In late May 2026, the FBI seized 303 gold bars worth approximately $40 million from the home of David Rush, a former senior CIA official. Donald Trump took the opportunity to publicly relaunch his call for a physical audit of American gold reserves. Is the world's most famous safe really full?
In brief
- The FBI seized 303 gold bars, $2 million in currency and 35 luxury watches from David Rush, former CIA official, around May 27, 2026.
- Fort Knox is said to contain 147 million troy ounces of gold, or approximately $662 billion at current prices, according to the last independent audit dating from… 1953.
- Trump is calling for a physical audit through Truth Social, but no date has been set for May 31, 2026, and Thomas Massie's HR 3795 bill remains stalled in Congress.
Trump calls for audit of Fort Knox after $40 million in gold seized from ex-CIA agent
Around May 27, federal agents searched David Rush's Virginia home and found 303 gold bars, approximately $2 million in foreign currency and 35 luxury watches, including several Rolexes. The total value of gold alone is around $40 million.
The prosecution accuses him of having falsified documents to inflate his salary and of having obtained gold and foreign currencies via the agency without traceable justification. His detention hearing is scheduled to take place in early June 2026.
Trump reacted immediately on Truth Social, saying that it was “time for a physical audit of Fort Knox”. In an interview given on May 10 to Sharyl Attkisson on Full Measurehe had already indicated that he wanted to “knock on the door of Fort Knox” to check the state of the reserves. Rush's arrest provided him with the political argument he had been seeking for several months.
According to U.S. Treasury data as of April 30, 2026, Fort Knox is estimated to contain 147,341,858 troy ounces of fine gold, or approximately 4,580 metric tons. At current market prices, close to $4,500 per ounce, these reserves represent between $662 and $667 billion.
On the other hand, at the legal book value of $42.22 per ounce, frozen since 1973, the assets are officially worth only $6.22 billion on the Treasury's books.
An audit that has been awaited since 1953
The last independent, comprehensive physical audit of Fort Knox was in 1953, under President Eisenhower. A partial inspection conducted with Congress and journalists did take place in September 1974, but it covered only about 21% of the bars. Since then, no complete count or independent weighing of the entire stock has been made public.
This is not Trump's first attempt. In February 2025, he and Elon Musk, then head of DOGE, announced an imminent inspection. This never took place, and Treasury officials believed at the time that annual internal audits were sufficient.
For the record, this is also when prediction markets like Polymarket got excited about the Fort Knox audit, with odds going up to 64% for an audit before May 2025.
In 2025, Representative Thomas Massie introduced the Gold Reserves Transparency Act (HR 3795), providing for independent audits every five years. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent affirms for his part that “all the gold is present and accounted for” via annual internal controls. Nonetheless, neither he nor Trump has set an official date for a public audit of May 31, 2026.
Fort Knox, gold and the markets, a gap of 650 billion
Gold has also been moving between $4,500 and $5,000 per ounce in recent months, which is widening the gap a little more every day between its half-century-old book value and its real market value.
For observers of gold and commodity markets, an official audit announcement would inevitably reignite the debate over the gold standard, even though Trump has never proposed ending fiat currency.
Ultimately, the Rush affair put Fort Knox back at the heart of the American political agenda as summer approached. The arrest of a former CIA agent with 40 million in bullion, increasing pressure from Congress via HR 3795, and the surge in gold constitute a cocktail that is difficult to ignore.
An audit may not change anything. Or maybe yes. A bit like in La Casa de Papel, where the Professor had emptied the coffers of the Bank of Spain to fill them with stones… and where the State had chosen silence to avoid panic. Except this time, it's not a Spanish series. It's Washington. And the cameras don't stop at the end of the episode.
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