“Thank you, sir. The fewer people who know about any of this the better.”
“Understood. Anything else?”
Four sets of eyes took turns looking at each other and when no one had anything else to add, the DNI closed the meeting. “I want this kept absolutely quiet,” he said. “If and when this needs to go to the President, I’ll do it. Until then, we keep this locked down tight. We don’t mention a word of this to anyone.”
• • •
As McGee’s 4Runner pulled out of General Johnson’s driveway, two men in a Ford Explorer waited for him to turn right at the end of the road and begin heading toward the highway before falling in behind.
The man in the passenger seat dialed a phone number back in Virginia. “They just left,” he said. “What do you want us to do?”
“Kill them.”
“You want it to look like an accident?”
He had thought about this long and hard since meeting with Lydia Ryan. “No,” replied Phil Durkin. “We need this to look intentional. Absolutely intentional.”
CHAPTER 19
WASHINGTON
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
The Old Man had taken Harvath to task over his limited knowledge of the Federal Reserve and how it operated. Though he’d tried to hide it, Harvath knew his ignorance had also been on display for Monroe Lewis during their meeting at the Fed’s headquarters. He didn’t like feeling stupid and out of his depth, but he had. Talking with Bill Wise, though, was different.
“They don’t want you to understand anything about what they’re doing,” he said. “It’s purposeful obfuscation and it’s brilliant. They weave a tapestry of BS meant to intimidate people, and it works. Very few Americans have ever really dug into what they are up to.”
Wise was a polymath and Harvath was beginning to understand why the Old Man had set up their meeting. “Why do so many people not like the Federal Reserve?”
Wise took a sip of his drink, deciding where to begin. “First of all, they’re not federal and they don’t have any reserves whatsoever. The Federal Reserve is about as federal as Federal Express. They’re a group of powerful bankers who orchestrated a phony crisis in the early 1900s to convince the American people that the country needed a strong central bank to help regulate the economy and bring Wall Street fat cats to heel. It’s one of the most successful con jobs in history.”
“Apparently, you’re not a fan.”
“I go where the facts take me,” said Wise. “They took the name Federal Reserve for the sole purpose of scamming the American people and making it look like they were part of the government. They’re not only not part of the American government; they aren’t even accountable to the American people. We as citizens can’t toss any of them out or tell any of them what to do. They operate in total secrecy and have never undergone a thorough audit.
“What’s astounding is that since the Fed was created back in 1913, the dollar has lost ninety-six percent of its purchasing power. Because the Fed sets interest rates, we have seen massive bubbles inflated under their policies only to eventually pop and create massive downturns in the economy. In fact, America’s downturns have become longer and much more severe under the Fed.”
“So why do we keep the Fed? Can’t we get rid of it?” Harvath asked.
“America has killed two prior central banks; it could kill this one, too, if it wanted.”
“That’s the key, though, Americans would have to want to. Right?”
“Exactly, and most people have no idea what it is. In fact, let me ask you something. How well do you know your American flag etiquette?”
“Very well,” Harvath replied.
“Are you allowed to fly another flag above the American flag?”
“Of course not. Never.”
“Do you have any cash on you?”
Harvath nodded.
“Do you have any idea what it says on top of our money? Above the words The United States of America?”
Harvath shook his head.
“Take your money out and look. Read to me what it says.”
He removed the cash from his pocket and studied a one-dollar, five-dollar, twenty-dollar, and even one-hundred-dollar bill. “They all say Federal Reserve Note on top.”
“Some say that’s a perfect example of how the Fed sees itself, as being above the United States government. Those notes aren’t even issued by the Treasury Department. They may be printed in the building, but the Treasury has absolutely no say in when they get printed or how many of them get printed. But to keep the charade going those Federal Reserve notes include both the signature of the Treasurer of the United States as well as the signature of the United States Secretary of the Treasury.
“Through its control of our currency, this unelected group of private bankers has driven the United States to the brink of bankruptcy. They’re not only digitizing into existence more than one hundred fifteen million dollars an hour to cover risky loans and trades made by their pals at banks deemed too big to fail, they’re—”
“Wait,” said Harvath. “One hundred and fifteen million? They’re printing that much money every hour?”
“Not printing, digitizing and then depositing that digitized money into the accounts of banks who turn right around and keep making the same risky loans and investments, because no matter how badly they screw up, there’s no downside, no consequences. That’s why the Fed was set up.”
“But if there’s that much more money being created, doesn’t that mean that the existing money supply, the money in my bank account, is increasingly worth less?”
“Give yourself a gold star,” said Wise. “Like I said, the dollar has lost ninety-six percent of its purchasing power since the Fed was initiated. They levy the heaviest and most corrosive taxes of all through their control of the money system, and it’s all about covering the bad bets of their colleagues at the taxpayer’s expense. After all, who do you think ends up with the bill?”
“We do.”
“That’s right. What’s more, the Fed controls what the interest rate will be on your bank accounts, how much interest you’ll pay on your home loan, as well as your car loan and your student loans. They use their digitized money to buy U.S. government bonds so that our government can keep spending and spending and spending, which drives us deeper and deeper into debt. And does the Fed buy those bonds directly from the U.S. government? No, of course not. It uses brokerage firms it’s friendly with in New York, so that those firms get huge commissions.”
“Those firms being the same Wall Street ‘fat cats’ the Fed had promised to rein in, correct?” asked Harvath.
Wise nodded. “It’s an incredible shell game. But what may be of particular interest for your case is that Britain wanted to place the colonies under the influence of the Bank of England. That act was considered so beyond the pale that it is said to have been the final straw that led to the Revolutionary War.”
Despite Harvath’s knowledge of American history, he had never heard that before. It was an amazing revelation.
“While some of the founders like Jefferson were against a central bank,” said Wise, “there were others, like Alexander Hamilton, who were not only for it, but pushed hard to make it happen. In fact, to get southern lawmakers on board, Hamilton agreed to make sure America’s capitol would be moved out of New York City and further south.”
“Which is how we wound up with Washington, D.C?”
“Bingo,” said Wise. “All that over a central bank.”
“You said two previous central banks had been killed. How did we wind up with our current central bank, the Fed?”
“Despite Jefferson’s bitter opposition to central banks as being engines of speculation, manipulation, and financial corruption, President George Washington had signed the first bank’s charter. But when it expired twenty years later, so many people hated it, Congress refused to renew it.