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  • Maxine Waters facing ethics trial

    WASHINGTON — Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, will face charges of misusing her office and is expected to contest the claims in a House trial, the second powerful House Democrat to opt for such a public airing in recent days, Congressional officials said Friday.

    A House ethics subcommittee has charged Ms. Waters, 71, a 10-term congresswoman, in a case involving communications that she had with the top executive of a bank that her husband owned stock in while it was applying for a federal bailout in 2008, two House officials said.

    Charges are expected to be announced next week, several Congressional officials said, speaking only on the condition of anonymity because the proceedings remained confidential. Details of the specific accusations of wrongdoing were not available Friday evening.

    The expected trial, coming just after the start of a similar proceeding on Thursday for Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York, would be a modern-day precedent for the House, Congressional officials said. At no time in at least the last two decades have two sitting House members faced a public hearing detailing allegations against them.

    It would also be an embarrassment for the Congressional Black Caucus. Ms. Waters and Mr. Rangel are two of its most revered and long-standing members, and both have spent decades as key leaders in banking and financial services issues in the House.

    Mikael Moore, Ms. Waters’s chief of staff, declined to comment on the case on Friday, saying that the congresswoman had not been formally notified of any action by the ethics committee.

    Ms. Waters, at the time the investigation by the House ethics panel began last fall, was accused of intervening on behalf of OneUnited, a Boston-based bank. The Times reported last year that Ms. Waters called Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. in 2008, as the economy was in a free fall, to ask him to host a special meeting with executives from black-owned banks.

    As a key House player on the Financial Services Committee, Ms. Waters often called Mr. Paulson. He agreed to arrange the requested meeting, The New York Times reported last year.

    What Mr. Paulson did not know at the time was that Ms. Waters’s husband, Sidney Williams, owned stock in and had served on the board of OneUnited, whose chief executive turned the Treasury headquarters meeting into a special appeal for bailout assistance. The executive of the institution, one of the nation’s largest black-owned banks, asked for $50 million in federal aid, The Times reported.

    After articles on the case by The Times and The Wall Street Journal, the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent watchdog agency, began an inquiry. The office referred the matter to the ethics committee, which charged the subcommittee with opening an examination of Ms. Waters’s activities. The four-member subcommittee, which included two Democrats and two Republicans, was led by Representative Kathy Castor, Democrat of Florida.

    Because Ms. Waters — like Mr. Rangel — has refused to agree to a proposed settlement, the case is headed toward a House ethics trial, officials said. “She is fighting it,” one House official said Friday.

    Ms. Waters made the call to Mr. Paulson on behalf of the National Bankers Association, a Washington-based organization of minority-owned banks. Its incoming chairman, Robert Cooper, was an executive at OneUnited, which had branches in Miami and Los Angeles, part of which Ms. Waters represents.

    Mr. Cooper and his boss, Kevin Cohee, the chief executive at OneUnited, ended up dominating the meeting, participants said, and made an unusual request for a special federal bailout.

    The Treasury Department officials, in interviews with The Times, said they were taken aback when they later learned about Ms. Waters’s ties to the bank. She had once owned stock in the bank, and her husband still did. He had stepped down from the board earlier that year.

    Mr. Rangel separately is facing charges that he inappropriately used his office staff to try to line up donations for a New York City educational center being built in his honor, and also that he failed to report income from a beachfront property he had rented out in the Caribbean.

    The prospect of two trials playing out as the November election approaches will almost certainly be seized upon by Republicans, who already had been attacking Democrats’ moral leadership and questioning whether Speaker Nancy Pelosi had lived up to her promise to “drain the swamp” of ethics violations in Washington.

    The case could still be concluded without trial, if Ms. Waters decided to settle. But if a trial were to take place, it is highly unlikely that it would start before September, as the House began its summer recess on Friday.



    If there is no sound in space, how come you can hear the lasers?
    ){ :|:& };:

  • #2
    Why are you so excited? Do you have a personal grudge against this woman?
    "Flutie was better than Kelly, Elway, Esiason and Cunningham." - Ben Kenobi
    "I have nothing against Wilson, but he's nowhere near the same calibre of QB as Flutie. Flutie threw for 5k+ yards in the CFL." -Ben Kenobi

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    • #3
      I think he's trying to throw all credibility he has out the window.
      “As a lifelong member of the Columbia Business School community, I adhere to the principles of truth, integrity, and respect. I will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.”
      "Capitalism ho!"

