3/13/2009

Congresswoman Maxine Waters in hot water, corruption issues

This seems like a serious corruption issue. The New York Times has the story here.

Top federal regulators say they were taken aback when they learned that a California congresswoman who helped set up a meeting with bankers last year had family financial ties to a bank whose chief executive asked them for up to $50 million in special bailout funds.

Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, requested the September meeting on behalf of executives at OneUnited, one of the nation’s largest black-owned banks. Ms. Waters’s husband, Sidney Williams, had served on the bank’s board until early last year and has owned at least $250,000 of its stock.

Treasury officials said the session with nearly a dozen senior banking regulators was intended to allow minority-owned banks and their trade association to discuss the losses they had incurred from the federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But Kevin Cohee, OneUnited’s chief executive, instead seized the opportunity to plead for special assistance for his bank, federal officials said.

“Here you had a tiny community bank that comes in and they are not proposing a broader policy — they were asking for help for themselves,” said Stephen Lineberry, a former Treasury aide who attended the meeting. “I don’t remember that ever happening before.”

Ms. Waters declined on Tuesday to comment on the meeting, or to say whether her husband still owned shares of OneUnited. Her staff released two letters that showed the meeting had been initially called to discuss industry concerns broadly.

Ms. Waters, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, did not disclose her ties to OneUnited to Treasury officials, who said they learned of them only later.

“It is upsetting to me,” said Jeb Mason, the deputy assistant secretary for business affairs at Treasury during the Bush administration, whose office helped set up the meeting. “This is something that was potentially politically explosive and embarrassing to the administration. They should have at least let us know.” . . . .

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4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

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3/13/2009 2:29 AM  
Blogger Randy said...

"In addition, it had been criticized by regulators in 2007 for failing to lend enough money to lower-income residents in Miami. "

LOL! So, they were already in trouble.... for *not* loaning money to high risk customers? Sigh.

3/13/2009 5:18 PM  
Blogger Harry Schell said...

Maxie Waters is just another corrupt Democrat obsessed with race and how it excuses her excesses.

The "rest of the story" (with all respect to Paul Harvey) is that this bank did not qualify under the rules (?) TARP has for allocating funds, and the bank has been chastised by regulators for excessive compensation to executives, one of whom has to support a $4.6M house in Pacific Palisades, a very tony part of CA. Seems odd that he should be running a MA bank, but perhaps Waters' connection is through their proximity.

The story surfaced a month or two ago as a slam on Barney for pushing money to the bank because the owners were of the right race for him to cater to, in violation of TARP "rules".

Passing mention was made of Waters' hubby as a director. A penny must have dropped someplace to cause the story to reappear.

And with Zoe Lofgren running the House "Ethics Committee" as Pelosi's surrogate, nothing will happen. Pelosi wants to control the House in detail, and she can't do that if dolts like Maxie and Charlie Rangel get tossed.

Solution? Bring the "ethics committee" to a grinding halt by appointing someone to run it who depends on Pelosi's endorsement for reelection, and is desperate to hold onto the job. Zoe is dumber than a post, probably asks Nancy when to breathe.

Nothing happens to enforce any ethical rules and Rangel, Waters, Jefferson, etc. owe their jobs to the Queen. When a vote is in play, who do these people talk to before they vote?

This is a good idea?

3/13/2009 10:16 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

At most, tepid water is being poured on corrupt liberalism, thus Obongo survives.

I'm sure that a good conflation of this headline and the allegory of 'boiling a frog' could be created.

3/14/2009 7:30 AM  

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