How Sacramento County Supervisor Sue Frost was caught collaborating with extremists

Sacramento County Supervisor Sue Frost has done it again. Or rather, she has done something so preposterous (again) that it’s hard to believe that Frost is an elected official in Sacramento.

The supervisor who refuses to wear a mask at indoor meetings, in violation of county COVID-19 guidelines, has previously undermined the county health officer and trafficked in wild coronavirus conspiracy theories — but now she’s really hit the alt-right mother lode.

Frost has been messaging conspiracy theorists and Freedom Angels organizers to coordinate support for a U.S. version of Ottawa’s “Freedom Convoy” via a popular app for right-wing groups, Telegram.

In an undated message shared by anonymous Twitter user @Borwin10 — who regularly posts screenshots of extremist messages created on private apps such as Telegram and Parler — Frost identifies herself as a “freedom fighter” who is “communicating with many freedom groups who want to support the convoy.”

Frost also tags her non-profit organization, Gorilla Learning Institute, based in Citrus Heights. Frost is the former Citrus Heights mayor.

The messages were verified by Frost’s spokesman, Matt Hedges, who added that Frost “had absolutely no idea there (were) Proud Boys or violent extremists involved in that kind of stuff.”

“I support ending the COVID-19 restrictions, and getting life back to normal so our businesses can thrive and children can go to school without having to wear a mask,” Frost said in a statement to The Bee. “But I absolutely denounce any violent extremists groups and want no association with them.”

The Freedom Convoy is a Canadian-based demonstration that began in protest of a requirement that truckers returning from the U.S. show proof of COVID-19 vaccinations. It has since evolved into a general protest of pandemic regulations, mainly involving far-right and extremist groups.

The Canadian protest has inspired American extremist groups to use messenger apps such as Telegram to begin coordinating a similar protest in the U.S.

Hedges said Frost “doesn’t agree with the mandates in general and thinks life should go back to normal and wants to work to secure that, but she does not associate with any groups that are violent or have a history of violence.”

Hedges also said that Frost left the Telegram groups in question as of Wednesday morning, although The Bee cannot independently confirm this without access to the groups.

“She just had no idea that those kinds of people were involved,” Hedges said. “That’s not who she stands up for in the slightest.”

None of this is shocking to anyone aware of Frost’s anti-vaxxing and masking antics. She’s displayed support for extremist ideologies throughout the pandemic.

The 4th District County Supervisor has a long history of flouting mandatory mask regulations at supervisors’ meetings. She was the subject of a recent board resolution committing board members to promoting science-based information related to COVID-19.

Frost had allowed misinformation to run wild at meetings when she was the board chair. Naturally, she was the only board member to oppose a resolution embracing science and facts.

The notion that Frost could have “no idea” that far-right extremists are involved in efforts to replicate the “Freedom Convoy” in the U.S. is ludicrous.

Public screenshots indicate that she was invited to a Northern California-specific Telegram group by Gabrielle Ingram, who participated in a December 2020 demonstration where protesters stormed into a supervisors’ meeting and shut it down as they were considering whether to impose fines on businesses that violated COVID restrictions.

Some members of the Freedom Angels, an anti-vaccination group, participated in a violent rally in 2020 in front of the California Capitol building. Frost attended a Roseville rally in August of 2021 where she cast doubt on COVID vaccines. A Bee story said Frost also repeated debunked theories “that ‘forcing’ people to get a vaccine violates the Nuremberg Code, a set of ethical principles created in the wake of Nazi medical experimentation on humans.”

In another message to the Sacramento-specific group chat on Telegram, Frost mentions being in direct contact with Denise Aguilar, a co-founder of Freedom Angels, and talks about how she has coordinated supply drop-off points and storage and ordered a banner. Frost also says that she can use her experience in marketing to work on messaging for the group.

In another chat group on Telegram, Frost shared a 70-page manifesto from another author that repeats anti-Semitic tropes and claims viral diseases such as COVID-19 are not real.

Either Frost’s claims that she was unaware she was communicating with far-right extremists are outright lies, or she is so hapless that she ignored the clear signs of anti-Semitism, hatred, violence and extremist rhetoric linked to the very same people she was trying to engage and recruit.

This means we either have an elected leader in a county of 1.5 million people who is too inept to know when she’s affiliating with far-right militia groups, or one who thinks lying about it is enough to clear her from responsibility.