Some very powerful people are exercising influence over the (currently financially vulnerable) media to prevent a light from shining upon their (criminal) activities. The amount of money at stake is in the same territory as the federal deficit.
There are several layers to the defensive strategy, including a “hearts and minds” media (old and new) campaign which we are seeing now. The largest protective investment, however, has been the successful placement of hundreds of private financial beneficiaries of fed activities into positions of government power. Even if an investigation is launched, how many of those performing the audit are alumni with (obfuscated) retained holdings, or otherwise beneficiaries of the collection of firms who only stand to lose by any revelation of what is now hidden by shadows?
This cancer has been festering for almost a century. The fed needs to be abolished outright, and replaced with a dispassionate, deterministic algorithm with a strict inflation target of under 0.1% (growth of money supply only following growth of formal market demand for money as to account for genuine economic growth - and a gold standard is no panacea because it would be open to simple government subversion) having mathematical form, parameter values, code, and output publicly available and subject to modification only upon unanimous consent of both houses of Congress and the President.
You don't need an algorithm to study this, just look to Japan over the past 5 years. This is a recipe for no growth.