ATLANTA (AP) — It was a moment of triumph for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Wednesday, as he announced his office had persuaded a securities firm to refund $6.7 million to investors who lost money in an alleged $156 million Ponzi scheme that victimized some in the top ranks of Republican politics in Georgia and Alabama.
While securities regulation has long been a function of Georgia’s secretary of state, Raffensperger has been showcasing his efforts to investigate losses from First Liberty Building & Loan while simultaneously seeking the Republican nomination for governor.
Raffensperger announced that Bankers Life, a unit of Indiana-based CNO Financial Group, would repay what 46 people had invested in First Liberty through Timothy Nathaniel Darnell, one of the firm’s former financial advisers.
“Bankers Life, as a company, chose to do the right thing and help the Georgians who lost everything in this alleged Ponzi scheme,” Raffensperger told reporters.
The company could have faced liability for failing to supervise Darnell and prevent him from selling investments that Bankers Life hadn't approved.
Raffensperger's office has issued $500,000 in civil fines against three people so far and won a rare legislative victory to enhance his power to help victims of securities fraud.
The moves come as Raffensperger runs in a fractious field for a May 19 primary that includes Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, health care entrepreneur Rick Jackson and state Attorney General Chris Carr. They're all bidding to replace Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who is barred from seeking a third term. Many Trump-loyal Republicans despise Raffensperger, who has been best known for refusing Donald Trump’s demand that he “find” votes to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential win in Georgia. The securities case gives him a chance to show himself differently to GOP voters who might remain open to him.
Democrats, meanwhile, hope to win the governor's office in swing-state Georgia for the first time in 24 years. Top Democrats include former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Republican-turned-Democrat Geoff Duncan, former state Sen. Jason Esteves and former state Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond.
First Liberty said it was a lender making high-interest short-term loans to businesses, paying investors up to 16% annual interest. But a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit filed last year claims that company leader and Republican activist Brant Frost IV stole $17 million for himself, his relatives and affiliated companies, and lent millions more that borrowers never repaid.
Among those who lost money were a company run by former Georgia GOP Chairman David Shafer; Alabama state Auditor Andrew Sorrell; and a political action committee controlled by the Republican Sorrell. Party activists have said many grassroots Republicans also lost money, while others were lured by ads on shows hosted by conservatives including Erick Erickson, Hugh Hewitt and Charlie Kirk.
In addition to the civil fines, Raffensperger's office has in recent months asked prosecutors to consider criminal charges against the three people investigators allege helped solicit money for First Liberty. They include Brant Frost V, the son of Brant Frost IV; Fayette County school board member Randy Hough; and Darnell, who is also the president of the Georgia Republican Assembly, a group that seeks to influence state Republican politics.
Frost V and Darnell have denied wrongdoing. Hough hasn't responded to requests for comment. No one has been charged criminally.
A federal judge appointed a receiver who is also trying to get money back for investors. A March 23 receiver's report found First Liberty raised nearly $156 million from investors and paid out $89 million in principal and interest, leaving at least $65 million in losses. The receiver had $5.16 million in cash as of March 23, and was trying to recoup money from nearly 30 unpaid loans by First Liberty.
Ponzi schemes are common. For example, a suburban Atlanta man was convicted in January in a $380 million scheme. But because some First Liberty victims were key Republicans, politicians have been more interested.
State House Republicans sought to strip Raffensperger’s office of securities regulation this year, instead putting state banking regulators in charge. Lawmakers blamed Raffensperger’s office for failing to detect schemes before they imploded. But the secretary of state, frequently a punching bag for Republican legislators, fought off those efforts. Then he won a victory, persuading the General Assembly to pass a bill allowing his office to collect restitution for victims instead of just fining wrongdoers. That measure awaits Kemp's signature or veto.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger speaks during a news conference Wednesday, April 1, 2026, at his office in the state capitol in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jeff Amy)
LONDON (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump says he's strongly considering pulling the United States out of NATO, ratcheting up his criticism of European allies and exposing a wider rift in the trans-Atlantic alliance — this time over the Iran war.
While Trump's talk of a possible NATO pullout dates back years, the comments to The Telegraph newspaper in the U.K., published Wednesday, were among the clearest and most disparaging yet — suggesting that the fracture has deepened perhaps to a point of no return.
Asked whether he would reconsider U.S. membership in the alliance after the conflict in the Middle East ends, Trump replied: “Oh yes, I would say (it’s) beyond reconsideration."
NATO didn't provide immediate comment when contacted by The Associated Press.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that his government was “fully committed to NATO” and called it “the single most effective military alliance the world has ever seen.”
