DAVID MARCUS: Fort Knox is the new Al Capone vault, but in reverse

DOGE administrator Elon Musk may soon be taking a page out of the book of legendary TV newsman Geraldo Rivera by hosting a livestream opening up Fort Knox to see if America’s gold is really still there.

Quite well, do those of us of a certain age remember that night in 1986 when Rivera cracked open a long-forgotten vault at a Chicago hotel where notorious gangster Al Capone had lived, only to find, with no small degree of embarrassment, that it was all but empty.

In those days, without Netflix or 62,000 cable channels, 20 million Americans tuned in live, there were medical examiners present in case bodies were found, IRS agents on hand to seize any ill-gotten treasure. But in the end, all they found was the biggest sad trombone moment in the history of television.

Fast-forward to Fort Knox, where a reported $425 billion worth of government gold is reportedly stored.

In 1936, the federal government decided to send about half of the physical gold that our nation owns to a fortified facility in Kentucky for safe-keeping. Almost instantly it became a metaphor for two things, one, wealth, as in, ‘all the gold in Fort Knox,’ and the other, security, as in, ‘harder to get into than Fort Knox.’

Nobody really doubts the security of the compound. It almost certainly remains as impregnable as ever, even to Musk. But are the guards there to protect the gold, or to hide an embarrassing secret?

Now let’s be clear, there is no reason, beyond conspiracy theories, to believe that the gold isn’t there, or that Treasury employees are busy painting red bricks yellow in anticipation of the DOGE visit. 

Newly minted (so to speak) Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has assured Americans that ‘All the gold is present and accounted for.’ But some Republicans, like Kentucky Senator Rand Paul want more, as he told Fox News, ‘the more sunlight the better, the more transparency the better.’

President Donald Trump concurs. At a gaggle on Air Force One on Wednesday, he told reporters, ‘We hope everything is fine with Fort Knox, but we’re going to go into Fort Knox, the fabled Fort Knox, to make sure the gold is there.’

The fabled Fort Knox indeed. Get your popcorn. Lights, camera, action.

It would be pure historical poetry if Geraldo Rivera was once again tapped to host the live coverage of the unearthing of the Fort Knox vault, and with such an amusing twist, for this time, it’s not a full vault that would be the big story, but an empty one.

It’s actually difficult to comprehend what would happen if sometime in the next few days cameras show us that the gold is gone, not just for the financial system, but for our general faith in the government. It’s the kind of lie that you can’t really come back from.

Hundreds if not thousands of people would have to be complicit in this canard, including powerful figures such as Bessent. If there’s no gold at Fort Knox then Katy bar the door, because everything the government told us after would be deeply suspect, as if it isn’t already.

Even if the outcome of this special live event is banal and expected, even if we are simply treated to the vision of shimmering stacks of glorious gold that are supposed to be there, Sen. Paul is right that such transparency would put a lot of conspiracy theories to bed.

In and of itself, Trump’s dedication to radical transparency is a great move forward for a country that has lost faith that its leaders are telling them the truth, that will no longer simply take for granted that things really are the way they are supposed to be.

It can be argued that this distrust of the government, so pervasive on all political sides, is actually the greatest threat we as Americans face. Not the border, not China, not inflation, but a total lack of confidence that our will is being done in the halls of power.

So bring on the telestream, live from Fort Knox, build up the fanfare and line up the pundits, let us all see together if the good word of The Treasury Department should be given our full faith and credit, or if the biggest scam of the past century has somehow occurred.

And I’m serious, who better to guide us through it than the original himself? It’s time for Geraldo to get another bite at the apple and see if this time he actually finds the treasure.