Political Metals

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold (and Silver):

The Federal Reserve System this week paid GATA $2,870 in attorney’s fees and costs for illegally withholding a gold-related document GATA sought in its federal freedom-of-information request and lawsuit against the Fed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

While the judge in the case, Ellen Segal Huvelle, allowed the Fed to withhold most of the gold-related documents GATA sought (http://www.gata.org/node/9560), the document she ordered disclosed, the minutes of a secret meeting of the G-10 Gold and Foreign Exchange Committee in April 1997, showed Western central bankers conspiring to coordinate their gold market policies:

http://www.gata.org/node/9623

GATA’s freedom-of-information request also elicited an admission from a member of the Fed’s Board of Governors, Kevin M. Warsh, that the Fed has gold swap arrangements with foreign banks and insists on keeping those arrangements secret:

http://www.gata.org/files/GATAFedResponse-09-17-2009.pdf

From what GATA’s case extracted from the Fed and from what the case showed the Fed was determined to keep secret, it now has been established on the official record that the Fed and likely the U.S. Treasury Department too are heavily involved in surreptitious action to suppress the gold price. Thanks to GATA, financial journalists now have plenty of documentation to pursue the story of gold price suppression:

http://www.gata.org/taxonomy/term/21

All they need now is the courage to pursue it.

GATA continues to approach many news organizations to urge them to pursue this story.

A letter from the Fed’s associate general counsel, Katherine H. Wheatley, to GATA’s lawyers, William J. Olson and John S. Miles of William J. Olson, P.C., of Vienna, Virginia (http://www.lawandfreedom.com/), conveying the check for the attorneys’ fees and costs, has been posted here:

http://www.gata.org/files/FedLetterLegalCosts.jpg

A copy of the Fed’s check payable to GATA has been posted here:

http://www.gata.org/files/FedCheckLegalCosts.jpg

Of course the attorneys’ fees and costs paid to GATA by the Fed are just a small fraction of the total costs incurred by GATA in the case. To cover those costs, to explore more legal action against the Fed and other government agencies, and to continue its work generally, GATA is always grateful for financial contributions, which are federally tax-deductible in the United States:

http://www.gata.org/node/16

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.