The FEC charged Citizens for Waters with “failing to accurately report receipts and disbursements in the calendar year 2020,” “knowingly accepting excessive contributions,” and “making prohibited cash disbursements,” as stated in a document that appears to be a legally binding agreement enabling both parties to circumvent court proceedings.

Waters’ committee has agreed to pay the civil penalty and also to “send its treasurer to a Commission-sponsored training program for political committees within one year of the effective date of this Agreement.”

“Respondent shall submit evidence of the required registration and attendance at such event to the Commission,” the document specified.

The inquiry revealed that Citizens for Waters received inappropriate campaign contributions from seven individuals amounting to $19,000 in 2019 and 2020, despite the maximum permissible individual contribution being $2,800.

The committee managed to return those excessive donations, albeit in a manner deemed “untimely,” according to the document.

Waters’ campaign committee also “made four prohibited cash disbursements, each exceeding $100, totaling $7,000,” as reported by the FEC.

The campaign committee “asserts that it engaged legal counsel to provide advice and guidance to the treasurer and instituted procedures to ensure that the disbursements adhered to the requirements of the Act.”

Leilani Beaver, the attorney for Citizens for Waters, communicated with the FEC last year, asserting that the campaign finance violations were “errors” that “were not willful or purposeful.”

Waters, who is the leading Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, has served in Congress since 1991.

OpenSecrets was the initial source to report the recent developments in the investigation.

Waters has previously attracted public scrutiny for a remarkably similar issue.

In 2023, a Fox News Digital investigation revealed that Waters’ campaign compensated her daughter $192,300 for a “slate mailer” initiative from January 2021 to December 2022.

Reports indicate that Waters paid her daughter merely a single dollar out of thousands for campaign-related work.

The FEC dismissed a claim asserting that Waters’ campaign received improper campaign contributions in 2018 with a 5-1 vote.

Waters previously garnered media attention when she made a series of derogatory remarks about First Lady Melania Trump.

Waters urged President Donald Trump to investigate and possibly deport First Lady Melania Trump during an anti-DOGE demonstration in Los Angeles last weekend.

Clips of her outburst gained widespread attention as Waters implied that the first lady’s citizenship status—she has been a U.S. citizen since 2006—should be examined as a tactic to counter the president’s executive order abolishing birthright citizenship.

“When he [Trump] discusses birthright, and he intends to reverse the fact that the Constitution permits those born here, even if their parents are undocumented, to remain in America. If he wishes to scrutinize those born here and their undocumented parents, perhaps he should first consider Melania,” Waters was recorded stating from the stage of a rally in Los Angeles, according to several videos shared online.

“We are unaware of whether her parents were documented. And perhaps we should take a closer look,” the elderly congresswoman added.

Before this, she expressed her fury and voiced her disapproval of both Trump and tech entrepreneur Elon Musk at an event in Washington, D.C.

During a rally organized by Democratic lawmakers to protest Musk’s access to information at the Treasury Department, Waters charged him with exceeding his authority without voter consent in her address.

“We must inform Elon Musk that no one elected you. No one authorized you to access all of our private information. No one granted you the responsibility for the payments of this nation,” Waters exclaimed.