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Considering her record and documented history of poor ethical and moral fitness, it’s outrageous that Maxine Waters is up for chair of the ultra-powerful House Financial Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over the country’s banking system, economy, housing, and insurance. With Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives, come January the 14-term California congresswoman is expected to head the committee, which also has jurisdiction over monetary policy, international finance, and efforts to combat terrorist financing. Throughout her storied political career, Waters has been embroiled in numerous controversies, including abusing her power to enrich family members, getting a communist dictator...

Her daughter, Karen, has scooped up nearly $650,000 in payments from Mama Waters’ slate mailer operation for her federal campaign committee since 2006, the Washington Free Beacon reported this week. And Mama Waters owes her well-heeled daughter an additional $108,000. Waters also mau-maued the House Veterans Committee into hiring two black staffers. And she walked away with a slap on the wrist from the toothless House Ethics Committee in 2012 after being charged with multiple ethics violations related to her meddling in minority-owned OneUnited Bank. Reminder for all the new fangirls and fanboys suffering from Maxi-mnesia: Her husband, Sidney, was...

Maxine Waters' Leaky Argument Can't Wash Away Banking Scandal Dirt Banks pushed risky loans to people who could not afford them. Homeownership was promoted as a right for all instead of one for those who saved. Since the mortgage bubble burst, leaving many in financial trouble, a lot of anger has been directed at banks and the bankers involved. Lawmakers are worked up in a lather, but this should not remove them from scrutiny. In the case of Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), criticism of her involvement in one aspect of this crisis is extremely justified. Yet she is playing the...

At a flail-and-wail House hearing last month, California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters melted down in front of big banking CEOs. "Raise your hand! Raise your hand!" she shrieked as she harangued the executives on their business practices and management of federal bailout money. Sneering at the "captains of the universe," whom she refused to address by name ("You, Bank of America!"), Waters excoriated the corporate heads for their greed. "All of my political life," Waters bragged, "I have been in disagreement with the banking and mostly financial services community because of practices that I have believed to be not in...

Maxine Waters elected ranking member of House financial panel (Reuters) - California Democrat Maxine Waters was elected to serve as ranking member of the House Financial Service Committee, according to an announcement from Waters' office on Tuesday.

It was in August of 2010 the House Ethics Committee decided to proceed with charges against California Congresswoman Maxine Waters for contriving to procure “special favors” for the Massachusetts-based, OneUnited Bank. And although “Waters has done her damnedest during [these] three years to exploit as many legal technicalities as possible to try to get the investigation halted…” it now looks as though the jig might finally be up. (1) In 2008, Representative Waters set up a meeting between officials of the Treasury Department and members of a “trade association” of minority owned banks. The meeting, however, consisted almost exclusively of...

While ethics watchdogs dither, it's shady business as usual for scandal-plagued Rep. Maxine Waters. Last summer, the House Ethics Committee charged the California Democrat with three violations related to her dealings on behalf of minority-owned OneUnited Bank in Los Angeles. The panel accused Waters of bringing discredit to the House for using her influence to seek and secure taxpayer-subsidized special favors for the failing financial institution. Eight months have passed since the House ethics panel charged Waters. But to date, there has been no action. Instead, Waters is busy ginning up opposition to GOP budget and entitlement reform, introducing regulatory...

Maxine Waters Ethics Trial Canceled Posted by Brian Montopoli Leave Comment One day after it recommended censure for veteran Democrat Charles Rangel of New York, the bipartisan House ethics committee has canceled the Nov. 29th trial for California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters. The committee said new material has come to light that has prompted a decision to send the Waters case back to the initial subcommittee that first looked into it, according to CBS Radio News Capitol Hill Correspondent Bob Fuss. That four-member subcommittee will now reexamine the evidence against Waters. Waters has been accused of improperly attempting to steer...

Complete title: Ethics charges against Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., looking much worse and they were bad to begin with Things looked pretty bad when Congresswoman Maxine Waters was caught helping arrange a taxpayer bailout for a bank where her husband was a former board member and had a significant financial interest in. The House Ethics Committee report on the matter was pretty damning. Today, the Washington Post has a lengthy and terrific piece of reportage that shows the circumstances of the OneUnited Bank bailout are even more suspicious than previously thought: From the moment Boston-based OneUnited Bank began seeking a...

