(Only 10? No, i can;t believe it either. ~H.I.A.)
Judicial
Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes
government corruption, today released its 2012 list of Washington’s “Ten
Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” The list, in alphabetical order,
includes:
Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL)
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UN Ambassador Susan Rice
Attorney General Eric Holder
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL)
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ)
President Barack Obama
Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)
Rep. David Rivera (R-FL)
Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius
Dishonorable Mentions for 2012 include:
Former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC)
Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY)
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano
Gen. David Petraeus
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL):
In July 2012, the House Ethics Committee, after a haphazard
investigation, reported that Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) had omitted
information on his financial disclosure forms over four years. However,
the ethics committee took no action because once caught, Rep. Buchanan
evidently corrected the “errors.” What, exactly, were the errors? In his
disclosure statements for 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010, Buchanan failed to
report all of his positions or ownership interests in six entities and
income received from the entities.
In a separate matter, the committee continues to investigate findings of
the Office of Congressional Ethics, Congress’s independent ethics
review board, that there is “substantial reason to believe that
Representative Buchanan attempted to influence the testimony of a
witness in a proceeding before the FEC [Federal Election Commission].”
The alleged violation occurred during an FEC probe of Buchanan’s former
business partner, Sam Kazran. According to Kazran, during the FEC probe,
Buchanan offered him a $2.9 million settlement in a separate lawsuit if
Kazran would lie about his role in a campaign cash laundering scheme
involving Buchanan’s Florida car dealerships. CNN reports that the FBI
is now conducting its own investigation into possible federal witness
tampering.
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu:
“The final decisions on Solyndra were mine,” said Secretary of Energy
Steven Chu in his testimony before the House Energy and Commerce
Oversight Committee on November 17, 2011. And this should be his
political epitaph. Chu’s decision to pour $528 million tax dollars into a
failing green energy boondoggle that went belly-up in 2011 is
indefensible and corrupt, especially in light of the fact that
Solyndra’s key investor (Tulsa billionaire George Kaiser) also happens
to be a major Obama campaign donor.
On March 12, 2012, Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) Energy and Oversight
Committee exposed the full extent of Chu’s incompetence and corruption
in a report citing “numerous examples of dysfunction, negligence and
mismanagement by DOE [Department of Energy] officials, raising troubling
questions about the leadership at DOE and how it has administered its
loan guarantee programs.” The report accused Chu’s DOE of having “turned
a blind eye to the risks that have been glaringly apparent since the
inception of the program.”
Whether Chu indeed made the “final” decision on Solyndra, or is simply
protecting the president and his donor, this is a scandal of a major
magnitude. And yet, it is only the tip of the iceberg. As Peter
Schweizer, author of the book Throw Them All Out wrote, “According to
the Department of Energy’s own numbers ... In the 1705
government-backed-loan [green energy] program, $16.4 billion of the
$20.5 billion in loans granted … went to companies either run by or
primarily owned by Obama financial backers—individuals who were
bundlers, members of Obama’s National Finance Committee, or large donors
to the Democratic Party.”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UN Ambassador Susan Rice:
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UN Ambassador Susan Rice lied
about the events surrounding the Benghazi massacre. Hillary Clinton, the
only First Lady to have been the subject of a grand jury investigation,
is a regular visitor to our Most Corrupt list, while this is a
first-time appearance for Ms. Rice.
One day after the attack, on September 12, 2012, Sec. Clinton said the
following: “Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior, along
with the protest that took place at our embassy in Cairo yesterday, as a
response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. America’s
commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our
nation. But let me be clear — there is no justification for this,
none.” She then joined President Obama in taping a television ad
apologizing to the Muslim world for the obscure video, spending a
reported $70,000 in taxpayer funds on the ad buys.
And then Rice repeated the Benghazi lie, over and over again on every
major television news network. Hillary Clinton’s and Rice’s lies about
one of the most significant terrorist attacks since 9/11 are, perhaps,
the scandal of the year out of this administration. Little wonder that
in his October 2012 testimony Eric Nordstrom, a former a top security
official in Libya who was criticized for seeking more security in
Benghazi, felt compelled to tell the House Oversight Committee that
conversations he had with people in Washington led him to believe that
it was "abundantly clear we were not going to get resources until the
aftermath of an incident. How thin does the ice have to get before
someone falls through?"