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      • #4
        I mean that's like 16 thumbs up and two smiley faces. That's excited.
        "Flutie was better than Kelly, Elway, Esiason and Cunningham." - Ben Kenobi
        "I have nothing against Wilson, but he's nowhere near the same calibre of QB as Flutie. Flutie threw for 5k+ yards in the CFL." -Ben Kenobi

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Al B. Sure! View Post
          Why are you so excited? Do you have a personal grudge against this woman?
          Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California...


          I think I may have solved this particular conundrum.

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          • #6
            I think she's an opportunistic douche bag for her support of the Rodney King riots but then again just about all politicians are opportunistic douche bags.
            Try http://wordforge.net/index.php for discussion and debate.

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            • #7
              No, I'm happy because of a. what oerdin said and b. she is literally at best the 2nd stupidest person in congress, right after the capsizing islands idiot.

              For the record, I was happy when Ted Stevens was on trial, too.
              If there is no sound in space, how come you can hear the lasers?
              ){ :|:& };:

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              • #8
                Yes, I remember the thread you started.
                “As a lifelong member of the Columbia Business School community, I adhere to the principles of truth, integrity, and respect. I will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.”
                "Capitalism ho!"

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Hauldren Collider View Post
                  No, I'm happy because of a. what oerdin said and b. she is literally at best the 2nd stupidest person in congress, right after the capsizing islands idiot.


                  Maxine Waters...


                  And the 'capsizing islands idiot' would be Hank Johnson...


                  I wonder why a privileged Northern Virginia white boy would have a problem with these individuals... I wonder...

                  "Flutie was better than Kelly, Elway, Esiason and Cunningham." - Ben Kenobi
                  "I have nothing against Wilson, but he's nowhere near the same calibre of QB as Flutie. Flutie threw for 5k+ yards in the CFL." -Ben Kenobi

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Al B. Sure! View Post


                    Maxine Waters...


                    I wonder why a privileged Northern Virginia white boy would have a problem with these individuals... I wonder...

                    Corruption, stupidity, and being profligate with tax money isn't enough reason for people to be happy at her troubles?
                    I make no bones about my moral support for [terrorist] organizations. - chegitz guevara
                    For those who aspire to live in a high cost, high tax, big government place, our nation and the world offers plenty of options. Vermont, Canada and Venezuela all offer you the opportunity to live in the socialist, big government paradise you long for. –Senator Rubio

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by DinoDoc View Post
                      Corruption, stupidity, and being profligate with tax money isn't enough reason for people to be happy at her troubles?
                      Shhh... But it's Kuci Jr

                      And when I hear of someone being linked to corruption, I don't get all happy. I get sick.
                      "Flutie was better than Kelly, Elway, Esiason and Cunningham." - Ben Kenobi
                      "I have nothing against Wilson, but he's nowhere near the same calibre of QB as Flutie. Flutie threw for 5k+ yards in the CFL." -Ben Kenobi

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Observation: AS is accusing me of racism, whilst continually pointing the fact that I am a "Northern Virginia white boy".

                        If there is no sound in space, how come you can hear the lasers?
                        ){ :|:& };:

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Hauldren Collider View Post
                          Observation: AS is accusing me of racism, whilst continually pointing the fact that I am a "Northern Virginia white boy".

                          You are. What is controversial about that?

                          And you forgot privileged Northern Virginia white boy
                          "Flutie was better than Kelly, Elway, Esiason and Cunningham." - Ben Kenobi
                          "I have nothing against Wilson, but he's nowhere near the same calibre of QB as Flutie. Flutie threw for 5k+ yards in the CFL." -Ben Kenobi

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Hauldren Collider View Post
                            Observation: AS is accusing me of racism, whilst continually pointing the fact that I am a "Northern Virginia white boy".

                            It only explains why you're racist.
                            "I hope I get to punch you in the face one day" - MRT144, Imran Siddiqui
                            'I'm fairly certain that a ban on me punching you in the face is not a "right" worth respecting." - loinburger

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                            • #15
                              Yeah honkey, take your Northern Virginia whatnots to another thread.

                              Comment

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