Maxine Waters speaks out against ethics charges

LA Times:

In the interview on the KCRW radio program Which Way L.A. on Thursday night, Waters said she is not able to discuss the charges herself because of a confidentiality agreement. But she defended the nature of the Treasury Department meeting and said it was not about securing bailout money for the bank her husband was connected to but was a broader meeting about the impact that the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac might have on minority banks.

“It was not to ask for [bailout] money,” Waters said. “This meeting was about what happens to those banks that had invested in Fannie and Freddy.”

According to the report from the Office of Congressional Ethics, Waters, a senior member of the congressional committee that oversees banking, arranged a meeting between Treasury Department officials and representatives of minority-owned banks in September 2008.

According to the report, discussion at the meeting "centered on a single bank -- OneUnited."

Waters' husband, Sidney Williams, served on the board of OneUnited from 2004 to 2008, and at the time of the meeting was a stockholder in the bank with assets valued between $500,000 and $1 million, according to the report.