Towards the end of the interview, Ramaswamy mentioned he was flying back to Ohio that week, with an announcement regarding his expressed intention of pushing for reform at the state level coming shortly. The former presidential hopeful explained that when “we look at the country over the last 20 years, Silicon Valley was at the bleeding edge of the American economy. I think the Ohio River Valley can be at the bleeding edge of the American economy for the next 20 years.” A few weeks later, Ramaswamy’s gubernatorial campaign for Ohio was announced and the former D.O.G.E. co-head was promptly endorsed by President Trump. Over the course of that campaign, Vivek’s fortunes have quite literally soared. Since launching his campaign, he has not only come to command a massive campaign war chest filled by deep-pocketed donors, but his own net worth has doubled.

While many once labeled this campaign as a clear demotion for Ramaswamy, the reality of an emerging Ohio –– specifically as it relates to the technocratic goals of the Trump administration and its donors –– paints a vastly different picture. As noted in Iain Davis’ book The Technocratic Dark State, D.O.G.E. –– the agency Ramaswamy co-led –– is part of a larger effort led largely by a small group of the ultra-wealthy to completely privatize the public sector in the name of greater “efficiency” and have it ruled by “techno-kings” or dictator “CEOs.” Davis frames this as a modern iteration of technocracy, bolstered by tech billionaires with close ties to the Trump administration, such as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. Thiel is the long-time benefactor of former Ohio Congressmen and current Vice President J.D. Vance. Notably, Ohio’s richest man Leslie Wexner, along with help from the infamous Jeffrey Epstein (a Thiel associate), has spent decades creating “partnerships” where private interests, including those he directly controls, dominate its state and local governments. In some cases, such as the Columbus suburb of New Albany, they have completely replaced them.

Quietly over the last decade, Ohio has become a state of incredible national importance, as it continues to attract data centers from American “royalty” and Big Tech stalwarts into its friendly regulatory borders. But long before Amazon, Meta, Anduril, Microsoft and others took their power-hungry –– literally and figuratively –– refuge in the Buckeye State, the most well-known financier of Jeffrey Epstein, Leslie Wexner, and his extensive crime-linked network were laying the foundation for the new Silicon Valley, now known as the Silicon Heartland, along the Ohio River.

Wexner’s own statements last year underscore Ohio’s coming importance in the age of ascendant, AI-powered technocracy. Last May, he stated that Columbus in particular would soon become an international AI destination. He also asserted that “probably the largest AI investment in the world will happen in Columbus.” Wexner would know, as he’s personally responsible for Ohio’s –– specifically Columbus’ –– rise as one of the most important AI hubs in the country.

Yet, Wexner, with Epstein’s help, has done much more than attract massive AI data centers to the state. As this investigation will show, Wexner and his closest allies, Epstein among them, worked to create a model for the takeover of local governments via public-private partnership, starting first in New Albany beginning in the late 1980s. It has since spread to cover the entire state of Ohio via a network of public-private partnerships Wexner helped create. This system has allowed Wexner to use billions of dollars of Ohio taxpayer money, with little to no public scrutiny, to finance what can only be described as a massive welfare system for corporations. Among that system’s current biggest beneficiaries are Wexner’s New Albany Company as well as massive Big Tech corporations with important ties to Jeffrey Epstein (e.g. Amazon and Google). Meanwhile, regular Ohioans are seeing their power bills jump, provoking an affordability crisis in the state, while funding for public schools, libraries and healthcare is cut dramatically –– all to keep the corporate welfare engine designed by Wexner running full tilt.

Building New Albany

The New Albany Company was founded in 1986 by Leslie Wexner, Ohio’s wealthiest man, and his long-time associate John “Jack” Kessler. The company was initially housed at the same address as other Wexner-linked companies, on the 37^th floor of Columbus’ Huntington Center. Their landlord, Gerald Hines, was a Houston-based real estate developer and chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas from 1981 to 1983. As noted in One Nation Under Blackmail, Hines’ real estate and other interests were enmeshed with those of the Bush family as well as the arms trafficker Adnan Khashoggi, an early client of and alleged mentor to Jeffrey Epstein during the 1980s.

