Frist defends stock ownership

Investigators looking into his sale of shares

26 Oct 2005 // Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist offered a broad defense Tuesday of how he handled his ownership of stock in HCA Inc., the giant health care firm his family founded, saying he was "comfortable" that he had avoided potential conflicts of interest.

The Tennessee Republican faces federal investigations into the timing of his decision to sell all his HCA stock earlier this summer. The inquiries have also sparked a political crisis, dredging up long-standing questions about whether he crossed ethical lines by owning the stock while participating in public policy debates that affect the health care industry.

As much as $2.3 million in HCA stock was deposited into accounts for Frist and his immediate family after he set up blind trusts in an attempt to distance himself from the day-to-day management of his personal fortune. Senate records show that Frist was notified when the stock was deposited, as required by Senate rules and the terms of his trust. That clashes with past Frist statements that he didn't know whether he owned HCA stock. advertisement

But Frist told Tennessee reporters Tuesday that he was confident that the investigations into the stock sale would not find any wrongdoing.

Frist said in 2002 and 2003 that he didn't know how much HCA stock he owned and might not have owned any. But in fact, since 2001, Frist received notification 15 times of sales or deposits into the accounts, as required by Senate rules.

On Tuesday, he said those disclosures didn't really tell him how much stock he owned.