Documents Show Frist's Trust Wasn't Blind
by TChris
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist in 2003 (during a CNBC interview):
"I think really for our viewers it should be understood that I put this into a blind trust," Frist replied. "So as far as I know, I own no HCA stock." He added that the trust was "totally blind. I have no control."
Two weeks before that interview, M. Kirk Scobey Jr., a Frist trustee, informed the senator in writing that one of his trusts had received HCA stock valued at between $15,000 and $50,000.
Newly disclosed records confirm that Frist's blind trust wasn't so blind.
Since 2001, the trustees have written to Frist and the Senate 15 times detailing the sale of assets from or the contribution of assets to trusts of Frist and his family. The letters included notice of the addition of HCA shares worth $500,000 to $1 million in 2001 and HCA stock worth $750,000 to $1.5 million in 2002.
The SEC is investigating Frist's suspiciously timed sale of HCA stock. Law Professor Kathleen Clark asks an obvious question: "How did he know to tell the trustee to sell it [his HCA stake] if he didn't know that he had it in the first place?"
Frist has long claimed that his HCA ownership posed no conflict of interest because the stock was in a blind trust. He still hasn't answered the question posed here: why did he suddenly decide to avoid a conflict of interest that he's long denied by selling his HCA stock?
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