As Donald Trump raises Fort Knox conspiracies, his allies are cashing in

Sydney Morning Herald

7 days ago

Trump's Fort Knox obsession has resurfaced one of the deeper cuts in the American conspiracy theory catalogue.
One reason the government holds onto such large stores of gold is to confer a sense of financial stability, even though the country moved off the gold standard in the 20th century. According to the United States Mint, 147.3 million ounces of gold, about half of the government's stash, is held at Fort Knox.
The Kentucky facility, known formally as the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, almost never allows visitors and is kept under heavy lock and key – an inaccessibility that may explain much of the intrigue around it.
One of the early proponents of the idea that gold was missing was a lawyer named Peter Beter, who earned a modicum of notoriety in the 1970s by spreading dark theories in a mail-order audio cassette series. Among other things, Beter believed that 'organic robotoids' controlled by Bolsheviks had infiltrated the federal government.
By 1974, concerns about the gold reserves grew so intense that a congressional delegation and a few news outlets, including The New York Times, were invited to Fort Knox for a rare inspection. A reporter for the Times described the effect of seeing a vault 6 feet wide and 12 feet deep, stacked with 36,236 glistening gold bars, as 'awesome'.
Another wave of concern crested in 2011, when then-Republican Ron Paul introduced a bill calling for an inventory of the reserves. At a subcommittee hearing, Paul said people had become worried that 'the gold had been secretly shipped out of Fort Knox and sold'. He added, 'And, still others believe that the bars at Fort Knox are actually gold-plated tungsten.' The inspector general of the Treasury at the time, Eric Thorson, told Paul that audits were performed yearly, with 'no exceptions of any consequence'.
More recently, Trump's first-term Treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, had a chance to check on the gold in August 2017, with Senator Mitch McConnell, then the Senate majority leader, in tow. Photos were taken of the men among the gold bars.
'Glad gold is safe!' Mnuchin wrote on Twitter, now known as X.
Loading
Questions bubble up again
The latest concerns appear to have taken off on February 14, when the website ZeroHedge, which occasionally promotes conspiracy theories, tagged Elon Musk in a post on X.
The post asked him to make sure the gold at Fort Knox was there.
'Surely it's reviewed at least every year?' Musk replied.
'It should be. It isn't,' ZeroHedge responded. (Bessent would later say that the gold is still audited annually.)
Senator Rand Paul, the son of Ron Paul, chimed in, calling for an audit. 'Let's do it.'
Then came Glenn Beck, the conservative radio and TV host, who posted an open letter to Trump, asking if he could take a camera crew to Fort Knox to 'restore faith in our financial system'. He later dedicated a segment of his show to casting doubt on the confirmed audits.
The chatter about the gold reserves was growing louder.
Loading
By February 20, Trump was telling a press gaggle on Air Force One that he planned to go to Fort Knox to 'make sure the gold is there'.
Sales pitches follow
Since then, the idea that the government's gold reserves may have gone missing has been integrated into the sales pitches of companies that trade in gold coins and gold investment accounts.
The companies advertise heavily on Trump-friendly TV and internet shows.
A number of 'gold IRA' companies have suggested that a future audit of Fort Knox could determine that gold is missing, setting off a crisis among Americans about the stability of the economy. Amid such chaos, the companies argue, privately held gold would be a lucrative safe haven for investors.
One of the companies, Birch Gold Group, is endorsed by the president's eldest son and bills itself as 'Donald Trump Jr's gold company'.
Loading
A recent article on Birch Gold's website stated that the idea of an 'empty Fort Knox' had gone 'from conspiracy theory to mainstream concern'. A discovery that gold was missing from Fort Knox, the article stated, would be the 'quickest way down for the US dollar'.
'It is only those without physical gold exposure that feel the need to panic, perhaps with good reason, about the greenback's admittedly dismal prospects,' states the article, which includes an offer for a 'FREE gold IRA info kit'.
The younger Trump lauded his father's plans to visit Fort Knox in a February 24 episode of his online talk show, on which he regularly makes pitches for Birch Gold.
'If it's empty,' he said, 'I would imagine there's hell to pay.'
On another section of Birch Gold's website, a 'Message from Donald Trump Jr' raised the possibility that his father's administration could 'revalue America's gold reserves on the national balance sheet from their outdated book value of $42' – the price per ounce the government assigns for bookkeeping purposes – 'to current market prices'.
This, he wrote, 'could cause a surge in gold prices', adding that 'the potential upside for gold investors is substantial'. A gold IRA, he added, would be a great way to benefit. He did not mention that Bessent had publicly stated that he had no plans to revalue the gold reserves.
Above the message was a digitally altered photo of the president at a desk, showing off an important-looking signed document, a wall of gold bricks behind him.