The Water Gets Hotter Around Frist

by Chris Bowers, Thu Sep 29, 2005 at 01:01:58 PM EDT

You could structure an entire graduate program trying to detail all of the corruption in the current Republican Party. Exceprted from Raw Story:Just two days before Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) stepped down as Majority Leader in 2002, the company Frist's father started quietly settled a massive Medicare fraud lawsuit for $630 million. The eleventh-hour deal -- brokered with Justice Department attorneys after a seven-year court battle -- was made as Frist (R-TN) secured the necessary votes to assume the Senate's top post.

Those close to the case tell RAW STORY that top HCA executives were scheduled to be deposed the following month. Frist's brother, Thomas Jr., would have been forced to go on the record during the opening days of the senator's tenure as leader.

The timing of the agreement could raise further questions about Frist's ties to the company. Given that the Justice Department had been investigating HCA since 1993 -- some 120 months -- the coincidence of a settlement date so close to Frist's leadership election is striking.

A decades-long investigation into his family's company ends two days before he becomes majority leader? It is really getting hard to keep track of all this stuff. Someone needs to create an archive detailing it.

Tags: Republicans (all tags)

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Seeing-Eye Trusts

As the record clearly shows, Bill Frist lied twice:

Terri Schiavo was blind. His blind trust was not.

For more on Frist and the epidemic of GOP corruption, cronyism and patronage, see:

"Banana Republicans."

by AvengingAngel 2005-09-29 04:47PM | 0 recs

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As much as I'm thrilled to see Frist dangle . . .

I'm not exactly sure what this new revelation really tells us.

I would assume that his brother realized that he stood to gain a hell of a lot of traction in Congress with Frist as majority leader. Having the company in the spotlight would only highlight the fact that brother Bill had a big stake. At that point the risk/benefit analysis would shift: "We're probably going to lose this case anyway, so we might as well take our lumps, let this thing blow over, and then we can start working on seriously improving the company's fortunes through legislative channels, now that we will basically own the Senate."

The alternative hypothesis is that something about the fraud would actually get brother Bill in dutch, so they had to get out ASAP, but it's hard to see how that would be possible, since Dr. Frist never worked for HCA, and in fact never even practiced in an HCA hospital. Besides, he was already a Senator, so if there was anything potentially damaging to a high-profile politician, it couldn't have changed that much when he became majority leader.

Forgive my naivete, but . . . am I missing something? Can somebody please explain?

by scottso 2005-09-29 06:34PM | 0 recs

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It's all about tying Frist to

knowledge of HCA's inner workings especially if he was complicent in or had knowledge of Medicare fraud. It's already proven he lied about the trust being blind, so what does he really know and how much influence did he have as a major stockholder? Now that the SEC investigators have supoena power maybe we'll find out...

The 'Culture of Corruption' marches on.

by LeftRoaster 2005-09-29 07:01PM | 0 recs

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GOOD!

maybe there is hope for this country.
seems like all the presidents men are falling flat on their fast...what was the "delay"

maybe if they go, and they can pin something on bush, and cheney.. we will see a long overdue resign..if not..let's just recall this admistration..

what have they done for you latley?
just ck you wallet..

come the winter, everything will cost more from toys for xmas and heating oil..

do you really want an admistration that will make the country fall into a depression...
forget rescession ..no matter what they say , we are already in it..

and with katrina/rita/fire in california and mess in iraq..exactly what is homeland secutity, fema, and the national guard doing..they are certainly not looking after americans.

and that's where our tax dollars are going..

i say dump them all..and start over..
you can bet bush is digging a hole too deep to get him or us out of..

i can't fathum what it will be like in this country next year..a trillion dollar deficit?

who is paying that back ? or will be borrow from sudia arabia..

by richasi12b 2005-10-01 05:56PM | 0 recs