Thank heavens! I mean, what could possibly go wrong! Hurray!
When the Treasury originally gave the certificate to the Fed, the Fed gave them $42 billion in dollars. That means the Fed owns the gold, not the Treasury. The Treasury may have stored the gold and not transported it to the Fed, but they can’t sell the same gold twice in this world. Unless the Treasury has another stash of gold to sell, they are out of luck.
The Fed has no use for gold because they control the money supply machine. They can create whatever amount of dollars they need on a computer. The gold trick was pure public relations to make people think that the Treasury was “paying” to exceed the debt ceiling.
Legally, all the Treasury ever does is ask the Fed to create what funds they need to meet the government’s obligations and transfer them into the Treasury accounts. The debt ceiling law technically violates the Constitution by preventing the Treasury from paying its bill. It should be repealed or reversed by the SCOTUS.