Bill Frist (R-TN) to take over Martha Stewart's jail cell

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CAGiversary!
HCA subpoenaed, may involve Senate leader

CHICAGO (Reuters) - HCA Inc.,HCA.N> operator of the largest chain of U.S. hospitals, said it received a subpoena from the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York requiring it to produce documents.

HCA said it believes the subpoena relates to the sale of HCA stock by Senator William H. Frist, the Republican Majority Leader. The company said it intends to cooperate fully.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050923/bs_nm/hca_dc_1

This is in regards to this article from a couple days ago:

Frist Sold Hospital Shares Before Drop

WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a potential presidential candidate in 2008, sold all his stock in his family's hospital corporation about two weeks before it issued a disappointing earnings report and the price fell nearly 15 percent.

Frist held an undisclosed amount of stock in Hospital Corporation of America, based in Nashville, Tenn., the nation's largest for-profit hospital chain. On June 13, he instructed the trustee managing the assets to sell his HCA shares and those of his wife and children, said Amy Call, a spokeswoman for Frist.

Frist, a surgeon first elected to the Senate in 1994, had been criticized for maintaining the holdings while dealing with legislation affecting the medical industry and managed care. He has insisted that he was in the clear ethically because the shares were in a blind trust.

"To avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest Senator Frist went beyond what ethics requires and sold the stock," Call said. Asked why he had never done so before, she said, "I don't know that he's been worried about it in the past."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050921/ap_on_go_co/frist_shares

So to avoid a conflict of interest, he illegally bailed right before it went down the tube? Last time I checked, insider trading was a big no-no. I hope the SEC uses Frist as their next example.
 
Chances of being charged for insider trading (Which is what Martha Stewart was charged with.) for activity conducted by a blind trust = ZERO.

Think of you being charged on insider trading for activity conducted by your mutual funds in your 401K.

Ain't gonna happen. You can always have wishful thinking though.

By JONATHAN M. KATZ, Associated Press Writer 36 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The Securities and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors are investigating Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's sale of stock in HCA Inc., the hospital operating company founded by his family.

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In a statement released Friday, the Nashville-based company said federal prosecutors for the Southern District of New York issued a subpoena for documents HCA believes are related to the sale of its stock by the senator.

Frist's office confirmed the SEC is looking into the sale.

"Not surprisingly, the Securities and Exchange Commission contacted Senator Frist's office after the story appeared in the press about the sale of his Hospital Corporation of America stock," Frist spokesman Bob Stevenson said in an e-mail. "The majority leader will provide the SEC any information that it needs with respect to this matter."

Frist traded using only public information, and only to eliminate the appearance of a conflict of interest, Stevenson said.

"His only objective in selling the stock was to eliminate the appearance of a conflict of interest," Frist spokeswoman Amy Call said Friday.

The SEC had not contacted HCA as of Friday morning, said HCA spokesman Jeff . He declined further comment.

HCA, the nation's largest for-profit hospital company, was founded by Frist's father. His brother was formerly its CEO and chairman and remains on the board of directors.

Frist asked a trustee to sell all his HCA stock in June, near a 52-week stock price peak of $58.40 and at the same time HCA insiders were selling off shares. Reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission showed insiders sold about 2.3 million shares, worth about $112 million, from January through June, said Mark LoPresti of Thomson Financial.

The sale came about two weeks before the company issued a disappointing earnings forecast that drove its stock price down almost 16 percent by mid-July. They still have not recovered, closing Thursday at $45.90.

The value of Frist's stock at the time of the sale was not disclosed. Earlier this year, he reported holding blind trusts valued at $7 million to $35 million.

The sale of stock was first reported Monday by Congressional Quarterly. On Tuesday, The Associated Press reported that the stock was sold at or near its peak between June 13, when Frist asked the shares to be sold, and July 1, when he was told the sale was complete. On July 8 he was informed that his wife and children's shares had also been sold per his request, his spokeswoman Amy Call said.

For years, Frist was criticized for holding HCA stock while directing legislation on Medicare reform and patient issues. He and his office have consistently deflected criticism by noting that his assets were in a blind trust and not under his active control.

But Senate ethics rules allowed him more control than most observers realized. Under the guidelines, senators can directly order the sale of any asset in the trust to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. The senator also can communicate to the trustee matters of concern, including "an interest in maximizing income or long-term capital gain."

