The Patriot Economy: Trump, Jesus, Liberty – Ponzi
Edwin Brant Frost IV pleads guilty to a $140 million scheme he peddled on conservative media
“Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” – Samuel Johnson.
You can’t trust banks. You can’t trust liberals. You can’t trust people who don’t believe in Christ. So who you gonna trust?
How about Edwin Brant Frost IV, president of First Liberty Building & Loan in Newnan, Georgia?
He shares your values. He shares your faith. He shares your love of Donald J. Trump. And he’s wants you to join him what he calls “the patriot economy.”
“The only thing more rare than a Christian lawyer is a Christian money lender, and if it’s possible to be one, I am trying to be one,” he explained in a video clip published in The Atlanta-Constitution Journal last year.
It ain’t easy serving God and mammon. Biblically, money lenders rank near the bottom of His list.
But Frost IV raised more than $140 million from about 300 investors pitching a blend of God, patriotism and conservative grievance on conservative media platforms.
Then on Tuesday he pleaded guilty to a single count of wire fraud – a charge that could land him 20 years in prison at age 68.
Prosecutors called First Liberty a Ponzi scheme and say Frost blew $5 million of his investors’ money on himself. His expenses included, $2 million on credit card bills; $230,000 for a vacation home rental in Maine; $140,000 on jewelry; and $20,800 on a Patek Philippe watch …
… because nothing says “God and Country” like buying a Patek Philipp with grandma’s retirement money.
It’s a move straight out of The White Collar Playbook and it often sells on platforms that don’t vet their advertisers very well. In Novemeber 2024, for instance, a New Jersey scam artist went to prison for a $658 million Ponzi scheme that former Fox New host Bill O’Reilly personally endorsed on air.
Michael Tinney, of Cedartown, Georgia told the Associated Press that he invested $600,000 in First Liberty after hearing Hugh Hewitt’s hawk it in his national radio broadcast.
Hewitt called Frost IV “Georgia’s George Bailey,” a reference to the fictional banker who sacrifices his dreams for his community in the 1946 classic film, “It’s A Wonderful Life.”
“I worked my whole life to build up savings and have a little bit of retirement so I could just live comfortably,” Tinney said.
But for anyone who trusted the “George Bailey of Georgia,” it’s not a wonderful life.
