Ethics Watchdog Knocks, GRA Pretends It Doesn’t Live There

Well, well, well.

The Georgia Republican Assembly, my favorite group of Goofballs, Rejects, and A-holes (sorry, Ms. Lora) and self-appointed guardians of Republican purity are suddenly playing dumb about a PAC that’s been operating under their own name, logo, and banner for years.

According to a newly released complaint from the Georgia State Ethics Commission, the GRA PAC blew off every basic campaign finance requirement you can imagine. No registration. No disclosures. No itemized expenditures. Just raw, unaccountable political spending cloaked in righteous indignation.

According to the complaint, the GRA PAC never registered as an Independent Expenditure committee (IE) with the state. That’s campaign finance rule number one. You don’t get to raise and spend money in elections and just forget to tell anyone about it. That’s not a paperwork error, that’s operating in stealth mode.

A PAC (Political Action Committee) is generally set up to raise and spend money to support or oppose candidates, often coordinating directly with campaigns through contributions or grassroots efforts. An IE, by contrast, can spend unlimited amounts to advocate for or against candidates, but it must do so completely independently. No coordination with the candidate or their campaign is allowed. While both must follow strict reporting rules, IEs are especially scrutinized for transparency since they often fund attack ads and outside spending that can influence elections without voters knowing who’s really behind it.

The complaint states the GRA PAC “failed to register with the Commission in any capacity” and “did not file a single campaign contribution disclosure report,” all while “engaging in multiple political activities including mailers, robocalls, and digital ads.” Over a multi-year period, the PAC blew off at least twenty-three required disclosures; no donors listed, no expenditures reported, just a fog machine of righteous indignation and zero transparency. A ghost PAC.

So now that the SEC and State Ethics Commission are circling like buzzards, the GRA leadership would like you to know they were shocked to discover this PAC even existed. They passed a resolution trying to wipe their hands clean, claiming the GRA PAC was totally independent. No connection. Just a guy named Brant Frost V, Cinco, doing his own thing.

Puh. Leeeese.

Let’s start with the obvious: the PAC wasn’t some rogue splinter group. It was pitched at official GRA chapter meetings, according to former GRA insider Sam Thomas. And here’s the kicker: the GRA’s official website used to have a dedicated donation page for the PAC. Don’t take my word for it because they were, until recently, pushing it on their own GRA website. See for yourself here: Wayback Machine, dated April 2025:

So now the GRA wants to act like they barely knew the PAC existed, like it was some long-lost cousin who just showed up at Thanksgiving with a checkbook and a megaphone. But the Wayback Machine tells a different story.

Here’s what the GRA’s website actually said, and I’m quoting:

“GRA-PAC is your very own personal ‘RINO insurance policy’ where you can rest easy knowing that your money is working for you.”

It also promised that every donor would have “active input on all endorsements and contributions,” and even bragged that it was “a PAC run by the grassroots, for the grassroots.” Not just Cinco.

Then, almost as an afterthought, came the fig leaf: “GRA-PAC is an independent committee and not directly controlled by the GRA. We are proud to partner with them to help elect grassroots candidates.” Emphasis mine.

That line about being independent is as convincing as a drunk guy telling the cop, “I’m not driving! I’m just steering while the car rolls downhill.” You don’t get to “partner” with something that’s supposedly independent, slap your name all over it, promote it at official meetings, and then feign ignorance when the State Ethics Commission comes knocking.

If you promote it, fundraise for it, and direct donors to it from your own website, you own it. Legally or not, politically you absolutely do.

If this PAC was a Tinder date, the GRA took it home, gave it a drawer, and let it crash on the couch for three years. (I’ve been married for almost 30 years, someone younger from our readership drop a comment below to let me know if I used the reference correctly).

Now that the money trail is radioactive, they want to pretend it was a one-night stand.

Look, we’re not new here. Political orgs sometimes spin off PACs to do the dirty work while the parent group keeps its hands technically clean. It happens. The GRA just got lazy. They didn’t even bother to draw the line and they let the PAC share the family name, the logo, the website, the meetings. It was all fine until the Frost Ponzi scheme, federal investigators, and the ethics complaint came crashing through the front door.

Now they’re playing a shell game with accountability.

Here’s the hard truth: when you use a PAC to boost your preferred candidates, collect donations through your official website, and let your vice chairman run the thing, you don’t get to later claim “we barely knew her.” Either they knew and approved, or they didn’t know and failed to supervise. Pick your poison. But either way, they’re responsible, one might even say… accountable.

If the GRA was being honest they’d own up to the fact that the PAC’s existence served the GRA’s political goals. It attacked candidates they didn’t like. It helped ones they did. It acted as an unofficial enforcement arm for their internal purity tests. Now that it’s a legal liability, they want to call it an unauthorized side hustle.

Nice try.

Either the GRA knew what the PAC was doing and are now lying about it or they didn’t know and failed completely in overseeing the use of their own name and platform. There’s no version of this where they come out looking like responsible stewards of conservative principles.

The Ethics Commission isn’t buying it, and neither should anyone else because Cinco may have lit the match, but the GRA built the bonfire and handed him the gas can. I think we can expect this to be just the opening salvo, because the Head of the State Ethics Commission, David Emadi, told us, “”The ethics complaint filed today represent our initial charges against the Georgia Republican Assembly – PAC. Our investigation remains ongoing and additional charges may be coming at a future date, but we intend to aggressively pursue all violations of Georgia law committed by the GRA which illegally influenced elections in 2022 and 2024.”

Read the complaint for yourself here: