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For the better part of a year, South Carolina Senator and longshot 2026 gubernatorial candidate Josh Kimbrell has strenuously denied allegations that he stole millions from a private charter aviation company he once managed.
Conspicuously absent from the senator’s increasingly erratic protestations across social media and beyond, however, is any mention of a federal inquiry that multiple sources have described to FITSNews with confidence.
Those same sources attributed the reported inquiry to Kimbrell’s time at Exodus Aircraft, LLC, the company from which the lawmaker was ordered to surrender his 50% stake following a civil lawsuit filed in July 2025 which accused him of diverting more than $2 million from its coffers.
The same lawsuit alleged Kimbrell siphoned corporate funds through a “series of complex financial transactions” that evidently weren’t complex enough, as civil filings indicate at least $1.2 million was routed directly into a bogus aviation company he co-founded with his wife, Liliya Kimbrell.
Those diverted funds, on top of hundreds of thousands allegedly funneled into the Kimbrells’ PayPal accounts (of which deposition transcripts confirm Liliya Kimbrell could not account for at least $150,000), purportedly left Exodus on the brink of total collapse before the senator’s ouster last summer.
While it remains unclear when the civil matter escalated to a potentially criminal one, sources say it became apparent when agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted at least one interview with a principal figure connected to the litigation.
The FBI, for its part, told FITSNews it was “unable to confirm” the existence of a federal probe.
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A PAPER PLANE…
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At the epicenter of what has become an increasingly litigious saga, one in which the Kimbrell’s have already been held in contempt on the civil side for deleting emails and withholding corporate records, is the plaintiff behind last year’s lawsuit: Frank George Rogers.
Up until litigation, Rogers held a 50% stake in Exodus Aircraft alongside Kimbrell – a Spartanburg-area Republican he reportedly considered “like a son.” And despite allegedly bankrolling the bulk of the operation, sources tell FITSNews Rogers was deliberately kept in the dark — by Kimbrell — about the company’s so-called “investors.”
“A good portion of the investors were shocked because they didn’t even know that Frank was an owner,” a source familiar with Exodus Aircraft told FITSNews. “They were told that Josh owned 100%… He added this whole stable of guys that Frank didn’t even know about.”
The so-called investors, it turned out, weren’t the only ones flying blind.
Rogers’ attorney, former 13th Circuit Solicitor Walt Wilkins, alleged in last year’s lawsuit that Kimbrell covertly created Exodus Airways — a bogus aviation company bearing a strikingly similar name to Exodus Aircraft — then used it to drain the charter company’s coffers right out from under his own business partner.
“Kimbrell chose the name Exodus Airways to prompt customers and third parties into mistakenly concluding Exodus Airways and Exodus Aircraft were the same entity so as to avoid detection of his fraudulent scheme,” Wilkins wrote in July 2025.
For all of Kimbrell’s alleged efforts to pass Exodus Airways off as Exodus Aircraft, a source familiar with the politician said they observed mail for both companies — along with what they described as Kimbrell’s “Senator stuff” — all routed through a single P.O. box at the airport.
The same source noted that a blue Exodus Aircraft credit card, the existence of which was reportedly unknown to Rogers and his team, was later discovered in the overhead compartment of the charter jet’s galley.
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The credit card’s discovery is of particular interest given that multiple contractors who performed work for Exodus Aircraft tell FITSNews that Kimbrell never once used a company card to pay them. Instead, the senator purportedly routed any and all payments through his personal PayPal.
“That was the weirdest thing to us,” one contractor told FITSNews. “We all had to set up a PayPal just for him. Nobody else paid that way.”
The contractor further noted that “pay” is a generous term. Kimbrell, he alleges, always doled out just enough to keep him from walking without ever settling the full balance. By the time the civil suit was filed, the source says, the lawmaker owed his company roughly $40,000.
“We’re still dealing with that,” the contractor added. “I could think of a lot of bad words to say about him. But he’s a politician, right? So, as politicians do, he’s a liar.”
Adding to the intrigue, a source familiar with Exodus Aircraft’s books tells FITSNews that Kimbrell had logged roughly $36,000 in payments to that same contractor over the very period the contractor claims his balance was running in the negative.
Those revelations, as well as many more spanning from Greenville County to a scorned records holder in California, sources say, didn’t surface until Rogers finally wrested control of his own company.
The intervention appears to have come just in time, as lawsuits filed against Rogers — by Kimbrell’s allies — reveal he had been in talks to sell Exodus to an Arkansas-based logistics company, a deal that could have passed any potential debt to an unsuspecting buyer.
“If Frank George Rogers didn’t step in when he did, Exodus wouldn’t have made it to October,” another source told FITSNews. “They were out of money. That’s how close they were to closing the doors.”
For months after Kimbrell’s ouster, sources allege, virtually every dollar Exodus Aircraft made went toward retiring the debts the senator had allegedly run up, with six-figure fines and fees still being levied against the company as recently as this month.
As for where the company’s money went, that remains the $2 million question.
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BURNING THROUGH EXODUS…
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Following the money has proven no easy task, as the Kimbrells have violated multiple court orders since becoming defendants last July, allegedly purging company records in the immediate wake of being sued, and thereafter failing to produce a single document in response to discovery requests.
A series of sworn affidavits and a subsequent contempt order bear that out.
Both an Exodus Aircraft employee and two third-party experts submitted affidavits concluding Kimbrell had deleted emails following a temporary restraining order, with court filings placing that number at 246. His wife, according to the same round of filings, “deleted and purged” every email in the order’s immediate wake.
“I can state definitively that hundreds, and possibly thousands, of emails that were in the mailboxes of Josh and Liliya Kimbrell in June 2025 are no longer there,” a forensic expert swore in a court filing. “I am unable to recover the deleted information.”