He said he was so exasperated at one point he told a colleague that "for me the Taliban is on the inside of the building."
Attorney General Eric Holder:
A regular on our annual Top Ten Corrupt list, Holder shamelessly
operates the most blatantly politicized Department of Justice (DOJ) in a
generation. And, with the Operation Fast and Furious scandal, it is no
exaggeration that his agency has blood on its hands.
Fast and Furious was a reckless DOJ/Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms
and Explosives (ATF) “gun-running” scheme in which guns were sold to
Mexican drug cartels and others, apparently in the hope that the guns
would end up at crime scenes. Well, they did – and it appears that the
guns were involved in the deaths of hundreds of Mexican citizens, as
well as the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who was killed in
a shootout with Mexican criminals in December 2010. On December 5,
2012, CBS News reported that 17 DOJ and ATF officials had been faulted
in an Inspector General investigation of the Fast and Furious scandal.
But, the man at the top remains unscathed, even after becoming the first
attorney general in history to be cited for criminal contempt of
Congress for refusing to divulge documents about DOJ lies to Congress
about Fast and Furious.
Every day that Eric Holder remains at the helm, the Department of
Justice sinks further into the abyss of cronyism, corruption, and
deceit. And it is well past time for him to go.
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL):
On November 21, 2012, Rep. Jesse Jackson resigned from Congress in
disgrace, acknowledging in his statement that he had made his “share of
mistakes.” This may well be the understatement of year. Jackson has been
under federal investigation for alleged campaign finance improprieties,
including reportedly using donor dollars to remodel his home and
purchase personal gifts, a potential criminal violation. Add to that the
fact that Jackson was one of the major figures implicated in the
massive scandal involving jailed former Illinois Governor Rod “Blago”
Blagojevich, who was brought to justice in 2011 for a number of crimes,
including his efforts to “sell” President Obama’s vacant U.S. Senate
seat to the highest bidder. The evidence strongly suggests Jackson was
one of those bidders.
Because Jackson refused to resign before the November elections,
Illinois taxpayers will now be faced with costs of a special election:
estimated to cost $5.1 million.
The late great Chicago newspaperman Mike Royko famously said that the
official motto of Chicago should be "Ubi Est Mea -- Where's mine?"
Clearly, Jackson and his cohorts have taken this motto to heart.
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ):
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) joins the Judicial Watch’s list of
Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians for 2012” in what
might be considered a sort of “Lifetime Achievement Award.”
As far back as 2007, Sen. Menendez was investigated by a federal grand
jury for illegally steering lobbying business to his former chief of
staff Kay LiCausi, with whom he was also romantically linked. In just a
few years, her firm reported $1.3 million in business with nearly
$300,000 coming from a New Jersey medical center that was later awarded
government funding thanks to a push from her former boss and lover.
In 2010, Menendez and his colleague in corruption, Sen. Frank Lautenberg
(D-NJ), allocated $8 million for a public walkway and park space
adjacent to upscale, waterfront condos built by a developer whose
executives have donated generously to their political campaigns. The
veteran legislators have received about $100,000 in contributions from
the developer, according to federal election records. Perhaps not so
coincidentally, the developer’s Washington D.C. lobbyist was a longtime
senior aide to Menendez.
And to top it all off, in October 2012, The Daily Caller broke the story
that two women from the Dominican Republic claimed that the senator had
procured their services while on Spring Break at the luxurious Casa de
Campo. Then in mid-December, the Associated Press revealed that Menendez
employed an illegal immigrant as an unpaid intern in his Senate office
who was a registered sex offender.