That is not how blind trusts normally work, said David Becker, who was general counsel at the SEC from 2000 to 2002.

Frist, a Tennessee Republican, is widely considered a potential presidential candidate in 2008.

HCA said the subpoena seeks the "production of documents," and said it plans to fully cooperate with the investigation.

On Thursday, SEC spokesman John Nester would neither confirm nor deny that Frist or any officer or director of HCA is the subject of an investigation, citing the agency's policy. Nester also declined comment Friday on Frist's spokesman saying the SEC had contacted the senator's office.

Shares of HCA were up 25 cents to $46.15 in early trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
Link

Insider stock sales are public information. You can look them up on any stock summary as they are required by the SEC. Analysts and stock holders can see if a CEO, COO, CFO etc. are dumping inordinate percentages of their stock and gague the reason why accordingly. Far from being "insider trading" any investor is privvy to this information and is able to follow the "trend" if there is in fact a trend.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']Chances of being charged for insider trading (Which is what Martha Stewart was charged with.) for activity conducted by a blind trust = ZERO.[/quote]

[quote name='"article quoted by PAD"']But Senate ethics rules allowed him more control than most observers realized. Under the guidelines, senators can directly order the sale of any asset in the trust to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. The senator also can communicate to the trustee matters of concern, including "an interest in maximizing income or long-term capital gain."

That is not how blind trusts normally work, said David Becker, who was general counsel at the SEC from 2000 to 2002.[/quote]
Which is to say that its not actually a blind trust. In a blind trust, the holder isn't supposed to even know what stocks he owns, let alone made decisions about whether to buy or sell. I don't even know what the correct word for this sort of setup is, but it certainly isn't 'blind trust'. Frist specifically told his trustee to sell all stock in the company. If he did it based on non-public information, that's illegal.

Insider stock sales are public information.
Click to expand...
Not the illegal ones...
 
Insider stock sales are always reported to the SEC. There are no exceptions. The "illegal" ones come from selling stock half an hour or more before an earnings estimate or report. That's what did in Sam Waskel and Martha Stewart.

If a CEO, COO, CFO are all aware their stock is going to tank after release of a financial report they can release the report to wire services at 10:00AM and sell their stock at 10:00 and 15 seconds and remain perfectly legal.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']For years, Frist was criticized for holding HCA stock while directing legislation on Medicare reform and patient issues. He and his office have consistently deflected criticism by noting that his assets were in a blind trust and not under his active control.

But Senate ethics rules allowed him more control than most observers realized. Under the guidelines, senators can directly order the sale of any asset in the trust to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. The senator also can communicate to the trustee matters of concern, including "an interest in maximizing income or long-term capital gain."

That is not how blind trusts normally work, said David Becker, who was general counsel at the SEC from 2000 to 2002.[/QUOTE]

So Frist had a blind trust that was not blind and did not function as an independently monitored trust.

Ahhh lawyers. Looks like we're heading back to "it all depends on what your definition of 'is' is..."
 
[quote name='camoor']

Ahhh lawyers. Looks like we're heading back to "it all depends on what your definition of 'is' is..."[/QUOTE]

Definitions of is on the Web:

  • [size=-1]
  • .is is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Iceland.
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.is[/size]

    [size=-1]
  • International Standard
    pdesinc.aticorp.org/glossary.html[/size]

    [size=-1]
  • A system that provides forwarding functions or relaying functions or both for a specific ATM connection. OAM cells may be generated and received.
    www.e-ratecentral.com/resources/help/glossary/i.asp[/size]

    [size=-1]
  • Computer and communications hardware and software used to supply information rather than, for example, control machines. Often used interchangeably with information technology.
    www.christlinks.com/glossary2.html[/size]

    [size=-1]
  • Information Services Details about program broadcast Set Top Box applications
    www.st.com/stonline/press/news/glossary/i.htm[/size]

    [size=-1]
  • A system for managing and processing information, usually computer-based. Also, a functional group within a business that manages the development and operations of the business’s information
    www.georgetown.edu/uis/ia/dw/GLOSSARY0816.html[/size]

    [size=-1]
  • A mobile piece of bacterial DNA (several hundred nucleotide pairs in length) that is capable of inactivating a gene into which it inserts. Small simple transposons. See transposable genetic element.
    helios.bto.ed.ac.uk/bto/glossary/ijk.htm[/size]

