I played around with ISTA a bit more. Nothing earth shattering, but I think mildly interesting nonetheless.

In ISTA I commanded the JBE to activate the AC compressor. Nothing happened. I don't know if the clutch was indeed bad that this should trigger a fault for a bad coil or not in this state, but it didn't appear to.
Reading the state of AC values, it's saying not available.

Looking at IHKA states, it thinks it's calling for AC.

Looking at DME states, it doesn't think anyone is calling for AC.

So my understanding is the JBE is the link in all this, and it's not able to read or activate AC, and the link between DME and IHKA (which is the JBE) isn't working.

So path forward still seems to be troubleshoot K-CAN, but I'm also suspect of the JBE at this point.

__________________
'08 X5 4.8i - 196k
'15 i3 REX - 95k - Blown AC compressor

'98 323is - 170k - Garaged
'94 325i - 208k - Sold