Husband’s Bank Ties Roil Waters

Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) is facing heat over allegations she personally intervened to aid a bank to which her husband had financial ties.

Waters, as chair of the Housing subcommittee of the House Financial Services committee, has taken big banks to task for their failures to help homeowners affected by the current economic crisis. But for the small OneUnited bank, Waters personally intervened with the Treasury Department to obtain millions in bailout funds, according to the New York Times and others.

Waters’ support came as a surprise, the Times reports. OneUnited, thought to be “in precarious financial shape,” had been criticized by regulators both for failing to lend enough to poor people, as well as for providing its CEO with a $6.4 million California “beachfront compound” and a Porsche SUV, according to the paper.

Waters’ husband, Sidney Williams, served on the bank’s board and “has owned at least $250,000 of its stock,” the paper found. Waters, in a lengthy statement released Friday, appeared to confirm her husband still serves on the board and owns stock in the bank.

In the statement, Waters said she was involved in talks with the Treasury Department not on behalf of OneUnited but for the National Bankers Association, to “discuss their concerns regarding the situations facing minority banks.” (OneUnited is black-owned.) Waters said she did not attend the meeting “and thus did not participate in the conversation.”

This isn’t the first time Waters has faced criticism in connection with her husband’s businesses. In 2004, the Los Angeles Times reported Williams had earned over $500,000 in consulting fees from a municipal bond underwriting firm, despite having little experience in the bond business. Williams made introductions for the company to key politicians whom his wife helped elect, the paper reported.

Waters told the paper at the time that “her family’s business interests are separate from her congressional activities,” according to the Times account.