The Georgia Hour, episode 128: Nathaniel Darnell’s First Liberty Referrals Under Fire: Will More Be Caught in Ponzi Scheme?

Nathaniel Dar­nell, pres­i­dent of the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Assem­bly (GRA) and NFRA mem­ber­ship sec­re­tary, faces scruti­ny over alleged refer­rals to First Lib­er­ty Build­ing & Loan, a $140M Ponzi scheme tied to the Frost fam­i­ly. As a Finan­cial Advi­sor for Bankers Life, Dar­nell pro­mot­ed First Lib­er­ty to investors. Did Darnell’s refer­rals fuel the fraud? Explore his dual roles in GRA and NFRA amid Georgia’s unfold­ing polit­i­cal and finan­cial con­tro­ver­sy. Who took the bonus refer­ral fee?

• Hous­ton Gaines ready to go to DC as Bri­an Kemp’s can­di­date, well fund­ed, well pro­duced cam­paign video. Bri­an Kemp is deter­mined to con­trol every race in the state he can. He wants Derek Doo­ley to run for Sen­ate. Remem­ber he told the donors to not write their checks just yet. Go check to see if one of the Kemp girls run­ning a dona­tion cam­paign. Could this fam­i­ly receive mil­lions into their pock­et? 
• The bat­tle lines have been drawn. Mike Collins has been call­ing all the state sen­a­tors and state reps for endorse­ment. Every­one that does this is a bat­tle line. Kemp is nudg­ing peo­ple through avenues. 
• Press Release: Dax­land run­ning for Maine House, what does it have to do with Geor­gia? It has been a mys­tery until yes­ter­day why Maine. We have a prob­lem. Nation­al Fed­er­a­tion of Repub­li­can Assem­bly. What you hear all the time is the GRA, which is the chap­ter of the NFRA. Alex John­son is the pres­i­dent of the NFRA. You can’t tell me that some­one didn’t know or didn’t ask ques­tions with­in the cir­cle. When it gets to the GRA, just recent­ly the Frost fam­i­ly resigned. For years they want­ed to have total con­trol of the GRA. They start­ed the GRA PAC and Brant Frost V is in charge of that. The GRA would have to send out emails to say it was not relat­ed to the GRA. Nathaniel Dar­nell is the mem­ber­ship sec­re­tary. How many peo­ple in the state of GA took advan­tage of the Brant V bonus pro­gram of refer­ring clients. Now Mary Lou Dax­land was Vice Pres­i­dent from Maine of the NFRA. Did First Lib­er­ty or some­one from the Frost fam­i­ly send Maine repub­li­can par­ty mon­ey? The NFRA and GRA have stepped into some­thing they may not be able to step out of. 
• The Peach Pun­dit put out an arti­cle: Frosto­pus: refer­ral fees, bro­ker rules and the role of Nathaniel Dar­nell. Who referred to the Frost fam­i­ly? It gets a lit­tle sketchy if you are refer­ring to the Ponzi scheme, or when you mix pol­i­tics and polit­i­cal par­ties. Appar­ent­ly Brant V offered pay­ment to a person..Nathaniel Dar­nell or Tim­o­thy Dar­nell is a finan­cial advi­sor, he is licensed. 
• Wolper Law firm is inves­ti­gat­ing the alleged First LIb­er­ty Build­ing and Loan LLC and Edwin Frost Ponzi scheme. They already have the vic­tim’s tes­ti­monies. Upon infor­ma­tion and belief, Edwin Frost and First Lib­er­ty uti­lized a net­work of reg­is­tered and unreg­is­tered sales agents to sell promis­so­ry notes and loan par­tic­i­pa­tion agree­ments to retail secu­ri­ties investors. The invest­ment returns were noth­ing more than cap­i­tal raised from oth­er investors –clas­sic Ponzi schemes. The reg­is­tered sales agents worked for FINRA mem­ber bro­ker­age firms which may be held finan­cial­ly respon­si­ble for the mis­con­duct of their reg­is­tered finan­cial pro­fes­sion­als. The Wolper Law Firm has heard from clients of Bankers LIfe Secu­ri­ties who were rec­om­mend­ed to invest in First LIb­er­ty through finan­cial advi­sor Tim­o­thy Nathaniel Dar­nell. Was Nathaniel com­pen­sat­ed for the refer­rals? The SEC will put this on your file and may pro­hib­it you from trad­ing in the future. The next shoe to drop is whistle­blow­ers. 
