On Oct. 4, as I described previously in my own review of the Domestic Monetary Policy Subcommittee hearing on Audit the Fed , Chairman Bernanke told Senator Mike Lee that his (and C4L's) concern about the "general veil of secrecy under which the Federal Reserve typically operates," was nothing more than an "urban legend."
In a write-up summarizing his testimony on Capitol Hill for Chairman Paul's subcommittee hearing on Audit the Fed, Dr. Robert Auerbach challenges the Fed's own "urban legend," namely that they are "thoroughly audited at this point." and "Nobody has found an impropriety."
Reading through Auerbach's testimony and his summary posted at HuffPo, there would appear to be plenty of corruption and deception at the Fed that Chairman Bernanke ought to familiarize himself with before accusing others of being misinformed.
I've included just a few of the gems below:
Billions of dollars can be made from inside information leaks from the Fed's monetary policy operations. One necessary step to stop leaks is to severely limit inside information on future Fed policy to a few Fed employees.
This has not happened. Congress received information in 1997 that non-Federal Reserve employees attended Federal Reserve meetings where inside information was discussed. Greenspan admitted that non-Fed people including "central bankers from Bulgaria, China, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Russia" had attended Federal Reserve meetings where the Fed's future interest rate policy was discussed. Greenspan's letter (4/25/1997) contained a 23-page enclosure listing hundreds of employees at the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C. and in the Federal Reserve Banks around the country who have access to at least some inside Fed policy information.
In 1995 Greenspan held a non-recorded vote - no finger prints - to destroy the source transcripts of the Fed's policy-making committee, the Federal Open market Committee (FOMC). I was informedNovember 1, 2001 by Donald Kohn, the future Fed Vice Chairman, that this destruction would continue and that the Fed considered the destruction to be legal.
A 1997 Gonzalez investigation, assisted by the GAO, found extensive corrupt accounting at the cash section of the Los Angeles branch of the San Francisco Fed Bank with dire possibilities at other Fed vault facilities. Greenspan informed Gonzalez that nearly $500 thousand had been stolen from Fed vaults by Fed employees from 1987 to 1996. The Gonzalez/GAO investigation indicated this was an understatement.
The dizzying display of either corruption or outright incompetence is astonishing to comprehend.
And these are the people who want "Independence" from the American people's oversight to continue doing what they do?
Americans need to rise up and demand full transparency and accountability at the Federal Reserve System.
To learn more about deception and corruption at the Fed, pick up a copy of Dr. Auerbach's book: Deception and Abuse at the Fed: Henry B. Gonzalez Battles Alan Greenspan's Bank.
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