Republicans are of course no strangers to insider trading scandals. You have probably heard by now about Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (the favorite senator of Zu Zu's Petals!) and his little problem with dumping his holdings in the family empire, HCA, just before it tanked.Well, if you will, "Harken" back a few years, when a Texas energy company brought a young man on board solely for his intellect and business acumen:
He too bailed out just in time when things looked bad, with nary a slap on the wrist from Poppy's SEC. Frist and Bubble Boy demonstrate with undeniable clarity the typical neocon attitude toward the regulation of business in the public interest:
of you have sat, and perhaps thought, with us!
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Democrats skeptical about Frist stock sale
Senator's office denies he acted on inside info
By MIKE MADDEN
Tennessean Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — A federal inquiry into Sen. Bill Frist's stock sales might pose a political stumbling block for the Tennessee Republican as he prepares a possible presidential campaign.
Aides to Frist, the Senate majority leader, acknowledged yesterday that the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York have requested information from him about the June sale from his blind trust of all his stock in HCA Inc., the health-care giant his family founded.Frist requested that his shares be sold June 13, a month before the price dropped nearly 9% in one day on a weaker-than-expected earnings report. The sale came amid a wider sell-off of HCA shares by insiders.
Frist hasn't been accused officially of anything, but Democrats latched on to the news of the interest from the SEC and federal prosecutors, calling the sale "suspicious" and calling for a tough investigation.
"These developments show that Bill Frist spends most of his time looking out for his own financial interests and for Republican big business cronies, not for the interests of the American people he's supposed to represent in the Senate," Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said in a statement.
Independent watchdog groups say the timing of the sale raises questions about whether Frist acted on inside knowledge.
His office denied that in a statement yesterday.
"Neither Senator Frist nor his office has received a subpoena," spokesman Bob Stevenson said. "Senator Frist had no information about the company or its performance that was not available to the public when he directed the trustees to sell the HCA stock. His only objective in selling the stock was to eliminate the appearance of a conflict of interest."
But the inquiry opens a potential new vulnerability for Frist.
"No politician beginning a presidential campaign wants to be dogged with ethical questions," said Stu Rothenberg, a political analyst in Washington.
Liberal Web logs sought to tie Frist's predicament to that of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican under investigation for his ties to an indicted Washington lobbyist, and posts compared Frist to Martha Stewart, who went to jail for obstructing a federal investigation into insider trading.
Republicans and independent analysts were more circumspect, saying Frist should face real problems from the stock sale only if the inquiries turn up evidence of wrongdoing.
But questions about the sale could hand extra ammunition to his potential rivals for the Republican 2008 presidential nomination.
"If I were a political adviser and I was thinking that he's preparing himself for a possible run for president, I would tell him, 'Sure, get rid of the stock, it's just not worth the headache in a presidential campaign,' " said Jan Baran, a Republican ethics lawyer. "The burden on the senator (now) is to be able to demonstrate in some way that that was the reason for disposing of the stock." •
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050924/NEWS02/509240354
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