Many European leaders have felt political pressure over the war, which faces opposition in their countries and has sent petroleum prices soaring as Iran has effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil passes.
“Whatever the pressure on me and others, whatever the noise, I am going to act in the British national interest in all the decisions I make,” Starmer said Wednesday.
The U.K. is working on plans that could help assuage Trump, and Starmer said military planners will work on a postwar security plan for the Strait.
On Thursday, British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper will host a virtual meeting of 35 countries that have signed up to help ensure security for shipping in the Strait — after the fighting ends.
Iulia-Sabina Joja, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, alluded to Trump's exhortation on Tuesday for allies to “go get your own oil” — in a social media post insisting it wasn't America's job to secure the Strait.
“The Europeans are not keen to go into an active warfare situation, to so-called ‘get’ their energy out of the Strait,” said Joba, a former deputy project manager at NATO Allied Command Transformation in Virginia.
Long-simmering tensions within the alliance have bubbled up again over the war.
As energy prices have spiked, Trump has been desperate to get countries to send their ships to the Strait of Hormuz. He has called NATO allies “cowards."
Even since his first term, Trump has urged the allies to assume greater responsibility for their own security and spend more on defense. He has argued that the U.S. has done more for them than the other way around.
A U.S. pullout would essentially spell the end of NATO, which flourished for decades under American leadership.
Speaking Tuesday on Fox News, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said: “I do think, unfortunately, we are going to have to reexamine whether or not this alliance that has served this country well for a while is still serving that purpose.”
Rubio raised questions with interviewer Sean Hannity about whether NATO has “become a one-way street where America is simply in a position to defend Europe — but when we need the help of our allies, they’re going to deny us basing rights and they’re going to deny us overflight.”
The criticism from Rubio could raise concerns in the alliance about whether the U.S. under Trump may no longer consider NATO as worth the time, money and personnel that Washington has invested in it.
The very mention of a pullout could weaken the alliance’s deterrence, particularly with Russia: It relies on ensuring that Russian President Vladimir Putin believes NATO will retaliate if he decides to one day expand Moscow's war in Ukraine.
NATO is built on Article 5 of its founding treaty, which pledges that an attack on any one member will be met with a response from them all.
As the Iran war has spread, missiles and drones have been fired toward NATO member Turkey and a British military base on Cyprus, fueling speculation about what might prompt NATO to trigger its collective security guarantee and come to their rescue.
The alliance hasn't intervened or signaled any plan to. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte — who has voiced support for Trump and Washington's role in the alliance — has been focusing mostly on the Russia-Ukraine war since Ukraine borders four NATO countries.
NATO operates uniquely by consensus. All 32 countries must agree for it to take decisions, so political priorities play a role. Even invoking Article 5 requires agreement among the allies. Turkey or the U.K. can't trigger it alone.
The U.S. can’t just simply walk away all that easy.
A Defense Act passed under U.S. President Joe Biden in 2024 prevents an American president from withdrawing from NATO without support of two-thirds of the Senate or under another act by Congress. It is unclear whether the Trump administration, which during his first term claimed broader authority on the matter, would challenge that law.
European leaders have called for the Middle East conflict to stop and want the U.S. and Iran to return to negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program, which Washington and Israel see as a threat.
The vocal opposition in Europe to Trump's war against Iran has started to turn into action.
Spain has closed its airspace to U.S. planes involved in the war.
Early last month, France agreed to let the U.S. Air Force use a base in southern France after receiving a “full guarantee” from the United States that planes not involved in carrying out strikes against Iran would land there.
The government of Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, long seen as one of the European Union leaders with the best personal ties with Trump, denied permission for U.S. bombers to land at the Sigonella air base in Sicily for one mission related to the Middle East.
Franco Pavoncello, a professor of political science at Rome’s John Cabot University, said that decision might cost Meloni a lot of her political capital in Washington.
But he said: “The Italian government could not be seen by the European allies as too submissive to American interests, as it would have very negative repercussions both at home and in the EU.”
U.S. relations with Europe had already soured in recent months over Trump's call for Greenland — a semiautonomous territory of stalwart NATO ally Denmark — to become part of the United States, prompting many EU countries to rally behind Copenhagen.
Jamey Keaten reported from Geneva. Lorne Cook in Brussels, Giada Zampano in Rome, Sam McNeil in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Matthew Lee in Washington, contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump answers questions from reporters after signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks during a press conference at Downing Street in London, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, Pool)
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks during a press conference at Downing Street in London, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, Pool)
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks during a press conference at Downing Street in London, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, Pool)
