Under the guise that Rep. Waters wanted to help out African American banks in California, the congresswoman saved some of the valuable stocks her family was holding. She asked then-Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson to hold a meeting with minority-owned banks back in 2008. The only bank that had representatives in attendance was OneUnited, the same bank that Rep. Waters had hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock in. Waters’ Chief of Staff and grandson Mikael Moore is also in attendance.
The bank used the meeting to demand a government bailout money with taxpayer money. They were denied.
In December of that year, Waters set up another meeting for OneUnited this time demanding that the government ensure that minority-owned banks get some of the bank bailout money. This time OneUnited got their bailout funds, and Rep. Waters’ persistence secured the value of her stocks.