Complete title: New Waters/Frank Scandal Documents Uncovered by JW: OneUnited Bank Received “Less than Satisfactory” Assessment Prior to Bailout Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) Evaluation: OneUnited “Ineffective” “Needs to Improve” “Less than Satisfactory” “Has Done a Poor Job” Washington, DC -- September 15, 2010Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has received new documents from the U.S. Department of Treasury related to the controversial $12 million bailout grant provided to the Boston-based OneUnited Bank. The documents, obtained in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against Treasury, include internal...

OneUnited Bank, the financial institution at the center of a congressional ethics investigation involving Rep. Maxine Waters, paid for a luxurious lifestyle for its chairman, including a Porsche and a house on Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica despite his having a record that includes arrests and allegations of drug use. The bank has been criticized by regulators in Florida for having an unusually poor record of lending to people in low-income neighborhoods. It also has failed to pay back $12 million in federal bailout funds. Cohee's high-flying perks came despite his having been charged in 2007 with felonies after...

Here’s your Friday night news dump — move over Charlie Rangel: "Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) has chosen to go through an ethics trial, like the one lined up for New York Rep. Charles Rangel, rather than accepting charges made by an ethics subcommittee, a source familiar with the process tells POLITICO. The back-to-back trials of a pair of black lawmakers represent an unprecedented use of an ethics adjudication system that has rarely been used by House members accused of breaking House rules. Waters’ case revolves around allegations that she improperly intervened with federal regulators to help a bank that her...

A House ethics subcommittee has completed its investigation into allegations of wrongdoing by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), and could announce its next steps before lawmakers leave town for the August recess Friday, according to sources familiar with the process. The committee is in discussions with Waters about the case, in which investigators looked at whether she broke House rules by improperly intervening with federal officials on behalf of a local bank, OneUnited Bank, that her husband owned stock in and once sat on the board of directors. It’s not clear yet what would be contained in a Statement of Alleged...

Last January we reported that as part of the release of TARP dollars, Congressman Barney Frank directed funds to a local Massachusetts bank Cited by regulators for excesses (they bought the CEO a Porsche). Even worse the Bank has been cited for UNSOUND Business Practices: Frank, head of the powerful House Financial Services Committee, acknowledged that last fall he inserted into the government’s $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program bill specific language to help OneUnited, New England’s only black-owned bank. He also said he contacted someone at the Treasury Department about OneUnited’s application for emergency TARP funds, though he insisted...

Rep. Maxine Waters, one of Los Angeles’ most enduring liberal politicians, has come under scrutiny because of bailout funds that went to a bank in which her husband had owned stock and served on the bank board. Waters was a senior member of the congressional committee dealing with the financial crisis at the time that OneUnited Bank, one of the nation’s largest minority-owned institutions, received $12 million in bailout funds. Her husband, Sidney Williams, served on the bank board until early last year and held at least $500,000 in investments in the bank in 2007, the most recent year for...

California Democrat Has Championed Minority-Owned OneUnited on Capitol Hill and Criticized Its Government RegulatorsWhen Rep. Barney Frank was looking to aid a Boston-based lender last fall, the Massachusetts Democrat urged Maxine Waters, a colleague on the House Financial Services Committee, to "stay out of it," he says. The reason: Ms. Waters, a longtime congresswoman from California, had close ties to the minority-owned institution, OneUnited Bank. Ms. Waters and her husband have both held financial stakes in the bank. Until recently, her husband was a director. At the same time, Ms. Waters has publicly boosted OneUnited's executives and criticized its government...

Troubled OneUnited Bank in Boston didn't look much like a candidate for aid from the Treasury Department's bank bailout fund last fall. The Treasury had said it would give money only to healthy banks, to jump-start lending. But OneUnited had seen most of its capital evaporate. Moreover, it was under attack from its regulators for allegations of poor lending practices and executive-pay abuses, including owning a Porsche for its executives' use. Nonetheless, in December OneUnited got a $12 million injection from the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. One apparent factor: the intercession of Rep. Barney Frank, the powerful...