Former Officer Says CIA Colleague Faked a Secret Program to Get $40 Million in Gold
Grusch says Rusch papered a continuity program no one else was briefed into, then said he needed the metal for it.
The Joe Rogan Experience · #2560 - David GruschDavid Grusch, a former American intelligence officer who has made public claims about secret government programs, said he did a double take when he saw the news. The man arrested was named David Rusch.
"Very similar name to me," Grusch said. "It's kind of, uh, freaky."
Grusch said Rusch was a CIA officer who was arrested with about $40 million in gold bars after the FBI raided his house in May. Grusch said the house also held a number of Rolex watches, and Grusch said the gold had come from the agency.
The heart of the account, as Grusch told it, was the paperwork. Grusch said Rusch made up a special access program, the kind of highly restricted project meant to protect the government's most sensitive work, and labeled it part of continuity of government planning, the system meant to keep Washington functioning in a catastrophe. Grusch said Rusch wrote up the paperwork but briefed no one else into it, and the request drew no questions inside the agency.
Grusch described the request in Rusch's voice: "Well, I need, you know, 40 million in gold bars because of this special continuity of government activity."
The scale is what makes the claim hard to picture. Rogan said the haul amounted to about 303 bars weighing about one kilogram apiece, or about 2.2 pounds per bar. That math puts the total at more than 600 pounds. Rogan worked through the numbers aloud, at one point saying 700 pounds, and asked where anyone would put that much metal. Grusch said he had seen the seizure photos and called it a lot and pretty heavy, and Grusch said Rusch had kept the gold in his house.
To explain why metal would be used at all, Grusch pointed to his own time in Afghanistan, where he said men carried briefcases holding $100,000 in cash because operations need money that works on the spot. Rogan answered that cash made more sense to him than lugging around gold.
Asked whether Rusch had claimed to be using the gold for some disclosure effort, or whether it had anything to do with UAPs, Grusch said, "not that I'm aware of." Grusch said he could not get into all the details of why the government held the bars, and said who knows what Rusch was really going to use the gold for.
Questions people ask
What is a special access program?
A special access program is a government project with extra secrecy rules, so only a short list of people is supposed to know about it. That secrecy is meant to protect spying methods and weapons work, but it can also make outside checks harder.
What does continuity of government mean?
It is the government's plan to keep essential work going during a catastrophe, such as a nuclear attack. It covers backup offices, communications, and supplies.
Why would anyone use gold instead of cash?
Cash is usually easier to carry and spend than hundreds of pounds of metal. Grusch said that in Afghanistan, men carried briefcases holding $100,000 in cash because operations need money that works on the spot, while Rogan said cash made more sense to him than lugging gold.