President Barack Obama:
Were there a “Hall of Fame” for broken promises, here is one that would
get in on the first ballot: "Let me say it as simply as I can:
Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this
presidency" (President Barack Obama, January 21, 2009). Instead of
transparency and the rule of law over the past four years, we have
witnessed the greatest expansion of government in modern political
history and, consequently, an explosion of government secrecy, scandals,
and abuses of power. Among the low-lights:
• Illegal recess appointments: Perhaps former Attorney General Ed Meese
and Todd Graziano summed it up best in their January 5, 2012, Washington
Post guest commentary: “President Obama’s attempt to unilaterally
appoint three people to seats on the National Labor Relations Board and
Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
(after the Senate blocked action on his nomination) is more than an
unconstitutional attempt to circumvent the Senate’s advice-and-consent
role. It is a breathtaking violation of the separation of powers and the
duty of comity that the executive owes to Congress.”
Illegal immigration: In mid-June, Obama announced that by executive
decree – and in apparent violation of his oath of office – his
administration would stop deporting and begin granting work permits to
younger illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. According
to The AP, “the policy change … bypasses Congress and partially achieves
the goals of the so-called DREAM Act, a long-sought but never enacted
plan …” Lest anyone doubt that Obama knew he was overriding the law of
the land, in March, 2011, he said, “There are enough laws on the books
by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our
immigration system that for me to simply, through executive order,
ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my
appropriate role as President.”
Unprecedented secrecy: Judicial Watch has had to file almost 1,000
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and nearly 100 lawsuits
against the Obama administration on issues ranging from Obamacare to the
continued funding of the criminal ACORN network; from tracking Wall
Street bailout money to the unconstitutional use of czars; to White
House visitor logs; to the attacks on the integrity of our nation’s
elections. This president touts transparency but condones law-breaking
of open records laws by his administration.
Unconstitutional czars: As far back as 2009, Reuters reported, “Name a
top issue and President Barack Obama has probably got a ‘czar
responsible for tackling it.” By the time the Judicial Watch Special
Report President Obama’s Czars was published in October 2011, the number
of Obama czars had skyrocketed to 45. Largely unconfirmed by and
unaccountable to the Senate, many of Obama’s czars are often outside the
reach of FOIA. Some of these czars exercise unprecedented and
unconstitutional control over major aspects of government policy and
programs. And a number of the czars have been linked to scandals, thefts
and kickbacks, flagrant and offensive statements, conflicts of
interest, and radical leftist political ideologies and policies.
Use of Executive Privilege to protect Eric Holder: On June 20, 2012,
Barack Obama acquiesced to a plea from Attorney General Eric Holder and
asserted “executive privilege” to protect the Attorney General from
being prosecuted for failing to provide Congress with Fast and Furious
documents. On March 22, 2011, when asked by a Univision TV if he had
been informed of the Holder gunrunning program, Obama bluntly stated,
“Absolutely not. This is a pretty big government, the United States
government. I’ve got a lot of moving parts.” So, as Judge Andrew
Napolitano said on Fox News, “They can’t have it both ways. If the
President was not personally involved, executive privilege does not
apply.” To this day, President Obama refuses to detail the specific
documents he is withholding from Congress.
The list could go on ad infinitum – with Benghazigate, bailouts, abusing
the perks of office for luxury vacations for his family, and, of
course, his personal involvement in the Solyndra scandal. But the bottom
line is this: The federal government under Barack Obama is off the
rails and out of control. And now, with Obama having been given the
“flexibility” of a second term, it can only be expected to get worse.
Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV):
A July 30, 2012, headline in the Las Vegas Review-Journal alerted
Nevadans to Sen. Harry Reid’s latest influence-peddling scandal – this
one involving ENN Energy Group, a Chinese “green energy” client of the
Nevada law firm of which Reid’s son, Rory, is a principal.
As Reuter’s reported on August 31, 2012, “Reid has been one of the
project's most prominent advocates, helping recruit the company during a
2011 trip to China and applying his political muscle on behalf of the
project in Nevada. His son, a lawyer with a prominent Las Vegas firm
that is representing ENN, helped it locate a 9,000-acre (3,600-hectare)
desert site that it is buying well below appraised value from Clark
County, where Rory Reid formerly chaired the county commission.”
