Troubled Waters

The skin is a little more sensitive on the princely Senate majority leader, Bill Frist. Buffeted by the complex politics of his job, he now finds himself the subject of a full-scale investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. A physician, his substantial wealth is partly derived from HCA Inc., a leading managed-care and hospital company founded by his family back home in Tennessee. The SEC is examining Frist's decision to dump all the HCA stock from the "blind trust" in which he placed it after he was elected in 1994. The stock price dropped shortly after the sale. By Frist's account, he decided to initiate the sale last April, and says that he had no information that wasn't available to the public when he did so.

As Frist deals with new questions of insider trading, the White House continues to deal with old questions of insider leaking. The issue: who revealed the classified identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame, wife of Bush administration foe Joe Wilson? Last week Judith Miller, The New York Times reporter who had spent 85 days in jail for refusing to testify on the matter, cut a deal, winning freedom and revealing that her source was the same one others have identified: vice presidential chief of staff Lewis (Scooter) Libby. Miller's testimony is said to be the last being sought by Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor. He is expected to conclude his work soon, and may issue a report. If he does, it can be expected to include potentially embarrassing, if not necessarily criminal, actions and phone calls by insiders such as Libby and Bush political consigliereKarl Rove.

The DeLay indictment has gotten tons of ink. Even before last week, the now suspended majority leader had an astonishingly high "name ID" in the country, and a very low "favorability" rating. But Washington legal experts see the most serious threat to the GOP machinery in the widening federal probes of lobbyist Jack Abramoff. A hustler with ties to conservatives dating to his days in the College Republicans, Abramoff made it his business to do favors for DeLay--from arranging golf trips to sponsoring fund-raisers--in exchange for access to Leadership. If DeLay, as Hill insiders say, rose to power in part by being the "concierge" to House Republicans, Abramoff, in turn, rose by being concierge to the concierge.

Now the deputy concierge is under the microscope. He and a business partner were indicted by a federal grand jury in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., on charges that they tried to fraudulently purchase a fleet of gambling boats from a businessman who was later killed in a gangland-style hit. Abramoff, who denies any wrongdoing, was accused of having used his connections with members of Congress to facilitate the deal.

In Washington, meanwhile, a separate investigation is gathering speed. It has resulted so far in one arrest: David H. Safavian, the head of procurement policy at the Office of Management and Budget. A former lobbying partner of Abramoff's, he is accused of lying to the FBI about the assistance that he had given Abramoff on a lucrative land deal with the General Services Administration. Safavian, who has denied wrongdoing, is expected to be indicted this week. Investigators, NEWSWEEK has learned, are pressing him for information about Abramoff's dealings with members of Congress.

The Abramoff probe, originally centered on allegations that he had fleeced tens of millions of dollars from Indian tribes eager for gaming licenses, has complicated life at the Justice Department. Bush has nominated Timothy Flanigan, who had been deputy White House counsel, to be deputy attorney general--the key No. 2 position. But then Flanigan disclosed to Congress that, as a lawyer for the Tyco Corp., he had hired Abramoff to lobby on an obscure issue, the maintenance of certain offshore tax breaks. (Flanigan also told Congress that he had hired Abramoff in part because of the lobbyist's connection to DeLay.) Tyco paid Abramoff an eye-popping $1.7 million. Abramoff, according to Flanigan, claimed that he had lobbied Rove. (The White House says Rove has "no recollection" of talking to Abramoff about Tyco matters.)