Second lawyer investigating Maxine Waters out of ethics committee
March 17, 2011
Kitty Felde
http://www.scpr.org/news/2011/03/17/sec ... -waters-o/
The two lawyers who led an ethics investigation of LA Congresswoman Maxine Waters don’t hold that job any more.
The two lawyers, Morgan Kim and Stacey Sovereign, were suspended the same day the House Ethics Committee postponed indefinitely a hearing into the Waters matter.
The LA Democrat is accused of using her political influence on the Financial Services Committee to help a bank in which her husband owned stock. Kim left the non-partisan committee to work for Republicans on the House Natural Resources Committee. Now, it appears that Sovereign is also gone.
Democratic Congresswoman Linda Sanchez, the new minority leader on the Ethics Committee, couldn’t comment directly on the investigations or personnel matters. But she did say this: "We did the hiring resolution for the staff that will be rehired and that’s, I think, public on the website now who the committee staff will be."
Sovereign’s and Kim’s names are missing from that staff page.
Sanchez says the committee has been reviewing resumes and conducting interviews, but she and the Republican committee chairman Jo Bonner have to agree on who to hire.
"I have maintained since I started," she says, "that that the No. 1 goal was get the staff rehired for this term."
The committee is also minus a chief of staff. He resigned in December. The Waters ethics investigation is on hold pending the hiring of new investigating attorneys.