“Well below appraised value” is a considerable understatement. The deal
Rory Reid put together for the firm his dad brought to town saw ENN
purchase the site for just $4.5 million – a mere fraction of separate
appraisals that valued the property at $29.6 million and $38.6 million.
Even with all of that, however, the project has failed to move forward
as rapidly as Harry and Rory Reid would like – for the simple reason
that there is currently no market in Nevada for the green energy ENN
claims it could produce.
But, of course, funneling money to the Reid family is nothing new for
the Senate Majority Leader. As the Washington Post reported in a
February 7, 2012, story titled “Public projects, private interests:”
In 2004 and 2005, the Senate majority leader secured $21.5 million to
build a bridge over the Colorado River, linking the gambling resort town
of Laughlin, Nev., with Bullhead City, Ariz. Reid owns 160 acres of
undeveloped land in Bullhead City.
And according to Peter Schweizer, writing for Fox News on December 12,
2012, “Sen. Reid has sponsored at least $47 million in earmarks that
directly benefitted organizations that one of his sons, Key Reid, [RW1]
either lobbies for or is affiliated with.
Needless to say, the well-entrenched Sen. Reid has been a repeat Top Ten offender.
Rep. David Rivera (R-FL):
On October 24, 2012, the Florida ethics commission found "probable
cause" that Rep. David Rivera (R-FL) had committed 11 violations of
state ethics laws during his time in the Florida legislature. This comes
amidst reports that Rivera remains under federal investigation over his
personal and campaign finances. And, in a separate matter, the
congressman is under investigation by the FBI for secretly funding the
campaign of Justin Lamar Sternad, a candidate running against Joe Garcia
in the Democratic primary earlier this year. Garcia defeated Rivera in
the November election.
The “probable cause” findings stem from an investigation by the FBI and
the IRS regarding Rep. Rivera’s dealings with the Flagler Dog Track, now
known as the Magic City Casino. The basis for the investigation relates
to payments reportedly totaling as much as $1 million made by the
casino to Millennium Marketing in the guise of a consulting contract.
Most of the money is said to have been paid in 2008. Millennium
Marketing is owned by Rivera’s mother and godmother, and Rivera
supposedly benefited from the arrangement, and is thus the subject of a
tax evasion inquiry.
For a long time, Rep. Rivera denied ever receiving any income from the
dog track, but just before heading to Congress, Rivera admitted
receiving $132,000 in “undisclosed loans” from Millennium. He claims he
paid the money back. Investigators are also taking a close look at
Rivera’s campaign spending, including $75,000 he paid in 2010 “to a
now-defunct consulting company owned by the daughter of a top aide.”
Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius
On September 12, 2012, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen
Sebelius became the first member of the President’s cabinet in U.S.
history to have been found guilty of violating the Hatch Act when she
campaigned for the reelection of Barack Obama in her official capacity
of Secretary of HHS. According to Politico, “During a speech to the
Human Rights Campaign Gala in North Carolina in February, Sebelius . . .
outlined the Obama administration’s accomplishments so far and said,
‘One of the imperatives is to make sure that we not only come together
here in Charlotte to present the nomination to the president, but we
make sure that in November he continues to be president for another four
years.’”
After the speech, Sebelius tried to cover her tracks by reclassifying
the event from “official” to “political,” and claiming her appearance
was in her personal capacity. The scheme didn’t work.
According to the official statement put out by the U.S. Office of
Special Counsel: “The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) sent findings to
the President today from its investigation of complaints of prohibited
political activity by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen
Sebelius. OSC concluded that Secretary Sebelius violated the Hatch Act
when she made extemporaneous partisan remarks in a speech delivered in
her official capacity on February 25, 2012. The Hatch Act prohibits
federal employees from using their official authority or influence to
affect the outcome of an election.”
Thoroughly unapologetic, Ms. Sebelius justified her transgression by
informing the OSC that she simply “got a little caught up in the notion
that the gains which had been made would clearly not continue without
the president’s reelection.” In other words, her Obamacare agenda took
precedence over the law. Normally, when a government official is found
violating the Hatch Act, the punishment is termination. How did
President Obama respond? There was no punishment whatsoever.
