L.A. Times: The House Ethics Committee on Friday indefinitely put off a trial on misconduct charges against Rep. Maxine Waters, a delay that the Los Angeles Democrat said underscores the weak case against her.
"After beginning its investigation more than a year ago, working to prepare a case for months and realizing it cannot prove wrongdoing, they have resorted to a delay," said Waters, a South Los Angeles political fixture who won election to the state Assembly in 1976 and to Congress in 1990.
"If this evidence is so damning, the committee should present its case before the public.... Apparently the committee now recognizes, as I have maintained, that there was no benefit, no improper action, no failure to disclose, no one influenced, and there is no case."
Waters, a high-ranking member of the House committee that oversees banking, is accused of intervening improperly on behalf of OneUnited bank, on whose board her husband served and in which he owned stock. Three months after she called then-Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson during the financial crisis to set up a September 2008 meeting between his staff and representatives of minority-owned banks, OneUnited received $12 million in federal bailout funds. |
