It's been two years since California Rep. Maxine Waters was accused of steering federal bailout funds to minority banks, including one where her husband was a shareholder. Waters, a member of the Financial Services Committee, has denied the charges from the beginning, claiming that she was only interested in helping banks that were facing serious financial difficulties. Despite her denial, she was charged in August 2010 with three counts of ethics violations. But now, the Committee on Ethics is dealing with their own wrongdoings, as five Republicans and one ranking Democrat have dropped out of the case to avoid questioning.
The trail was postponed indefinitely after two staff attorneys were found to be solely communicating with Republican members. Although those members deny wrongdoing, the Democratic chairman dismissed the lawyers from the case. In July, an outside lawyer was asked to come in to investigate how the committee was handling Waters' case after "serious allegations..about the committee's own conduct."
Should this case just be dropped? With so many ethics violations in the Committee on Ethics, is it time for a complete congressional overhaul of the group?
