Frist Subpoenaed

Says SEC subpoenas are "routine."

"Senator Frist has been fully cooperating with the authorities conducting the inquiries and will continue to do so. ... The issuance of a subpoena would be an expected and normal part of that process," Stevenson said in a statement.

An SEC spokesman declined to comment.

The subpoena came as questions swirled around Frist's management in recent years of his investments in HCA and other companies through a collection of blind trusts.

Liberal activist group Common Cause Thursday urged the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate "whether Senator Frist violated Senate ethics rules by directing trustees to sell stock held in a blind trust."

The subpoena issuance was first reported by The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

I'm sure that they are routine, Mr. Frist, when you've sold off the stock you owned of your family's ultrarich dollar HMO corporation in a pseudo "blind trust" [that's brokered by your brother], a trade worth up to $6 Million, mere days before stock in that company tanks. The next step in that "routine" is indictment, then, if you're Martha Stewart, imprisonment.