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U.S. Treasury Responds To GATA Freedom of Information Act Request
 | By Patrick A. Heller, Market Update
June 24, 2008 |
On Dec. 6, 2007, the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, Inc., (GATA) filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with both the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury. GATA sought information about possible gold swaps that the U.S. government may have handled and any related information about policies for such swaps.
In mid-April, the Federal Reserve responded, releasing part or all of hundreds of pages of worthless information, but also claiming that it was withholding all or part of the information of about 400 pages of documents. The status of the withheld documents is currently under appeal.
From the Federal Reserve response, it has already been established that there is substantial discussion in the federal government about gold swaps, at least theoretically if not in actual practice. This contradicts the previous position of the Fed and Treasury that gold swaps were never even discussed.
On June 18, the Treasury Department sent its response to GATA. The Treasury denied having any documents for five of the eight categories of the FOIA request. It stated that it was withholding a single document covering two categories because it referred to procedures for gold swaps that "may take place in the future." It released a single one-page e-mail for the other category. The May 11, 2007, document released was a notice to various Treasury officials that weekly reporting of reserves data was changing slightly to conform to the template specified by the International Monetary Fund. This document emphasized that the reported data did not change.
I personally find it hard to reconcile the Federal Reserve's acknowledgement that it found about a thousand pages of documents on gold swaps when the Treasury will only admit it involves two documents. To me, that smells like a carefully created cover-up.
I assume that GATA will appeal this FOIA reply as it has done with the Federal Reserve response. There is a lot of information hidden from the public. If this information were to become known, there is a good possibility that it could show that the U.S. government has sold or swapped gold. The president of the German central bank has already admitted that he has held discussions with other not-yet-identified central banks about gold swaps. The U.S. Treasury is an obvious candidate to be one of these central banks. Since the U.S. government so far is trying to claim it has never engaged in gold swaps or sales, any release of information that contradicts this position could lead to a sharp jump in the price of gold.
I will report more updates as they become available. If you would like to examine the Treasury FOIA letter and the released document, it is posted on the GATA Web site at www.gata.org.
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