Waters Takes Flak for Staff Action

In September 2008, Rep. Maxine Waters arranged for two officials from a minority-owned bank in which she was heavily invested to meet with Treasury Department officials about the bank’s shaky financial future.

According to the House ethics committee, Waters’ role in setting up that meeting was not a violation of House rules. But the California Democrat apparently realized that her involvement could be construed as a conflict of interest, and Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) suggested that she wash her hands of the matter. She did.

And that is where the ethics charges against her begin.

According to a charging document released Monday by the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, Waters violated House rules by failing to direct her chief of staff to disengage from the issue as well. In the ensuing weeks, according to the charging document, her top aide – who is also her grandson – received e-mails from bank officials, communicated with Frank’s staff and provided draft legislation to the bank’s CEO, which “created an appearance that [Waters] was taking official action for [her] personal benefit, which did not reflect creditably on the House.”

The bank ultimately received a $12 million federal bailout that, ethics committee investigators concluded, rescued not only the bank but the Waters family’s personal investments as well, worth at one point more than $350,000.

Read more: (Paul Singer, “Waters Takes Flak for Staff Action,” Roll Call, 08/10/2010)