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Poker Nemesis Frist not to run for President
Sat, Dec 2nd, 2006 @ 12:00am
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who snuck the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) into the Safe Port Bill in the final moments before the Senate recessed, announced Wednesday that he will quit public life and will not run for President of the USA.
Recall that the UIGEA did not make online poker illegal, but it did make it illegal for banks and financial institutions to handle transactions from US residents to online gambling sites, with the exception of several state-run lotteries, horseracing and a few other gambling sources of income for states. How banks comply with the Act has yet to be defined. A government board has till July 2007 to define procedures to comply.
Frist said in a statement, his only planned comment on his decision, "In the Bible, God tells us for everything there is a season, and for me, for now, this season of being an elected official has come to a close. I do not intend to run for president in 2008."
His announcement comes after he spent several years building a foundation for a Republican presidential nomination.
Other Republicans already exploring a White House bid include: Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Also, Mitt Romney, Governor of Massachusetts, is considering pursuing the GOP nomination.
Frist would have had to deal with several ethics controversies in his quest for president.
As reported by CNN: He has a multi-million-dollar fortune gained largely through his ownership of stock in Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), a hospital chain founded by his brother and father. The company later became Columbia/HCA Healthcare.
HCA was the subject of a decade-long federal investigation into double-bookkeeping and suspected criminal fraud involving the bilking of Medicare and other federal health programs. The company has paid $1.7 billion in fines.
In 2005, Frist sold his HCA shares, which had been in a blind trust, at a time when the price of stock shares was peaking and insiders were also selling. Two weeks later the company announced that earnings would not meet expectations, causing a substantial drop in the share price.
For more than a year, Frist has been under investigation by the SEC regarding allegations of insider trading. He has vehemently denied any wrongdoing, although he has not gained the quick resolution of the issue that he had hoped for.
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