Empires don’t end with a bang.
They end when the people running the institutions stop believing in them and start carrying the furniture out the back door.
Last week, the FBI arrested a senior CIA official, David Rush, with 303 one-kilogram gold bars, $2 million in cash, and three dozen Rolexes stacked inside his Virginia home, none of it held in the currency his agency exists to defend. The only charge so far is fudging his time sheets, not the $40 million in metal the agency handed him and then couldn’t find. This is a working definition of a Fourth Turning moment. The insiders stop trusting the institutions before the rest of us do.
The New York Times reports:
F.B.I. Arrests C.I.A. Official With $40 Million in Gold Bars in His Home
“A senior C.I.A. official was arrested last week after investigators found hundreds of gold bars worth over $40 million stashed in his Virginia residence, a small fortune that he apparently brought home from work, according to court papers.
The official, David Rush, is being held in jail while he awaits a detention hearing in the coming days on charges of stealing public money by filling out fraudulent time sheets. The charging documents filed in Alexandria, Va., still leave a lot unanswered about his recent conduct.
The only charge lodged against Mr. Rush is that he inflated his academic credentials and obtained military leave pay worth tens of thousands of dollars. The authorities say he falsely claimed to be a member of the Navy Reserve when he was discharged.
The court papers describe Mr. Rush as a “former senior executive service-level employee at a United States government agency.” People familiar with the investigation say he until very recently held a senior position at the C.I.A.
In a joint statement, the C.I.A. and F.B.I. said the arrest occurred on May 19, after the agency alerted the bureau.
“After a C.I.A. internal investigation identified potential violations of the law, C.I.A. Director John Ratcliffe referred the information to the F.B.I. for a law enforcement investigation,” the statement said.
A lawyer for Mr. Rush declined to comment. A woman answering the phone at Mr. Rush’s house hung up on a reporter.
From last November to March, the court papers say, Mr. Rush asked for, and received, “a significant quantity of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for work-related expenses.”
When the C.I.A. conducted a review of where the gold and currency were stashed, the agency was “unable to locate the gold bars or significant amounts of the foreign currency,” according to court papers.
On May 18, F.B.I. agents searched Mr. Rush’s home and found “approximately 303 gold bars, each of which weighed approximately one kilogram,” according to an affidavit. Based on the price of gold, the affidavit said, the estimated value of the gold exceeded $40 million. Investigators also seized nearly three dozen luxury watches, many of them Rolexes.
The court papers do not indicate why Mr. Rush appears to have kept so much gold, and $2 million in U.S. currency, in his home, or what work project would have required him to amass such wealth.”
The story is that this is one bad apple with a creative attitude toward his time sheet. Maybe, but the texture of the thing is what gives it away. An agency can requisition tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for “work-related expenses,” hand them to an employee, and then be unable to find them. The trust that once gave credibility to institutions like the CIA and FBI is near zero.
Another side note:
Notice the form the money took. The man was holding “technically” untraceable assets. Not, treasuries, USDs, or stocks. He bought gold bars and Rolexes, the same hard assets that have outlived every currency the human race has ever inflated into confetti. Who knows what the real story is on this one, but those in government are revealing the worth of real money. Whoever owns gold hold the power. It can be traded under the table, or across the table.
For every Empire that has declined throughout history, the looting has always started at the top. It may be surprising, but tens of millions in gold bars in your neighbours basement is probably just the tip of the iceberg.
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