Dishonorable Mentions:
Former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC):
On May 31, 2012, a jury in the corruption trial of former U.S. Senator
from North Carolina and presidential candidate John Edwards said that it
could not agree on a verdict for five of six counts, and U.S. District
Judge Catherine Eagles was forced to declare a mistrial. But, while
Edwards may have been partially exonerated (he was acquitted on one
count), he was certainly not vindicated.
John Edwards conducted an illicit affair with campaign employee Rielle
Hunter that resulted in the birth of their daughter. Meanwhile, behind
the scenes, Edwards reportedly persuaded his former political aide
Andrew Young to claim that he was the father of the child, and not
Edwards. The ruse failed and Edwards was forced to admit to the whole
sordid mess. The focus then shifted to whether Edwards unlawfully
diverted campaign funds to hide the affair.
Edwards denies the claim, but according to witness testimony Hunter and
Young received nearly a million dollars in “hush” payments from
philanthropist Rachel “Bunny” Mellon and Texas billionaire Fred Baron,
two campaign donors who did not want to see the scandal derail Edwards’
pursuit of the White House. According to an excellent analysis by Hans
Von Spakovsky at the Heritage Foundation, the money paid to Edwards’
mistress was “dishonest, dishonorable, and illegal:”
“Federal law…prohibits the conversion of campaign funds to any personal
use (2 U.S.C. §439a). Most important, FEC regulations state that the
payment of a personal expense by any person other than the candidate is
considered a contribution to the candidate, unless the payment would
have been made irrespective of the candidacy (11 CFR 113.1). As the FEC
said in a prior advisory opinion (AO 2008-17), the key question is,
‘Would the third party pay the expense if the candidate was not running
for Federal office?’”
In short, John Edwards may have eluded the reach of the law. But, in the
courtroom of public opinion he remains one of the “Ten Most Wanted
Corrupt Politicians” for 2012.
Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY):
Though Staten Island’s Rep. Michael Grimm managed to eke out a
reelection victory on November 6, it wasn’t because he had failed to
supply his opponent with serious issues of campaign corruption. During
the race, Grimm was the subject of an FBI investigation into allegations
that his 2010 congressional campaign had accepted contributions over
the legal limit and from noncitizen donors via Ofer Biton, a former aide
to a prominent Israeli rabbi, in exchange for helping Biton obtain a
green card.
According to ABC News, “In early 2012, the New York Times reported that
Grimm, a devout Catholic and former agent for the FBI, allegedly
accepted illegal donations from members of an Upper East Side rabbi's
congregation. Ofer Biton, an Israeli citizen and a top aide to the
prominent Orthodox rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto, came under investigation
by the FBI over allegations that Biton embezzled millions of dollars
from the congregation. It is said that while campaigning with Biton, the
Grimm campaign collected over $500,000 in campaign contributions.”
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano:
According a Gallup Poll, a full 62 per cent of the American people
believe that stopping illegal immigration should be a top priority of
the U.S. government. Unfortunately for the American people, Secretary of
Homeland Security Janet Napolitano is not numbered among that 62%. And
she is the person who is supposed to be enforcing the law. Last year,
Napolitano opened the floodgates of illegal immigration by having the
Department of Homeland Security review all cases then before the
immigration courts with an eye towards halting the deportation of many
illegal immigrants allegedly with no criminal backgrounds. (JW uncovered
records demonstrating this to be an utter lie. Many of the illegals let
off the hook were convicted of violent crimes.)
Not satisfied with skirting the law in 2011, Napolitano decided to
abandon it altogether in 2012. Accordingly, on June 15, 2012, she
announced: “By this memorandum, I am setting forth how, in the exercise
of our prosecutorial discretion, the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) should enforce the Nation's immigration laws against certain young
people who were brought to this country as children and know only this
country as home.”
