Frist's blind trust had peephole
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., was updated several times about his investments in blind trusts during 2002, the last time two weeks before he publicly denied any knowledge of what was in the accounts, documents show.
The updates included stock transactions involving HCA Inc., the hospital operating company founded by Frist's family.
It isn't actually clear exactly what Frist knew and when he knew it. But there was clearly at least some violations of the blind trust principle. Frist was informed by the trust manager of at least some of the transactions relating to HCA stock, and possible all of them.
Frist, asked in a television interview in January 2003 whether he should sell his HCA stock, responded: "Well, I think really for our viewers it should be understood that I put this into a blind trust. So as far as I know, I own no HCA stock"
Frist, referring to his trust and those of his family, also said in the interview, "I have no control. It is illegal right now for me to know what the composition of those trusts are. So I have no idea."
The first statement appears to be an outright lie. The second may be true in the 'depends on how you define is' sense, in that he probably didn't know the exact details of every investment in his trust.
Jay