Washington ? Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., a veteran legislator accused of breaking House rules, blasted the ethics committee and the press Friday while denying she had “violated anything.”

After Waters’ speech, her chief of staff, Mikael Moore, painstakingly went through a series of e-mails and letters in a 50-page PowerPoint presentation to defend the congresswoman. Moore, 32, whose e-mails are at the center of the probe, is Waters’ grandson.

Most members of Congress rarely discuss the details of their ethics controversies, deferring to attorneys. But in an unusual press conference in the Capitol that lasted more than an hour, Waters answered a series of questions about her alleged role in securing millions of dollars for a bank in which her husband was a major investor.