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The Georgia GOP had released that Brant Frost V was resigning from his chair position of the Coweta GOP. Before he actually resigned at their recent meeting on August 28, he entrenched his leadership with a district committee placement and left himself a vote in the Coweta GOP by changing a set of rules in his own favor to add a past-chair seat to the committee.
Normally, leadership continuity would be a positive thing for an organization, but not when the Coweta GOP needs to distance itself from a leader embroiled in a massive Ponzi scheme scandal with his family business, First Liberty Building and Loan, according to Georgia State Representative Josh Bonner.
To recap, First Liberty Building and Loan has an SEC consent judgement against it and is in receivership for bilking some 300 investors out of approximately $140 million. The criminal charges from this case have not yet been filed, so it remains to be seen whether Brant Frost V, who worked for the business his father Brant Frost IV ran, will face criminal charges. Brant Frost IV’s assets have been frozen, and the First Liberty business, which often touted its conservative ideals and connections, has been completely shut down by the SEC and the Georgia Secretary of State.
Rep. Josh Bonner, whose District 73 has a large part of Coweta County (in addition to much of Fayette), was present there for the Coweta GOP leadership transition on August 28. He explained it like this, “What would’ve certainly been the best-case scenario would’ve been for Brant to completely resign and just remove himself from the party completely. The legal process will play out regarding his company, but there’s enough to cloud that whole situation. When you become the story and you represent an organization, it impacts your ability to adequately represent that organization. In the best-case scenario, he would’ve stepped aside. He would’ve said, look, ‘While I admit to doing no wrong, I realized that this has created a lot of controversy and has put a lot of focus on me as an individual and our family. And we want this party to succeed. We want all the Republican ideals that we’ve espoused all these years to be implemented and see these great things here in Coweta.’”
Rep. Bonner continued to describe what he wished had happened. “He would’ve shown a little bit of humility. He would’ve brought the party back together, bowed out gracefully and allowed the party to continue in a positive direction.”
Because Brant Frost V didn’t do that, Bonner described the community and outcome. “Coweta is a very heavily Republican area, very conservative. They came through in a big way for Governor Kemp, for President Trump. There’s a lot of folks in Coweta that want to be a part of an active GOP, but right now that’s being hindered by that cloud that’s over it.”
Rep. Bonner feels like the cloud that Frost has left hanging over Coweta and his continued presence may hinder the next leader, who was voted in unanimously in the recent meeting. “Nina Blackwelder, who was nominated and voted in as chairman, is a wonderful person, has been very active in Republican politics and in the county, and in the state. She is very well liked, very smart, great personality, very engaging, and is in my mind exactly the kind of person that’s needed in that position. And so that was a real positive. But again, the challenge is that the chairman is also a part of the committee. And oftentimes if the committee rules one way and doesn’t allow the chairman to implement what she’d like, then things won’t change.”
The Coweta GOP doesn’t just have Brant Frost V in an active voting role on the committee, his mom Krista Frost is still also in a voting role. “I think the best scenario, frankly, for he and his family and the party is for them to completely step aside,” said Rep. Bonner.
He continued that their contribution to the Republican Party shouldn’t be discounted, however, “You just kind of wonder why they would choose to continue to be in the mix when there’s this level of controversy. It’s not like it’s just a bad reputation. There’s potential jail time. I mean, we know for a fact that there are people that have lost millions of dollars. We know that for a fact. We know that they have given hundreds of thousands of dollars out to candidates and to nonprofits. That was not their money. That was investors’ money. I mean, these are all things we know. And so just those facts alone to me are enough to say we got to step aside.”
While he never received any campaign donations from the Frost family or any affiliated First Libery company, Bonner said that he has met with constituents who were bilked by the First Liberty fraud, one on the morning of our interview.
None of Bonner’s family fell prey to the scam, although they were given the First Liberty pitch which he said sounded “too good to be true.” Bonner also has friends in the Republican Party who fell victim.
Rep. Bonner noted that besides appealing to conservative Republicans, they made a lot of pitches in churches. “It was such a compelling pitch because if you hear something on a radio program that you already resonate with, and you think, ‘Okay, they’re our kind of people. They’re one of us. This is a good Christian man that is pitching this investment opportunity, and I want to be a part of it.’”
Rep. Bonner referenced some of the ways that the Frost taint could impact the Coweta GOP, “Your local party’s main reason for existence is to identify, recruit, train either Republican or Democrat candidates and get those people elected to office. And when you can’t do those things because nobody wants to show up or there’s all this negative press, you’ve just made yourself irrelevant and you’ve left a gap. You have all of these people that would vote Republican and would come out to the polls and do all these things, and you’ve now taken away the ability to organize and influence all of those folks.”
The Frost family indicated that power was more important than the party. “They’ve taken what could have been a pretty decent legacy in state politics and really turned it into something bizarre and tragic,” said Rep Bonner.
Because First Liberty is a Building and Loan, like George Bailey’s in the movie, Bonner quipped that this was the “alternative ending to It’s a Wonderful Life. George’s family ended up in Aruba.” Bonner is referencing the lavish trips that the Frosts are rumored to have, including month-long vacations in Kennebunkport, Maine, and their penchant for luxury cars like Aston Martins and Range Rovers.
Bonner explained that there are people within Coweta starting an alternative Republican group, because they no longer trust the Coweta GOP that Brant Frost V was chair of for twelve years and has not left, even with scandal.
New Coweta GOP chair Nina Blackwelder said, “Becoming chairman of a deeply divided party is burdensome and taxing and there is no win. It’s just degrees of bad.”
In order to bring the county together Blackwelder is planning a rebrand. She said, “The county party is going through a facelift, new website, new welcoming space and persona, really getting people involved from all perspectives and returning to big tent ideology. We have a new website coming. We’re moving away from Coweta GOP and moving into Coweta Republican Party.”
Blackwelder had also previously run for state office. She had not received any donations from the Frost family or their associated groups or businesses. She had, however, like Rep. Bonner, gotten a pitch for a First Liberty “investment” opportunity. She said they were offering a 16% return on a short-term bridge loan investment. Blackwelder declined to participate.
Blackwelder, in a previous story with The Citizen, expressed that her main goal was to get Republicans elected. That goal remains, but she is also interested in getting Cowetans to step into leadership in a way that will be transformative for the party that represents 57,000 Republicans in Coweta County. She invites the community to come to the next meeting on Saturday, September 13 at 10 a.m. at Coweta Community Church, 310 Millard Farmer Industrial Blvd, Newnan.
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