In preparation for hearings next week, a House committee has released a staff report on its yearlong investigation of Wells Fargo & Co., ripping the bank for failing to implement required compliance measures and the board for not holding any executive accountable.

In a statement accompanying the report, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California, calls Wells Fargo "a reckless megabank with an ineffective board and management that has exhibited an egregious pattern of consumer abuses." Waters is chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, which released the report.

The San Francisco-based bank declined comment Friday.

The 113-page report, entitled "The Real Wells Fargo: Board & Management Failures, Consumer Abuses, and Ineffective Regulatory Oversight," brings up compliance, or lack of it, at least 163 times.

It paints a picture of a chief risk officer and compliance department that did not answer to the general counsel and only "administratively" to the CEO. The chief compliance officer reported to the chief risk officer, who reported to a board of directors that seemingly was not interested in changing the status quo.

The report reveals that professional services firm Grant Thornton was named an independent monitor to oversee the bank's compliance with a 2016 consent order. But the board deliberately withheld sales documents from Grant Thornton, citing attorney-client privilege despite urgings from the firm and from regulators to produce the documents.

The report also lambasts the former chief risk officer, Michael Loughlin, and it blames the board for failing to demand compliance measures that multiple regulators have asked for. And are still asking for, according to the report.

Loughlin last month agreed to a federal consent order holding him responsible for failing "to prevent and detect" Wells Fargo's misconduct. He agreed to pay a $1.25 million penalty. Seven other executives were also charged, including former general counsel James Strother, who is fighting the charges. Strother was faulted for not acting on employee complaints coming through the human resources department.

Wells Fargo's general counsel Allen Parker. Courtesy photo.

General counsel Allen Parker is mentioned 21 times in the House report, but most of the unfavorable comments are for his lack of progress on compliance reforms while serving several months as interim CEO. Parker is leaving the bank March 31.

The report also criticizes him for holding "backchannel communications" regarding compliance requirements of a consent order with a political appointee overseeing a regulatory agency. Separate communications between political appointees and the bank "could potentially undermine the authority of career officials in their oversight of the institution," the report states.

It also says Parker was among key leaders at Wells Fargo who "were focused on financial considerations, rather than addressing the bank's compliance failures."

The report details the five separate consent orders that Wells Fargo has entered into since September 2016, its promises in those orders to develop effective internal controls and compliance measures, and its failure to do so.

It states that Wells Fargo's customers have been exposed to countless abuses, including racial discrimination, wrongful foreclosure, illegal vehicle repossession and fraudulently opened bank accounts due to lack of compliance measures.

In other findings the report says:

• Financial regulators knew about serious, enterprisewide deficiencies at Wells Fargo for years without taking public enforcement action.
• The bank's board of directors failed to ensure management could address the risk management deficiencies, and they allowed management to repeatedly submit materially deficient plans to regulators. Waters indicated she will seek the resignation of board chair Elizabeth "Betsy" Duke at the series of three hearings that start Tuesday.
• The potential for widespread consumer abuse still remains at Wells Fargo.