Would be a whole lot of stories like this.
It seems that Congresswoman Maxine Waters helped st up a meeting between the Treasury Department and a bank for which her husband sat on the Board of Directors. At the meeting, the bank pleaded for federal money.
Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, requested the September meeting on behalf of executives at OneUnited, one of the nation’s largest black-owned banks. Ms. [Waters'] husband, Sidney Williams, had served on the bank’s board of directors until early last year and has owned at least $250,000 in stock in the institution. Treasury officials said the session with nearly a dozen senior banking regulators had been intended to allow minority-owned banks and their trade association to discuss the losses they had incurred from the federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But Kevin Cohee, OneUnited’s chief executive, instead seized the opportunity to plead for special assistance for his bank, federal officials said.
Perhaps Congresswoman Waters did nothing wrong, but Democrats need to be extraordinarily careful because of the huge degree of latitude that the public is giving to President Obama and Congress to end the financial crisis. If there is an appearance of corruption, public support could evaporate.
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