Frist: A Man of Character Playing by the Rules
by Bill Wichterman
townhall.com
Oct 4, 2005
Senator Bill Frist has been accused of using insider information to make a profit on the sale of stock in the Healthcare Corporation of America (HCA), a company founded by his father and brother, just before a bad earnings report caused the stock’s value to plummet.
To the casual observer, the case may look cut-and-dry: another politician acting like he’s above the law. But I have my own insider information that says the story is wrong.
I know Bill Frist. I worked for him for the last 2 ½ years as one of his policy advisors. And this story doesn’t comport with how he runs his office or his life. Nor does it comport with the facts – facts that have been in short supply in many of the media reports.
Bill Frist is a man of tremendous integrity. I have always found him to be honest, straightforward, sincere, and genuine.
I know some politicians who act one way in public and another way behind closed doors. That’s not Bill Frist. I’ve never heard him say a bad word about anyone, even when he had ample cause. He is charitable with others, and tough on himself. His annual medical missions to treat AIDS victims in Africa are authentic and without fanfare. In fact, he does much more than that for which he seeks and receives no publicity. He’s unfailingly kind to his staff, and inspires deep loyalty and dedicated work through his constant affirmation.
That’s the Bill Frist I know. So when he says that the sole reason he sold the stock was to eliminate even the appearance of a conflict of interest, I believe him.
Now for the facts, which make the allegations even less plausible.
Senator Frist sought the advice of the Senate Ethics Committee time and again, even though he wasn’t required to. When he was first elected, he asked whether he should dispose of the stock , or whether he had to put it in a blind trust. No, he was told. But to go the extra mile, he set up a blind trust anyway.
In April, he asked his chief counsel to explore how he could legally and ethically divest himself of any shares of HCA he might still have in his blind trust. He did not know if he still held any stock, but in case he did, he decided to sell it off to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.
In April, he couldn’t have known anything about the next quarter’s earnings report, because not even HCA could have known that yet. Once he received the final go-ahead from the Senate Ethics Committee on June 13, he acted in a matter of days, asking the trustees to sell whatever HCA stock might remain in his blind trust. For nearly two months, he waited for a written opinion from the Ethics Committee. Once he had it, he directed the stock be sold. His timing was related not to insider information, but to the completion of an Ethics Committee process he had initiated many weeks earlier.
But why sell at all? And why claim the need to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest when that was the purpose of the blind trust in the first place? Since Bill Frist came to the Senate, there have been more than a hundred press stories about him and the HCA stock, with political opponents continuing to allege a conflict of interest. It was apparent to Senator Frist that the blind trust, although legally and ethically sound, would not stem these ongoing allegations. So he did what his opponents would have had him do - he divested himself of the HCA stock entirely.
But why now? Why not 10 years ago? Well, it’s no secret that a presidential campaign might lay ahead of him. Heaven knows how every corner of the candidate’s life is examined during a presidential race. Better to eliminate the possibility of questions early.
I think it’s worth noting that Dr. Frist never worked in an HCA hospital, has never been employed by HCA, and even went so far as to open up a competing hospital at Vanderbilt in Nashville.
In an effort to malign Senator Frist and tar the Republicans as the party of corruption, political opponents rely on anonymous staff sources and political innuendo to connect dots that cannot be connected. I predict that upon investigation by independent regulators, Senator Frist will be exonerated. His opponents can hope that by that time their innuendo campaign will so undermine him that even if he is legally cleared he will be politically dead. But their agenda is too clever by half as well as far too obvious, and they will fail.
Senator Frist has nothing to hide, and he is fully cooperating with the SEC and the U.S. Attorney. He expects fair treatment, but not special treatment, throughout the investigatory process.
Until Senator Frist is fully exonerated by the legal process, he is being tried in the court of public opinion.
I am here to testify that Senator Frist is innocent of any wrong-doing, that he is a man of his word, and that he deserves praise, not opprobrium, for his just dealings.
Bill Wichterman is a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.
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