Ethics watchdog group wants more transparency in Maxine Waters case

Congresswoman Maxine Waters has filed a resolution asking for a bipartisan investigation of the ethics committee investigating her. One ethics watchdog group agrees with her on one thing: more information is needed about why the committee suspended a pair of lawyers.

The Los Angeles Democrat is accused of using her political clout to help a bank in which her husband owned stock. But the US House ethics committee has suspended two lawyers who investigated the case. Waters wants a bipartisan investigation of the ethics committee.

Melanie Sloan agrees. To a point.

"That seems to me to be perhaps to be overkill," she says, "but it does seem that both she and the American public frankly merit an explanation here."

Sloan heads the ethics watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. She says that if the Congresswoman is “merely trying to move the conversation from her own misconduct to issues involving the staff of the House ethics committee, that’s wrong. But it’s easy for anybody to create whatever narrative they want out of this when no one has full information."

The House has until Thursday to decide whether to vote on Waters’ resolution.