Waters says she did nothing wrong

Rep. Maxine Waters held a press conference in Washington this morning, appearing with her chief of staff and grandson, Mikael Moore, to deliver a presentation "complete with a PowerPoint slide show, intended to help sway public opinion in her favor," according to Politico.

The case revolves around her efforts to secure a meeting with Treasury officials for minority-owned bank executives and what an ethics investigative panel contends was a continued push by Moore, who’s also Waters’s grandson, to secure money from the federal bank bailout for OneUnited — the bank in which her husband’s stock had fallen in value from $350,000 to $175,000.

The congresswoman says the issue isn’t only whether she tried to help OneUnited — and she insists she did nothing improper — but why the bank or the broader trade group for minority-owned banks, the National Bankers Association, couldn’t get access to Treasury officials during the financial meltdown without the intervention of a well-placed lawmaker.

“This case is not just about me. This case is also about access,” Waters, who chairs a House Financial Services subcommittee, said in a prepared statement. “It’s about access for those who are not heard by decision makers, whether it’s having their questions answered or their concerns addressed.”

Also: "Colleagues say Moore rarely offers information about his family connection, and that they have instead come to know him as a talented, politically gifted peer who has brought order to a sometimes tangled office and quickly grasped the intricacies of Washington." LAT