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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SeachRE who wrote (163144)	10/29/2009 10:23:17 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	1 Recommendation Respond to of 173976

In the case of Ms. Waters, the ethics committee announced Thursday that it was impaneling a subcommittee tolook at her involvement in setting up a meeting last year between minority bankers and federal regulators. One of the banks that was most vocal at the Treasury Department meeting, OneUnited Bank, asked for $50 million in federal assistance. Ms. Waters and her husband, Sidney Williams, owned stock in the bank, and Mr. Williams had served on the board. The ethics committee said it would look at “the benefit, if any, Representative Waters or her husband received as a result” of her involvement with the bank. Ms. Waters said she was confident she would be exonerated and pointed to her long support for minority-owned business that “have been historically denied access to government regulators. The committee said it would investigate allegations that Ms. Richardson might have received improper perks on a home in Sacramento that she owned, which was foreclosed on, or that she might have failed to note her ownership interest on Congressional disclosure forms. Ms. Richardson said in a statement that she had been “subjected to premature judgments, speculation and baseless distractions that will finally be addressed in a fair, unbiased, bipartisan evaluation of the facts.” The committee on Thursday also announced that had declined to pursue an investigation against Representative Sam Graves, Republican of Missouri, saying he had not violated any House rules. In reaching that conclusion, the ethics panel disagreed with the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent agency created by Congress in 2007 to bring greater accountability in investigations. That office had recommended an investigation after Mr. Graves invited his wife’s business associate to testify at a hearing on renewable energy without disclosing his relationship to the witness. The ethics office had concluded that there was “substantial reason to believe that an appearance of conflict of interest was created” by the invitation. But the ethics committee disagreed, saying that “the creation of an appearance of a conflict of interest” in selecting witnesses for congressional hearing was not banned by House rules. Eric Lipton contributed reporting.