Another GOP Crook:

Frist's Finances Questioned; Experts See Violation of Campaign Rules

Hundreds of thousands of dollars Frist's supporters had given him to run for the Senate were dwindling at a rapid rate. Much of that money was lost in a stock market investment that experts say was out of line with the way candidates traditionally invest campaign funds. Frist's campaign also took on more than $1 million in debt so that it could repay Frist for interest-free loans he made to his campaign six years earlier.

And then, in a decision experts say violated federal campaign regulations, Frist filed reports with the Federal Elections Commission that made it difficult for his contributors and political foes to determine just how bad off his campaign finances were.

Frist's aides, who have given contradictory responses to questions about Frist's finances, deny any wrongdoing. They said Frist, now Senate majority leader, acted within the law and in line with long-accepted campaign practices.

"There's nothing mismanaged about the funds," said Linus Catignani, Frist's longtime finance director.

Through his office, Frist declined several interview requests made over the past two weeks.

The Frist campaign's reversal of fortunes, traced through bank documents and often incomplete and inaccurate campaign disclosure forms, centers on three key decisions Frist made in 2000 that ultimately drained away much of the money entrusted to him by his supporters.

The situation raises the question of whether Frist, the scion of a wealthy Nashville family and one of the South's premier heart-lung transplant surgeons, was cavalier with other people's money while protecting his own.