Fort Knox Standoff: Treasury Secretary Bessent Says All the Gold Is There, Skeptics Demand an Audit

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the entire U.S. gold stockpile at Fort Knox and other federal vaults remains present and accounted for, pushing back on years of public doubt about America’s bullion reserves.

In the past, Bessent has cited annual internal audits by the Treasury Department’s Office of the Inspector General as evidence that the reserves remain intact. Those reviews reconcile records and sample select vault compartments rather than physically weigh and assay every bar. The last large-scale public verification took place in 1974, when a congressional delegation and journalists toured the facility. A smaller 2017 visit included then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Kentucky lawmakers.

Production reportedly stalled. A May 2026 Mint filing placed the project in the design and consultation phase, with striking still six to eight weeks away once final approval clears. The coin was never officially scheduled for a July 4 release and is now expected sometime later in 2026 or into 2027 in a limited run. Eleven days after the 250th anniversary, Bessent wrote on X that the coin is still coming and shared an image of the coin.

The Treasury Secretary said:

Massie raised a separate concern the day prior on July 14, linking Congress’s coin decisions to ancient Rome. He noted that Roman emperors debased currency by cutting precious metal content to fund military spending, then pointed to pending legislation eliminating the penny and allowing the Mint to produce nickels with cheaper metal.

The Republican U.S. Representative from Kentucky’s 4th congressional district further noted that the U.S. penny has been mostly zinc since 1982, and production has slowed as the cost to strike each coin exceeds its face value. Nickels, currently 75% copper and 25% nickel, cost more than 13 cents to produce. Bills, including the MINT Act of 2025, would let the Treasury Secretary approve cheaper alloys for the 5-cent coin while preserving its size, weight, and vending machine compatibility.

On the legislative side, the penny and nickel bills Massie referenced sit within a broader push to cut Mint production costs. The Treasury has said the current system loses money on both coins every year, the metal and labor costs exceed face value, a gap that lawmakers from both parties have cited when backing composition changes. Whether the House holds a vote this week, as Massie’s post indicated, remains to be confirmed through the chamber’s official schedule.