New hire may mean new legs for Waters’s case

Schwager served most recently as a counsel with the Senate Ethic Committee from 2009 to 2010. He has also worked for the Department of Justice and the New York County District Attorney’s office.

The allegations against Waters center on questions of whether she helped secure federal funding for a bank in which her husband owned stock.

Waters has maintained her innocence and pointed to the committee’s suspension of her case last year as evidence that the case had no merit.

Neither Bonner nor Sanchez mentioned the Waters’ case by name in their statement of Schwager’s hiring.

The panel reported initiating six new ethics probes in the first quarter of this year, according to its report issued last week – only one of which has been terminated.