The House Ethics Committee has informed Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., that it has found no evidence that she was denied due process rights in relation to its investigation of her role in securing federal funds for a bank in which her husband owned stock.
In a letter to Waters, the committee wrote that it investigated her 12 charges of due process rights violation and unanimously concluded that her rights were not jeopardized.
‘There has been no violation of the due process rights to which you are entitled,’ the lawmakers wrote. ‘Even when the allegations are considered in their totality, there is still no violation of the process which you are due, and the committee is entitled to continue its consideration of your matter."
The investigation of Waters began in August 2010, when the committee released an 80-page investigative report that found ‘substantial reason’ that Waters violated House ethics rules in her intervention with the Department of the Treasury during the September 2008 financial crisis on behalf of Boston-based OneUnited Bank. The committee was set to bring the matter to trial on Nov. 29, 2010, but that was indefinitely postponed 10 days before the trial was to start after new documents relating to the case had surfaced. The committee revisited the charges in July 2011, but in February six members of the committee recused themselves from her case.
Waters is a member of the House Financial Services Committee and is in line to succeed retiring Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., as the top-ranking Democrat on that committee. She has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in her relation with OneUnited Bank.