The ethics committee had already announced last week that it had found sufficient evidence to bring charges against Ms. Waters, Democrat of California, but it put off the release of the formal allegations until Monday, as the accused is entitled to see them privately first.
Ms. Waters has vehemently challenged the charges, which also included conduct that did not “reflect creditability on the House,” and potential financial gain “by virtue of influence improperly exerted from the position of such individual in Congress.”
The documents released Monday put particular blame on Ms. Water’s grandson, Mikael Moore, who is also her chief of staff .
Mr. Moore, in addition to working with executives at OneUnited — the bank that Ms. Waters’s husband owned stock in — to set up a meeting on behalf of minority-owned banks with Treasury Department officials in September 2008, also continued to communicate with OneUnited as it sought bailout funds.
This involvement with OneUnited continued even after Ms. Waters, sometime in early September 2008, spoke with Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, acknowledging to him that her husband owned stock in the bank, and that this most likely represented a conflict of interest.
Ms. Waters, at whatever point she realized a conflict existed, should have specifically ordered Mr. Moore to stop working on behalf of the bank, but she failed to do so, the committee said.
“Mikael Moore was actively involved in assisting OneUnited representatives with their request for capital from Treasury and crafting legislation to authorize Treasury to grant the request,” the complaint says.
OneUnited executives had initially requested as much as $50 million in bailout funds from the federal government, citing its losses on an investment in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac after the government takeover of the housing finance programs. It ultimately received $12 million in funding from the Treasury bailout program known as TARP.
The stock owned by Sidney Williams — Ms. Waters’s husband — would have been worthless if not for this assistance, the ethics complaint notes.
Ms. Waters, in documents filed by her lawyer, called the charges ambiguous and convoluted, saying they are “exceedingly general allegations that are premised upon an unclear set of facts.”
Ms. Waters also disputed that she gained any benefit as a result of her office’s involvement in the matter, as she disputes that Mr. Moore provided “active assistance” to OneUnited.
Ms. Waters has made clear she intends to fight the charges, opting for a public trial that she has requested take place before the November election. No date has been set for the start of the trial, in part because the ethics committee is separately preparing for a trial against Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York, who is also facing charges related to personal financial benefit from his actions while in office. SOURCE:NYTIMES.COM
