The meeting at the center of the ethics violations charges against Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) was facilitated and attended by Waters’ grandson—who also happens to be her chief of staff.
Waters is charged with three ethics violations stemming from her actions in garnering special treatment for OneUnited Bank, an entity where Sidney Williams, Waters’ husband—at the time of her actions—had (according to Waters’ 2008 financial disclosure filing) two investments in OneUnited Bank with an estimated value of between $500,000 and $1 million.
Waters does not dispute calling then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to set up the meeting amid the 2008 furor over bank failures. Yet what is revealed in disclosed email is a glimpse of the extent to which her grandson was involved.
According to this series of email disclosed in the House Ethics Committee findings report, Waters’ Chief of Staff Mikael Moore not only helped facilitate the controversial meeting—Moore also attended the September 2008 Treasury meeting.
In one particular follow-up email ten days after the meeting, OneUnited Bank’s Senior Vice President and Senior Counsel Robert Patrick Cooper discusses with Moore OneUnited’s post-meeting strategy should Treasury fail to grant the bailout OneUnited was seeking.
“Here are our thoughts in a back-up strategy in case Treasury does not grant the specific relief we are requesting within the next couple of days,” OneUnited’s counsel states in the disclosed portion of the email to Moore. “We would appreciate your thoughts, comments, etc., on both the strategy and the particular language.”
According to this April 26 report in the Washington Post, Moore is Waters' grandson.
Waters claims she was not personally involved in the $12 million bailout of the bank in which her husband owned the stock. Her husband also had recently served on OneUnited Bank's board of directors.
