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Like a Naked Emperor
https://www.kunstler.com/p/showdown ^ | May 29, 2026 | James Howard Kunstler

Posted on 05/29/2026 4:47:58 PM PDT by little jeremiah

"The case has stunned national security observers and raised serious questions about the federal government’s security clearance and vetting systems. —Newsmax

In the annals of Deep State WTF-ery, is there a stranger case than CIA officer David Rush turning up with $40-million in 303 one-kilogram gold bars, plus $2-million in cash, plus a stash of 30 mostly Rolex watches? Well, yeah, the stranger story is how the guy got hired by the CIA in the first place.

Rush was arrested on Monday, May 18, by an FBI SWAT team at his home in Loudoun County, VA. Agents searched the house all day long and found the stash. Rush is currently charged with theft of public money and allegedly falsifying his military and academic credentials to obtain federal employment benefits, including roughly $77,000 in improper military leave pay. He’s scheduled to make a federal court appearance in Alexandria today.

Rush first applied for a job at the CIA in March 2006. He claimed to have a bachelor’s degree in math from Clemson University and a master’s from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). He was rejected. He reapplied later that same year. Bumped again. He reapplied again in 2009, adding a new credential: that he’d been a US Navy test pilot and flight trainer. This time, he was hired.

Rush’s college credentials were found to be false, but it is unclear when that was discovered. Since he included them in his two earlier 2006 failed applications, why were they not flagged in his successful 2009 application? His claim of being a US Navy pilot was also found to be false (he was an information systems tech in his Navy service). The FBI affidavit unsealed recently details the pattern of lies across all applications.

Understand that CIA vetting procedures are supposed to be exceedingly rigorous. The process is stressful and invasive — many candidates drop out or are weeded out. The background check involves interviews with practically everybody who knows the applicant going back decades, his criminal history, work, financial history, education, military service. The applicant gets a polygraph exam. Even after getting hired, monitoring continues.

Rush was hired at the very start of the Obama admin; Leon Panetta was the newly appointed CIA Director. Wouldn’t you like to hear him ‘splain how David Rush managed to get hired? Was somebody smoothing his way in? Rush rose to become a senior executive service (SES) officer with a top-secret (TS/SCI) security clearance. His exact duties, the division he worked for, his day-to-day responsibilities have not been disclosed.

Rush allegedly requested the gold and foreign currency from the CIA for “work-related expenses” between November 2025 and March 2026. The agency later could not account for the assets or locate records explaining their official purpose. A search of a storage locker at CIA connected to Rush turned up only a small amount of the requisitioned cash.

“There is a whole process that we go through to get that money. I don’t just walk into the logistics office and say ‘Excuse me, I need $100,000 tomorrow.’ There is a form I have to fill out. It’s not a bank vault you walk into. It doesn’t work like that.” — Tracy Walder, 46, a former FBI special agent and CIA officer, quoted in The New York Post.

Wouldn’t you assume that some higher-up CIA officer would have to sign off on such a colossal requisition of gold and money? (And where does the CIA get so much gold on-demand?) Perhaps the very Director of the CIA approved it — which would be John Ratcliffe through 2025 up to right now. Doesn’t he have some ‘splainin’ to do? (Was Rush set-up? Was this a sting?)

Assuming Rush spent some period of time as an entry-level CIA employee, when did his rise to SES level happen? John Brennan became CIA Director in early 2013 (the start of Barack Obama’s second term). What were David Rush’s relations with John Brennan? Was Brennan his mentor? Does the gold stash have any connection with the current legal problems of John Brennan and other former high officials involved in the long-running “grand conspiracy” case about the attempted overthrow of a president?

You might imagine that Rush’s phone and computers were seized in the May 18th raid on his house — though it’s unlikely he used such conventional channels for black ops chatter. It’s conceivable, though, that any alt-communications of his were captured by the vast national security surveillance apparatus, and that DNI Tulsi Gabbard might have come across them this past year. How else might Director Ratcliffe have been tipped off?

This story is not going away. The scale of the grift is spectacular and vivid — 303 gold bars! — like a Hollywood movie. Rush’s explanation of “work-related expenses” sounds preposterous. If the requisitions were made serially, over several months, as appears, then the agency had more than one opportunity to review and question them.

Rush faked his entire back-story. How incompetent (or corrupt) are the agency’s past managers that he got away with it for so long? How many other gross fakers, rogues, grifters, and tools are embedded in the agency, and who are they really working for? The institutional embarrassment is monumental. Trust in the so-called Intel Community is at an all-time low. Indictments and trials are coming. This is the Deep State on parade like a naked emperor.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cia; corruption; deepstate; domesticenemies; kunstler

1 posted on 05/29/2026 4:47:58 PM PDT by little jeremiah
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To: little jeremiah

2 posted on 05/29/2026 4:48:14 PM PDT by little jeremiah (SCARE: Social Chaos And Response Emergency)
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To: MtnClimber; Carriage Hill; GOPJ; Mama Shawna; notdownwidems; The FIGHTIN Illini; JZelle; ...

Two Kunstlers posted in one day! The CIA liar with millions in gold...?!?!?!


3 posted on 05/29/2026 4:49:27 PM PDT by little jeremiah (SCARE: Social Chaos And Response Emergency)
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To: All

.......where does the CIA get 303 gold bars worth $40 million,
handily available for “work-related expenses”?..............


4 posted on 05/29/2026 5:11:04 PM PDT by Liz (Winston Churchill: “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”)
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To: little jeremiah

Just how many people received their 10% to keep quiet?


5 posted on 05/29/2026 5:15:40 PM PDT by Ronaldus Magnus III (Do, or do not, there is no try. )
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To: All

FYI——Based on federal affidavits and reports from May 2026, senior CIA officer David Rush, allegedly scammed over $40 million in gold bars by fraudulently requesting them for fictional CIA “work-related expenses”.

He had high-level, top-secret CIA clearance to submit these requests, made between Nov and March.


6 posted on 05/29/2026 5:23:11 PM PDT by Liz (Winston Churchill: “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”)
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To: All

7 posted on 05/29/2026 5:25:39 PM PDT by Liz (Winston Churchill: “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”)
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To: little jeremiah

Good grief! What cartel did he steal from and are they looking for their missing loot?


8 posted on 05/29/2026 7:40:12 PM PDT by gildafarrell (To Strive, To Seek, To Find and Not To Yield!)
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To: little jeremiah

0bama, too, faked his entire back story


9 posted on 05/30/2026 3:22:13 AM PDT by Steven Tyler
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To: Steven Tyler

Fake name, fake parents, fake birthplace, fake nationality... Bill Ayers wrote his “autobiography”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdKO2lLiFl4&t=108s
“Who’s Your Daddy”


10 posted on 05/30/2026 7:21:46 AM PDT by little jeremiah (SCARE: Social Chaos And Response Emergency)
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To: little jeremiah

Hmmmm..... seems like there was a stash of treasure found up in the northeast fairly recently by some enterprising individuals only to have it “liberated” from them by some unknown people with unlimited access to heavy equipment in the dead of night.


11 posted on 05/31/2026 9:09:47 PM PDT by LastDayz (A Blunt and Brazen Texan. I Will Not Be Assimilated.)
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