    [size=-1]
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    [size=-1]
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    www.yourwebassistant.net/glossary/i3.htm[/size]

    [size=-1]
  • Iceland (Islandia)
    www.fmnh.helsinki.fi/english/botany/afe/map/areas.htm[/size]

    [size=-1]
  • Inner setae; the setae, or spines, on the inner border of the exopod and endopod.
    www.biol.sc.edu/~coull_lab/Wells/glossary.htm[/size]

    [size=-1]
  • 1. Intermediate System Routing node in an OSI network. 2. Telecommunications: In-Service Entity is fully operational and capable of providing service to a requesting entity.
    www.totaltele.com/acronyms/default.asp[/size]

    [size=-1]
  • verb, past tense
    encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Ido_language[/size]

    [size=-1]
  • Information Services, a portion of the NSF Cooperative Agreement awarded to General Atomics in 1993. IS is one of three services comprising the InterNIC.
    www.domainhandbook.com/gloss.html[/size]

    [size=-1]
  • The simplest transposable genetic element found in prokaryotes. It is a mobile segment of DNA that contains genes required for the process of insertion of the DNA segment into a chromosome and for the mobilization of the element to different locations.
    www.modernhumanorigins.com/i.html[/size]

    [size=-1]
  • the price of a factor of production used in producing final output. Cost, together with the final price and quantity of output, is a key factor in economic decision-making. Thus profit equals price per unit multiplied by the quantity of output (or revenue) minus the total cost of all factors of production. (HHC)
    members.shaw.ca/h-chartrand/0.0%20Micro%20Glossary.htm[/size]

    [size=-1]
  • AI's central office in London, England where research information is collected and where the movement's day-to-day campaigning is organized and monitored.
    www.amnesty.ca/youth/youth_action_toolkit/some_terms_you_might_come_across.php[/size]

    [size=-1]
  • Income Support
    www.swpho.org.uk/ruraldep/glossary.htm[/size]

    [size=-1]
  • Information Systems, Information Services or MIS. The networking department within an organization
    ospa.utdallas.edu/Publications/VIG/13tech.htm[/size]

    [size=-1]
  • the clear and simple use of this idiom ("The book is about space travel") has been distorted in the media. Beware of abusing it, as in the following examples:
    www.iolani.honolulu.hi.us/Keables/KeablesGuide/PartThree/Letters/A.htm[/size]

    [size=-1]
  • A range of devices that have been specifically developed for use in hazardous areas where an explosive mixture of air and gas or vapour is or may be present. These areas typically include petroleum and chemical engineering plants and factories processing and storing gases, solvents and other volatile substances.
    www.apollo-fire.co.uk/resources/glossary.htm[/size]

    [size=-1]
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    www.system-concepts.com/articles/updatesonstandards/standards.cfm[/size]

    [size=-1]
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    www.rtie.com/ntc/glossary.htm[/size]

    [size=-1]
  • is a very important parameter that, along with n,determines the actual diode current when it is forward biased by at particular DC Voltage. Id=Is*(e^(Vd/(0.026*n)-1) at room temperature. This expression ignores the effect of the parasitic series resistance of the diode because it has little effect on the operation of crystal sets at the low currents usually encountered. Here Id is the diode current, e is the base of the natural logarithms (2.7183...), ^ means raise the preceding symbol to the power of the expression that follows (Sometimes e^ is written 'exp'), * means multiply the
    uweb1.superlink.net/~bhtongue/0def_exp/0def_exp.html[/size]

    [size=-1]
  • Any equipment or interconnected system or subsystems of equipment that is used in the automatic acquisition, storage, manipulation, management, movement, control, display, switching, interchange, transmission, or reception of data and that includes computer software, firmware, and hardware. Included are computers, word processing systems, networks, or other electronic information handling systems and associated equipment.
    ia.gordon.army.mil/iaso/lesson01.htm[/size]
 
Yes and you said wire services PAD which means that the stock in GENERAL would be sold immediately by anyone in the wire service who reported at the same time.
 
Not looking so good for Mr. Frist. Turns out along with problems diagnosing blindness, he had difficulty understand how a blind trust works and how one might save him from prosecution or the appearance of impropriety.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/26/frist.blindtrust.ap/index.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Blind trusts are designed to keep an arm's-length distance between federal officials and their investments, to avoid conflicts of interest. But documents show that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist knew quite a bit about his accounts from nearly two dozen letters from the trust administrators.

