Midtopia

Midtopia

Monday, April 30, 2007

Frist cleared in stock probe

Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has been cleared of wrongdoing in an insider-trading investigation over the sale of stock in the hospital chain his family owns.

In a rare inversion of the usual rule, his meticulous e-mail log saved him.

The former Tennessee senator was able to show in copies of e-mails given to federal investigators that he began the process of selling his family's HCA stock in April 2005 - well before HCA had disappointing second-quarter earnings and publicly reported that fact July 13, two people familiar with Frist's records said Friday.

One could spin all sorts of conspiracy theories here, I suppose, because the case was being investigated by a U.S. attorney, a Bush appointee. But there's no evidence to support that, and I prefer my scandals to be backed by evidence.

So good for Frist. I'm glad he's out of politics -- for multiple reasons -- but I'm also glad he's clean.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great. I'll be watching for the front page article on the New York Times about his being cleared.

Ha. Ha.

JP5