• Why will the GAGOP not take on the Frost fam­i­ly? The law firm put out Nathaniel Dar­nell name’s out who is the pres­i­dent of the GRA and mem­ber­ship sec­re­tary of the NFRA under Alex John­son as pres­i­dent. 
• The inter­view from the SOS office said that the vic­tims are 70–80 year olds and the vic­tims are in tears giv­ing their tes­ti­mo­ny. And over and over is how the Frost fam­i­ly used chris­tian­i­ty, reli­gion, pol­i­tics and patri­o­tism to trust them. It was almost like they were on a mis­sion from God. 
• Brant Frost IV is not the only one involved; there are oth­ers. What lines will Brant V cross? 
• Jason Shep­pard has turned over all his com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Brant Frost V to inves­ti­ga­tors. Brant V is try­ing to get Jason Shep­pard to the busi­ness. The com­mu­ni­ca­tion that Brant has to Jason is tied to repub­li­can par­ty pol­i­tics. We know that Brant V solicit­ed First Lib­er­ty Build­ing and Loan to all the state del­e­gate and state com­mit­tee mem­bers and state exec­u­tive mem­bers and the for­mer chair­man of the GAGOP. You want me to believe that he stopped there? That he didn’t solic­it Josh McK­oon? The Josh McK­oon that may have been involved in a court case with the Cowe­ta coun­ty board of edu­ca­tion where Josh McK­oon rep­re­sent­ed Frost in a law­suit. The same Josh McK­oon that was in the office of the insur­ance com­mis­sion­er under  Jim Beck who was sen­tenced to fed­er­al prison in 2021 for steal­ing over $2.5 mil­lion. The same Josh McK­oon that went into the defense of Brant Frost V. Josh McK­oon the chair­man of the GAGOP will not make a state­ment or ask them to leave the GAGOP. He will not stand up to the Frost fam­i­ly. Josh has con­tacts all over the coun­try. He knows some very wealthy peo­ple. Josh knows peo­ple. 
• How many peo­ple did Brant V solic­it with the text mes­sage for refer­ral bonus? 
• State alleges First Lib­er­ty-linked PAC ille­gal­ly influ­enced elec­tions. The State Eth­ic com­mis­sion on Wednes­day accused a con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal action com­mit­tee of 61 vio­la­tions of Geor­gia law in a case stem­ming from the col­lapse of First Lib­er­ty Build­ing & Loan. There are a lot of inves­ti­ga­tions going on from this col­lapse. There needs to be an inves­ti­ga­tion of GAGOP. Josh McK­oon was a mem­ber of the GRA up to two weeks before this col­lapse. The GRA PAC failed to report twins of thou­sands of dol­lars worth of cam­paign expen­di­tures, failed to file numer­ous required cam­paign reports and failed to prop­er­ly reg­is­ter as an inde­pen­dent polit­i­cal com­mit­tee before accept­ing con­tri­bu­tions accord­ing to the com­plaint. The frost fam­i­ly donat­ed $162K into the PAC. The ethics com­plaint filed today rep­re­sents the ini­tial charges against the GRA PAC. The inves­ti­ga­tion remains ongo­ing and addi­tion­al charges may be com­ing. All vio­la­tions of Geor­gia law com­mit­ted by the GRA which ille­gal­ly influ­enced elec­tions in 2022 and 2024 will be pur­sued by the ethics com­mis­sion.