A separate expert’s affidavit added that Kimbrell and his wife “did, in fact, contact customers, investors, vendors and other individuals” following their ouster.
What those communications contained remains unknown. Neither Kimbrell nor his wife has produced a single document in response to discovery requests seeking “investor” correspondence, employee communications, bank statements, financial transactions and much, much more.
For those defiances, the Kimbrells were held in contempt of court in March and ordered to pay at least $9,268 to the plaintiffs. Only afterward did Kimbrell’s attorney, Douglas Brannon, file a motion seeking additional time to comply with outstanding discovery requests.
The why, sources suggest, isn’t much of a mystery.
“Those records are probably incriminating,” one source told FITSNews.“Which is probably why Josh took a contempt of court charge. It’s a hell of a lot better than whatever’s in them… Assuming they even exist anymore.”
What has surfaced, however, already reeks of… political opportunism. Rogers’ lawsuit cites business records confirming Kimbrell used Exodus funds to “support his political aspirations,” including “unauthorized expenditures” of corporate funds to cover campaign expenses.
Sources tell FITSNews the concerns extend further still, with a former business partner suggesting Kimbrell may have used Exodus Aircraft resources to campaign for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis during his 2024 presidential bid.
“[Kimbrell] thought if DeSantis became president, that was going to help him win the governor’s race here in South Carolina,” one source familiar with Kimbrell said. “But here he is running anyway.”
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Whether Exodus resources were truly involved in the 2024 presidential campaign remains unclear, though social media postings from that period confirm Kimbrell was a frequent presence at DeSantis’ campaign events, including at least one stop in Iowa where he told the crowd he had “flown” in to attend.
DeSantis’ communications office did not respond to a request for comment.
Among other trips of note was a Memorial Day 2025 flight to Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, one Kimbrell himself documented on social media. Sources allege Exodus resources — including the Embraer jet — were utilized during the excursion.
Kimbrell, meanwhile, has shown no signs of contrition.
Despite allegedly bleeding Exodus dry and leaving those closest to the company to sort out the aftermath, Kimbrell has publicly dismissed the Rogers lawsuit as political “lawfare” and cast his court-ordered departure as a “hostile takeover” engineered to derail his gubernatorial bid.
Those claims reached a fever pitch — of sorts — last December, when Kimbrell posted a 21-minute Facebook video claiming he had been forced to sell his home (equipped with a mock Oval Office) to cover mounting legal fees stemming from Rogers’ lawsuit.
Multiple sources tell FITSNews that claim doesn’t hold up either, saying Kimbrell had openly discussed selling the house as early as summer 2025, before the first court order had even been filed, with the proceeds earmarked for his gubernatorial campaign.
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“But here was yet another opportunity to look like a victim… for Josh Kimbrell to turn around and act like he’s a victim is just, well, the most Josh Kimbrell thing you could possibly do,” one source said.
Seemingly adding fuel to that characterization, Kimbrell filed a formal complaint with the S.C. Supreme Court’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel alleging misconduct by the attorneys representing Rogers, specifically accusing them of advising a Boiling Springs firefighter to file a police report after Kimbrell called him a “disgrace” on social media.
Kimbrell further filed a defamation suit against the firefighter, his wife (an Exodus Aircraft employee) and Rogers’ attorneys. Whether an act of intimidation or not, the suit was dismissed within months.
Legal blunders aside, those who have quietly watched this litigious saga unfold have a far darker read on where things are headed for the two-term lawmaker.
“I used to say he doesn’t need to worry about governor. He probably won’t get reelected to the Senate anyway… But now he doesn’t need to worry about any of that. He needs to worry about going to federal prison.”
As for when the latter might materialize, sources with knowledge of the federal inquiry offered a notable reminder: federal authorities “typically” avoid taking action during an active political campaign, so as not to appear to influence the outcome.
“I don’t know if [Kimbrell] staying in this race is a strategy or not,” the source said. “But I would imagine that maybe, maybe it is.”
That same source volunteered that a federal prosecutor has already been assigned to the case.
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?? S.C. SENATOR, GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE JOSH KIMBRELL FOCUS OF FEDERAL INQUIRY, SOURCES SAY
— Andrew Fancher (@RealAndyFancher) May 27, 2026
South Carolina Sen. Josh Kimbrell, a Spartanburg County Republican polling at the back of a crowded gubernatorial field, has officially drawn the attention of federal authorities,… pic.twitter.com/UUx8hu89Xs
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“If I were a defendant, this is not the prosecutor I would want,” the source said. “He’s very thorough. He very much knows what he’s doing.”
As of this publishing, Kimbrell remains so mired at the back of a crowded gubernatorial primary that the South Carolina GOP declined to invite him to its third and final primary debate Tuesday at Wofford College — located, ironically, in Kimbrell’s own Senate district.
That same day, early voting opened across all 46 South Carolina counties ahead of the June 9 primary, when Republican voters will begin narrowing the field for the state’s next governor.
When contacted a day before publication, Kimbrell’s campaign spokesperson declined to provide a substantive response to questions regarding the federal inquiry. Kimbrell himself later texted the reporter requesting his “full name and home address.”
The former host of a conservative radio show on a Christian talk channel, Kimbrell has served in the South Carolina Senate representing Spartanburg County’s 11th District since 2020.
Among his early endorsers was former Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright, who was recently convicted in federal court on charges that included siphoning some $89,000 in public funds.
Write to Andrew Fancher at andy@fitsnews.com.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Andrew Fancher is a Lone Star Emmy Award–winning journalist from Dallas, Texas. He joined FITSNews in 2023 after leaving an NBC affiliate, where he served as on-air talent. His reporting focuses on public corruption in South Carolina, with an emphasis on law enforcement misconduct and abuse of power.