(Mike Maharrey, Money Metals News Service) Sen. Rand Paul has become Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s pawn.
A few weeks ago, Bessent insisted all the gold is in the vaults at Fort Knox.
“I haven’t. People on my staff have. The treasurer has been to Fort Knox, and I’m happy to say all gold is present and accounted for.”
On Monday, Paul spent one or two hours inside the Fort Knox gold depository and boldly proclaimed, “Yes, the gold is there, all (approximately) 147 million ounces. It is impressive.”
With all due respect, Sen. Paul, it is absolutely impossible for you to make that statement after wandering around inside a vault for a few hours. My goodness!
U.S. gold reserves are reported to be 8,133.5 metric tons (i.e., tonnes). That’s roughly 261.5 million troy ounces. A little over half of that (147.3 million ounces according to the U.S. Mint) is stored at Fort Knox. The rest is spread out between the Denver Mint, the West Point Bullion Depository, and the Federal Reserve vault in New York.
Standard gold bars for reserve purposes typically weigh in at 400 ounces. That means there are over 300,000 bars in Fort Knox vaults. Likely, there are more than that because much of the gold held by the U.S. was formed by melting down coins in the 1930s that were not pure gold. These non-standard bars have irregular weights and do not even qualify for international settlements primarily due to lack of purity. In fact, based on documents released during a 2011 House Committee on Financial Services Hearing, only about 17 percent of the gold bars held by the U.S. government in Fort Knox meet any modern-day purity standards.
So, we’re supposed to believe that Paul spent a couple of hours or so inside the depository and can emphatically claim “all the gold is there.”
I call B.S.
Between Bessent’s statements last month and Paul’s propaganda tour, it’s almost as if there is a concerted effort to quiet calls for a legitimate audit of U.S. gold reserves. And who better to calm those voices than Rand, whose constituency is among the most vocal supporters of sound money.
Money Metals CEO Stefan Gleason put it bluntly:
“Sen. Paul has been rolled. All it took was giving him a fun chance to go into the mysterious facility.”
In a post on X, Gleason noted that Money Metals operates a precious metals depository twice the physical size of the Fort Knox facility.
“We are especially APPALLED that a giddy Sen. Rand Paul would implicitly make a mockery of proper auditing practices and whitewash decades of U.S. government mismanagement here, presumably as a ‘thanks’ to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who granted him this fun field trip today. No way in hell Sen. Paul can or should suggest America’s gold is fully accounted for based on a half-day visit. Even more importantly, is it encumbered? And is it okay that 83 percent of it is unacceptable on global markets due to lack of purity? What a shame.”
Ironically, Paul sponsored “The Gold Reserve Transparency Act of 2025” along with Sen. Mike Lee that would have produced a comprehensive audit of U.S. gold reserves.
Sound Money Defense League Director Jp Cortez said the tour and Rand’s subsequent insistence that the gold is “all there” raises serious questions.
“You co-sponsored a good bill that would have actually produced a full audit and accounting of America’s gold. Instead of pursuing that, you decided to go with a field trip to Fort Knox and a ‘trust me, I swear it’s all there,’ after a few hours? Why would you do that?”
Why indeed.
We Need a Real Audit
I’m not going to speculate as to why Paul came out with that statement. Politics is politics. But don’t allow this publicity stunt to take your eyes off the need for a legitimate audit.
If you aren’t familiar with general accounting principles, an audit involves a tad bit more than walking around on a guided tour.
In a proper audit, every bar would be counted and inspected by an outside entity. Serial numbers would be matched to records. The gold would be assayed to verify its weight and purity. And the details of the audit would be published and available for public inspection.
None of that has happened.
Ever.
Furthermore, audits include confirming chain of custody. We have no idea whether or not the Fort Knox gold is encumbered. Was it loaned to other entities, mobilized in currency interventions, pledged, leased, or swapped? Do any other parties have full or partial claims on the gold in the vaults? We don’t know because there is no published audit to examine.
And yet, in so many words, Paul tells us, [no worries, the gold is all there. I saw it].
In another post on X, Paul didn’t even get the total gold reserves correct, claiming the U.S. owned 477 million ounces, almost double the actual amount.
Perhaps we shouldn’t rely on Paul’s auditing prowess.
Yes. The federal government has taken some actions and called them audits.
In 1974, the government put together a publicity stunt in the name of an audit. The U.S. Treasury opened just one of its 15 Fort Knox vault compartments to politicians and reporters to view the gold and confirm its existence. It wasn’t unlike the little tour Rand just took.
Following the 1974 publicity stunt, the U.S. Treasury says it conducted a multi-year process of opening and inventorying vault compartments and affixing new tamper-evident seals to the doors of each compartment upon completion.
These so-called audits failed to meet basic transparency or accounting standards.
Some reports have since gone missing, and there is no record of comprehensive assaying, weighing, or transactional history available to the public.
Furthermore, there is evidence that seals on vault compartments have been broken over the years, bars have been moved for unknown reasons, and seals have been re-affixed without fresh auditing. Subsequent annual reviews of the schedules of compartment seals simply whitewash prior discrepancies.
In sum, the U.S. Treasury’s management of U.S. gold reserves is replete with audit “no-nos” that would never pass muster at a responsibly run private depository.
In fact, if they opened up a vault for Rand to inspect, this should trigger an audit.
Here’s the $6 billion question.
Why won’t they just audit the gold? Why is there such a persistent refusal to even entertain the idea? In fact, people like me are ridiculed for suggesting we need an audit.
I guess we’re just supposed to trust them because it’s the government?
If you ask me, that’s an even bigger reason not to trust them.
If a private business refused to audit its books, it would get shut down. But Uncle Sam plays by different rules.
Maybe it’s just me, but when somebody gets all upset when I suggest checking their work, I suspect their work might not be up to par.
I mean, think about it; you don’t have anything to hide, why wouldn’t you want the gold holdings to be verified? What’s the harm in an audit? Why this insistence that it isn’t necessary (when audits are necessary in every other business setting)?
If I were running a gold depository — and well, I kinda am… Money Metals Depository is larger than the U.S. Bullion Depository; our team knows a thing or two about auditing — I’d be clamoring for a public audit, if for no other reason than to calm the public fears. I would want people to know everything is on the up-and-up. The only reason I would resist an audit is if I knew I was hiding something.
So, what’s it going to be?
Are we going to take Bessent’s and Paul’s word for it? Or is somebody finally going to step up and do the right thing?
Mike Maharrey is a journalist and market analyst for Money Metals with over a decade of experience in precious metals. He holds a BS in accounting from the University of Kentucky and a BA in journalism from the University of South Florida.
