Frist, DeLay Fend Off Probes Into Ethics

Frist, DeLay Fend Off Probes Into Ethics: "Heading into a midterm election year, Republicans find themselves with not one, but two congressional leaders — Bill Frist in the Senate and Tom DeLay in the House — fending off questions of ethical improprieties.

The news that federal prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission are looking into Frist's sale of stock in HCA Inc., the hospital operating company founded by his family, comes as a criminal investigation continues of Jack Abramoff, a high-powered Republican lobbyist, and his ties to DeLay of Texas.

Less than a week ago, a former White House official was arrested in the Abramoff investigation.

For Republicans, the timing couldn't be worse.

'The last thing you needed was a Martha Stewart problem,' Marshall Wittman, a one-time conservative activist who now works for the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, said of Frist. 'He doesn't even have a good clothing line or a popular television show.'"