"Frist Says He Had No Inside Data On Stock" yeah, we believe you. LOL

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could he be next to go down? SEC is investigating.
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WP
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/26/AR2005092600996.html?referrer=email
Frist Says He Had No Inside Data On Stock
Senator Calls Sale An Effort to Avoid Conflict of Interest

By Charles Babington and Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, facing federal inquiries into his sale of hospital company stock, said yesterday that he had no inside information about the stock's likely performance and sold the shares solely to avoid a possible conflict of interest in case he seeks higher office.

Frist (R-Tenn.), who is weighing a 2008 presidential bid, said he began taking steps to sell all the stock held in a trust about three months before its value sharply fell. The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission are looking into his June sale of all his holdings in HCA Inc., a Nashville-based company that his family founded. The next month, the stock's value dropped 9 percent after the company issued a disappointing earnings forecast.

Frist, a wealthy surgeon, briefly addressed reporters in the Capitol but took no questions in making his first public comments since the inquiries were announced late last week. Rejecting the notion that he may have benefited from inside information, he said: "I had no information about HCA or its performance that was not publicly available when I directed the trustees to sell the stock."

He noted that for years he repeatedly had said his ownership of HCA stock posed no conflict of interest for his Senate duties. Those statements frequently angered some consumer and victims' rights groups because of the large amount of health care legislation before the Senate, including the Medicare prescription drug plan.

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1. kick