuses on the actions of Waters and Mikael Moore, who is the congresswoman's chief of staff and her grandson, and tracks very closely with the year-old findings of the independent Office of Congressional Ethics.

Waters is accused of improperly intervening on behalf of OneUnited, a minority-owned bank in which her husband held stock worth roughly $350,000. The federal government's Sept. 7, 2008, takeover of mortgage-lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac threatened to sink the bank, which was heavily invested in the twin titans of the secondary home-mortgage market.

Waters has denied any wrongdoing and notes her decades of work on behalf of minority-owned businesses. As the highest-ranking black lawmaker on either the House or Senate banking committees, Waters is a natural recipient of requests for help.

But the ethics committee insists she should have stayed away from the matter entirely, given her husband's stake in the company.

Within a month of the takeover, the value of Waters's husband's investment in the bank had plummeted to $175,000 — and he was in danger of losing the rest of the money if OneUnited failed.

On Sept. 8, 2008, Waters called then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to request a meeting between his aides and officials from the National Bankers Association, a trade group of minority-owned banks in which OneUnited was the most prominent player.

Two OneUnited executives, Bob Cooper and Kevin Cohee, attended a meeting with Treasury officials the next day. Cooper was also the incoming chairman of the bankers association. Neither Paulson nor Waters participated.

The bank officials asked Treasury to cut a check for $50 million to OneUnited to cover the anticipated losses from the takeover of Fannie and Freddie, according to the ethics committee. Treasury didn't have the authority to give the money, and OneUnited later asked for a swap of $42 million in exchange for the bank's $51 million in preferred stock in Freddie and Fannie, according to the earlier OCE report.

Ultimately, smaller banks such as OneUnited were made eligible for funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which did not yet exist when OneUnited officials met with Treasury aides.

After raising $20 million in private capital, OneUnited applied for TARP money and received $12 million.
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This is the problem with draining the swamp in Washington-there's only a sewer left underneath...

[Pepper]

Surely two of the charges are

 

* having a bad hair do

* being fugly

 

 

 

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