Maxine Waters' November 29 ethics trial canceled

Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) listens to testimony on robo-signing and foreclosures at a hearing of the Housing and Community Opportunity Subcommittee of the House Financial Service Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, November 18, 2010.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A congressional panel, citing new evidence, on Friday said it had canceled an ethics trial set for November 29 for Maxine Waters, a top Democrat on the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee.

The House ethics committee said it returned the case to its investigative subcommittee, placing in doubt if and when a new trial date would be set and drawing a sharp response from Waters.

"Today, the committee has brought discredit upon itself and this institution by denying me, and more importantly my constituents, the right to set the record straight," Waters said in a prepared statement.

"The public expects those who judge to hold themselves to their own rules," she said.

Waters, of California, was charged by a House ethics panel in August with three counts of breaking the chamber's rules for helping a bank where her husband has an investment.

She has denied any wrongdoing and won an 11th term in the House in the November 2 congressional elections.

The announcement that her November 29 trial would not be held came a day after the ethics panel recommended that another prominent House Democrat, Charles Rangel of New York, be censured for 11 violations of House rules.

(Reporting by Thomas Ferraro and Corbett B. Daly; Editing by Xavier Briand)