Have you heard about this on the MSM? Doubtful. Via The Hill:
The House ethics committee on Monday outlined its charges against Rep. Maxine Waters, who is accused of helping a bank in which her husband owned stock secure federal bailout funds.
The committee charged the 10-term California Democrat with three counts of violating House rules and the federal ethics code in connection with her effort to arrange a 2008 meeting between Treasury officials and representatives with OneUnited bank.
The panel said Waters, who sits on the Financial Services Committee, broke a House rule requiring members to behave in a way that reflects “creditably” on the chamber. The committee said that by trying to assist OneUnited, she stood to benefit directly, because her husband owned a sizable amount of stock that would have been “worthless” if the bank failed.
The committee also accused Waters of violating the “spirit” of a House rule prohibiting lawmakers from using their positions for financial gain, as well as a government ethics statute banning the dispensing of “special favors.”
Waters has vehemently denied wrongdoing and said she would rather defend herself at an ethics trial than admit to “something I did not do.”
In a motion to dismiss the charges, which the ethics panel has denied, Waters’s attorney, Stanley M. Brand, said the congresswoman had done nothing wrong.
“This committee asserts that Rep. Waters improperly used her position to ‘preserve her husband’s investment in OneUnited,’ ” he wrote. “Yet, after its exhaustive investigation, it cannot identify a single active step taken by Rep. Waters in furtherance of that goal.”