Frist, R-Tennessee, received regular updates of transfers of assets to his blind trusts and sales of assets. He also was able to initiate a stock sale of a hospital chain founded by his family with perfect timing. Shortly after the sale this summer, the stock price dived.

A possible presidential contender in 2008, Frist now faces dual investigations by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and the Securities and Exchange Commission into his stock sales.

Sheldon Cohen, who was the trustee for Democrat Walter Mondale's blind trust when he was vice president, and drafted Democrat Lyndon Johnson's blind trust for Johnson's presidency, said that in the executive branch,"You don't tell them how it's composed." He said Frist, like any federal official, "absolves himself of conflict by not knowing what he owns."

Cohen said that when Mondale left office, he told Cohen to sell his assets. "He had no idea what I was holding," the Washington attorney and former Internal Revenue Service commissioner said.

Frist spokesman Bob Stevenson said the senator received approval from the Senate Ethics Committee before he initiated the stock sale. All the information Frist received complied with federal law and Senate ethics rules, Stevenson added.

The stock was in HCA Inc., a chain of hospitals founded in the late 1960s by Frist's father and brother. At the time of the sale, insiders also were selling. Shortly after that sale, the stock price dipped because of a warning that earnings would not meet Wall Street expectations.

"If, in fact, Frist was actively involved in this decision, he certainly has to supply an explanation of how that's consistent with a blind trust," said Bob Bauer, a Washington attorney who has set up blind trusts for Democratic members of Congress.

Bauer said he has no knowledge of Frist's dealings with the trustees of his investments.

Whether Frist knew too much about his investments, or took advantage of insider trading, is not known. But the potential political damage increased in recent days.

Frist also knows first hand how a Senate leader's career can suddenly roll downhill. His predecessor, Sen. Trent Lott, R-Mississippi, lost his leadership post after praising the late Sen. Strom Thurmond's segregationist campaign for the presidency in 1948.

Documents on file with the Senate show the trustees for Frist and his immediate family wrote the senator nearly two dozen times between 2001 and July 2005.

The documents list assets going into the account and assets sold. Some assets have a dollar range of the investment's value and some list the number of shares.

The trust is considered blind because eventually, through the sale of transferred assets and the purchase of new assets, the official will be shielded from knowing the assets he owns. The knowledge Frist learned about his holdings potentially makes it more difficult to avoid a conflict of interest.

Frist's 2005 financial disclosure form lists blind trusts valued between $7 million and $35 million.
 
So let me get this straight - both, the leader of the House and leader of the Senate, are under investigation, one for ethics, the other for insider trading. Our great president's advisor is under investigation for a CIA leak, which Dubya insisted he would get to the bottom of. Are there any honest leaders at the top?
 
"John McCain has a Black Love Child," Bush 2000 whisper campaign.

bush-mccain.jpg

Bush 2004 campaign.

Screw him.
 
Looking worse and worse for Mr. Frist....maybe DeLay can give him some advice.....

I know the source isn't exactly non-partisan, but if he made this much he's in serious political trouble, if not legal trouble.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/00...pwDW7oF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl



Jamie CourtWed Sep 28,12:51 AM ET

New details of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's dumping of HCA stock just before it plummeted should give the SEC even more to chew over as it begins a formal investigation, with subpoena power, into Frist's contact with insiders at his family-founded and -run company.

A new analysis by my Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights has found that Senator Frist made between between $2 and $6 million by selling his HCA holdings just before stocks plummeted in the face of a bad earnings report. In addition, overly rosy earnings projections made by HCA executives just as Frist and HCA insiders were disposing of the stock en masse, point to a coverup by insiders intent on keeping stock prices high until a disappointing earnings report surfaced.

Frist trust agreements made public today by Consumerwatchdog.org also show that since the founding of his trust, Senator Frist directed trustees not to sell his HCA stock. Each of the Senator’s trust agreements acknowledged their high concentration in HCA stock, and specifically relieved trustees ‘from any obligation the Trustee might otherwise have to diversify the investments.’ In other words, this was a seeing-eye trust, not a blind trust.

As subpoenas begin to fly, Senator Frist will have a lot of explaining to do. My consumer group filed ethics complaints with Frist dating back to 2003 over his HCA holdings -- and he ignored them. Frist's sudden shock of "conscience" either has to do with presidential amibitions or pure greed.
 
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