In a recent development, Georgia’s Ethics Commission has raised serious concerns regarding a political action committee associated with an alleged Ponzi scheme. According to a complaint filed on Wednesday, this now-defunct PAC, identified as the Georgia Republican Assembly, made illegal efforts to sway election outcomes between 2021 and 2024.
Leading the committee was Edwin Brant Frost V, related to an individual accused in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit. This lawsuit alleges that the senior Frost orchestrated a scheme to defraud over $140 million from investors. The racket involved a company, First Liberty Building & Loan, which promised substantial returns through high-interest loans to businesses. However, the SEC claims that Edwin Brant Frost IV misappropriated $17 million for personal and family use. This financial mismanagement trickled into political spheres, with more than $1 million purportedly funneled into bolstering the Frost family’s sway in Republican political circles across Georgia, Alabama, Maine, and beyond. However, Wednesday’s complaint raises further queries about the likelihood of undisclosed political financial activities.
The filed complaint suggests that while the PAC could legally contribute to candidates, it did not register as an independent committee to openly campaign for or against them. Nonetheless, it reportedly spent over $220,000 on these endeavors. David Emadi, Executive Director of the Ethics Commission, stated, “The ethics complaint filed today represents our initial charges against the Georgia Republican Assembly-PAC… Our investigation remains ongoing and additional charges may be forthcoming….”
State Representative Dale Washburn echoed these concerns, emphasizing the harm of undisclosed political spending. Washburn, who was targeted in 2022 through mailings cited in the complaint, stated, “The whole dark money thing, where you can attack a candidate with a name that really doesn’t represent who is behind the attack, I think that is a problem and it should be addressed.” No formal criminal charges have been pressed concerning the suspected financial misconduct. Notably, Brant Frost V was not implicated in the SEC’s civil lawsuit; however, recent subpoenas have called for information regarding his actions as a First Liberty employee. He was also known for advocating First Liberty on conservative talk shows, reportedly affecting investor decisions.
Brant Frost V also caught attention by setting up a new lending firm, Heartland Capital LLC, coincidentally right before First Liberty’s collapse. To date, Frost V has not responded to requests for comment, and legal representatives of Frost IV have also been silent.
A clash with another political faction has also surfaced. The PAC’s name resonated with that of the Georgia Republican Assembly, a group advocating for a more conservative shift in the Republican Party. While the group endorsed the PAC financially and otherwise, Nathaniel Darnell, the assembly’s president, asserted the two were distinctly separate. “The entire time the PAC was in operation, the Frosts controlled it with zero oversight from the GRA organization,” Darnell remarked, revealing his own financial loss in First Liberty.
A rift between the Frost family and the GRA became public following a disagreement at the year’s state Republican convention, leading to resignations and expulsions, including that of Katie Frost, Brant Frost V’s sister. Campaign finance records indicate that the Frost family and its connected entities were major donors to the PAC. Their efforts predominantly supported Republican contenders who opposed the late state House Speaker David Ralston, labeled by the GRA as a corrupt moderate. The complaint further discloses undisclosed financial ventures in school board races within the Frosts’ home community of Coweta County and a commissioner race in adjoining Meriwether County.
Washburn, believing he was singled out because of his affiliation with Ralston and his support for specific legislation on in-state tuition for some immigrants in Georgia’s educational institutions, said, “I was kind of taken aback by those mailers when they happened and was honestly angered by them because I thought they were very deceitful and misrepresented some things.”