WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives ethics panel on Monday formally accused Democratic lawmaker Maxine Waters of three counts of breaking House rules for assisting a bank with ties to her husband get help from the federal government.
Waters, a 10-term California representative, has denied the charges in the case that poses another potentially embarrassing blow to Democrats fighting to keep their House majority in the November 2 congressional elections.
The Waters case comes on the heels of 13 ethics panel charges against Representative Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat who had served as chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. Rangel's trial is expected to begin in September.
The case against Waters, who heads the House Financial Services Housing and Community Opportunity subcommittee, centers on whether she helped the bank in which her husband was a stockholder get special access to top Treasury officials.
The ethics panel said Waters violated a ban on lawmakers using improper influence for personal gain and a prohibition on government workers accepting special favors for themselves or family members that could be seen as influencing official actions.
It also accused her of violating the rule that lawmakers' conduct must reflect creditably on the House.
The charges were first announced on August 2 but not made public until Monday, after Waters waived her right to keep them secret.
It is unclear when the Waters case would go to public trial; she has asked for it to take place before the November elections.
INTENSE PRESSURE
Waters and Rangel are under intense pressure from fellow Democrats to make a deal to avoid the spectacle of public trials, though that appears unlikely.
Both Rangel and Waters are members of the Congressional Black Caucus, making the cases highly sensitive as Democrats are working to get a big voter turnout by black Americans, one of their traditional constituencies.
Rangel agreed to a tentative plea arrangement last month, a congressional source said at the time, but Republicans did not sound interested. On July 29 Republican Representative Michael McCaul said Rangel had a chance to negotiate but, "We are now in the trial phase."
In the Waters case, the ethics panel last week made public an August 2009 report from an outside body that recommended the investigation.
It alleged that Waters helped a top official at minority-owned OneUnited Bank obtain a meeting with Treasury officials just after then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson seized mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in September 2008. Neither Paulson nor Waters participated in the meeting.
The official, Robert Cooper, also served at the time as chairman-elect of the National Bankers Association, an industry group that represents 103 banks owned by minorities and women.
Waters' husband owned stock in the privately held OneUnited Bank and had earlier served on the board.
OneUnited, which contended it lost investments because of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac takeovers, wanted $50 million as compensation for earlier government statements that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were financially sound. The bank later received $12 million in federal bailout funds.
(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Vicki Allen)