In short, this amounted to blanket “temporary” amnesty for illegals
under the age of 30. With her single statement, she simply declared
upwards of one million illegal aliens entirely legal. Just like that. No
legislation. No debate. No votes. No court rulings. The Constitution of
the United States notwithstanding. And, in so doing, she violated the
Oath of Office she had taken when sworn in as secretary of Homeland
Security on January 21, 2009: “I, do solemnly swear that I will support
and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies,
foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the
same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation
or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge
the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
Gen. David Petraeus:
General Petraeus was forced to resign after news leaked of his long-term
extramarital affair with Paula Broadwell, a writer and military analyst
who penned a Petraeus biography. Compounding the scandal are questions
involving whether Petraeus’ mistress had improper access to classified
information from the nation’s top spy. At the University of Denver on
July 28, Broadwell said, “I had access to everything, it was my
experience not to leak it, not to violate my mentor, if you will.”
There is also a major question about whether Petraeus misled Congress
about the Benghazi attack in his initial congressional testimony. On
September 14, just days after the attack on the consulate, Petraeus
briefed congressional intelligence leaders, reportedly telling them he
believed the attack was spontaneous and not carefully pre-planned. Yet
on Friday, November 16, in private hearings before Senate and House
intelligence committees, Petraeus changed his story. According to Fox
News: “Petraeus' testimony both challenges the Obama administration's
repeated claims that the attack was a "spontaneous" protest over an
anti-Islam video, and according to [New York Rep. Peter] King conflicts
with his own briefing to lawmakers on Sept. 14. Sources have said
Petraeus, in that briefing, also described the attack as a protest that
spun out of control.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA):
Judicial Watch uncovered evidence that Elizabeth Warren gave false
statements under oath regarding Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
(CFPB) activities when she served as the agency’s interim director.
According to the records, Warren and the CFPB were intimately involved
in brokering a 50-state settlement underway with the nation’s largest
mortgage lenders related to alleged improper foreclosure procedures.
This evidence seems to contradict Warren’s statements before Congress
suggesting her office responded to requests for advice, but did not seek
to push its views.
During a March 16, 2011, hearing of the House Financial Services
Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, Ms. Warren
downplayed her agency’s involvement in the state settlement
negotiations: “We have been asked for advice by the Department of
Justice, by the Secretary of the Treasury, and by other federal
agencies. And when asked for advice, we have given our advice.”
But this does not come close to telling the full story.
Emails obtained by Judicial Watch from several states suggest her
agency’s participation was far more intense and aggressive. Warren
called emergency meetings by phone and in person with attorneys general
nationwide to contribute unsolicited input on the matter. The documents
also indicate that Warren’s office insisted on keeping its contact with
the state attorneys general secret. For example, in a February 25, 2011,
email to the Executive Committee of the National Association of
Attorneys General (NAAG), Iowa Assistant Attorney General Patrick
Madigan wrote: “Elizabeth Warren would like to present the CFPB’s view
on loan modifications.” Two weeks earlier, a similar email was
distributed to NAAG’s Loss Mitigation Subgroup on Warren’s behalf. In an
email on February 15 regarding that meeting, Madigan points out that
“The CFPB wanted me to stress the confidential nature of this briefing.”
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA):
In early December, Democrats chose the scandal-plagued Rep. Maxine
Waters to be the ranking member on the House Financial Services
Committee despite her many transgressions over the years. The
influential congresswoman has helped family members make more than $1
million through business ventures with companies and causes that she has
helped, according to her hometown newspaper.
In August 2010, Waters’ influence peddling earned the attention of a
subcommittee of the House Ethics Committee which charged Rep. Waters
with three counts of violating House rules and ethics regulations in
connection with her use of power and influence on behalf of OneUnited
Bank. After a highly controversial investigation, plagued by accusations
of impropriety and corruption, on September 12, the committee failed to
hold Waters to account for steering a $12 million to OneUnited, in
which she and her board member husband held shares.
The Financial Services Committee, among other responsibilities, has
jurisdiction over all issues pertaining to; you guessed it, the banking
system.
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