Opinion

No House cleaning for dirty Waters

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 crackdowns on the financial industry and waltzing into rallies as Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” blares from the loudspeaker.

But this corporate welfare fixer is just another corruptocrat of a different stripe. To re-cap:

OneUnited Bank received $12 million in federal TARP bailout money after Waters’ office intervened and lobbied the Treasury Department in 2008. The bank was seeking a government rescue from its reckless decision to squander nearly $52 million of its capital on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac preferred stock.

After the federal bailout of Fannie/Freddie, OneUnited’s stock holdings in the two plunged to a value estimated at less than $5 million. Only through Waters’ intervention was OneUnited able to secure an emergency meeting with the Treasury and its then-Secretary Henry Paulson.

The bailout beggars did so under the guise of representing the “National Bankers Association.” But records obtained by congressional investigators showed that OneUnited’s legal counsel, vice president and president spearheaded the meeting and its agenda and drafted the talking points/briefing material for Waters.

OneUnited executives had donated $12,500 to Waters’ campaigns. Her husband, Sidney Williams, was an investor in one of the banks that merged into OneUnited, with stock holdings estimated at $350,000. Waters meddled despite warnings from fellow Rep. Barney Frank to keep out of the case.

E-mails obtained by Judicial Watch and The Washington Post show that bank examiners were livid about Waters’ intervention. “There are some really good people expressing very strong opinions regarding what they view as a travesty of justice regarding the special treatment” OneUnited is receiving, acting FDIC regional director John M. Lane complained in a March 2009 e-mail to Christopher J. Spoth, a senior FDIC consumer-protection official.

On Jan. 13, 2009, Brookly McLaughlin, then-Treasury Department deputy assistant secretary for public affairs, e-mailed her shock at Waters’ apparent conflict of interest regarding OneUnited: “Further to e-mail below, [The Wall Street Journal] tells me: . . . Apparently this bank is the only one that has gotten money through section 103-6 of the EESA law. And Maxine Waters’ husband is on the board of the bank.”

Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch president, reports that Waters’ friend Rep. Zoe Lofgren helped delay her ethics trial by stalling subpoenas, “doing everything in her power to undermine the professional committee staff leading the investigation,” and improperly firing two attorneys working on the investigation. Now, the GOP is mum on setting a date for the trial. Why?

Waters’ cronyism can’t be whitewashed, no matter how long Washington stalls.