U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he had no inside information when he sold millions of dollars in stock in a family-founded business.
Federal officials are looking into Frist's sale of all his stock in HCA Inc., a company founded by the Frist family and that owns hospitals. A few weeks after Frist ordered trustees of a blind trust to sell his HCA stock, the company issued an earnings warning and the stock fell about 9 percent.
"I had no information about HCA or its performance that was not publicly available when I directed the trustees to sell the stock," Frist said Monday in a U.S. Capitol briefing.
Frist said he sold the stock to avoid allegations of conflicts of interest when he deals with healthcare legislation.
Also Monday, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox, recused himself from the Frist investigation, citing personal connections to Frist, including a donation to the senator's 2000 re-election campaign.
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