According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the decision to create New Albany took place when Kessler and Wexner were “cruising in Les’ Land Rover near New Albany.” The pair “saw acre after acre of empty farmland […] And thus the billionaire, getting a vision thing, declared to his buddy, this will be my new home.” That same report also declared that the pair, after forming the New Albany Company, “spun off a bunch of paper corporations to cover their footprints. Then their minions knocked on doors and made the proverbial offers you couldn’t refuse.”

What was once the village of New Albany is now a “unique public-private partnership” between The New Albany Company (a private company) and the City of New Albany (the local government). Kessler told ColumbusCEO in 2014 that the New Albany Company has “always had a very close working relationship” with the City of New Albany, whose leaders “are very pro-development” as a result. The New Albany Company, soon after its creation, developed a “master plan” for the town’s growth and aesthetics that has been strictly adhered to since its founding. As with most public-private partnerships, the public sector in New Albany is largely subservient to its private “partner.”

Wexner and Kessler may have wanted to exert such extensive control over this influential Columbus suburb for others reasons, too. Shortly before the New Albany Company was created, both Wexner and Kessler found themselves under investigation for ties to the “mob-style” murder of Arthur Shapiro, who was due to testify to the IRS just days after his murder. Shapiro had been the lawyer for Wexner’s company The Limited and was involved in its finances.

In investigating Shapiro’s death, there was “some conjecture that Shapiro was in a position to provide information to the [IRS] Grand Jury that would have been damaging to some other party.” Columbus police then determined that Wexner was enmeshed with organized crime interests. However, the investigation into Wexner and any linkages to organized crime were halted and the police documentation from that investigation was heavily suppressed by the Columbus Chief of Police at the time, James Jackson. When the documents later became “accidentally” public via a FOIA request, Jackson was surprised and remarked that “I thought I got rid of it” with respect to the documents in question. Those documents will be referred to as the Shapiro Murder File for the remainder of this article.

By the late 1980s, Jeffrey Epstein –– who by then had crept into Wexner’s inner circle –– had become a general partner in New Albany’s real estate holding company, New Albany Property, and had put at least a few million dollars into the project. Former State of Ohio inspector David Sturtz reportedly claimed that Jeffrey Epstein was Shapiro’s “replacement.” In addition, local Ohio reporter Bob Fitrakis told New York magazine in 2002 that Epstein had been a crucial part of the New Albany project:

Before Epstein came along in 1988, the financial preparations and groundwork for the New Albany development were a total mess […] Epstein cleaned everything up, as well as serving Wexner in other capacities.

Fitrakis also stated that New Albany’s success had required significant changes be made to Columbus city policy as well as zoning laws. As attested to in the Shapiro Murder File, this appears to have been accomplished by questionable investments made by a Wexner-controlled entity in a jazz club run by a former City Council member, Jeremy Hammond, alongside his successor on the council, Les Wright. The File also details circumstantial evidence that Hammond was able to make payments on luxury assets and goods well above his salary, which was suggestive of bribes. As luck would have it for Leslie Wexner, Hammond became “swept up in an emotional debate about the Wexley luxury housing project [a reference to the New Albany project] in 1988” and was accused of selling out the city’s and public’s interest for Wexner’s benefit. New Albany, thanks in large part to Hammond and Wright, was able to secure its desired changes to local policy. However, accusations that New Albany’s projects and ambitions was acting in defiance of existing state and local laws would continue for years.

In 1990, Epstein acquired property in New Albany via a Wexner-controlled trust, with the house being widely reported as a “gift” from Wexner to Epstein. Epstein resigned from the trust and bought the home, which he owned from 1994 until 2007, when he and Wexner publicly cut ties after Epstein’s first arrest that same year. However, recent releases have shown the two men stayed in contact years after. Epstein subsequently sold the house in New Albany to the Wexners that year for a reported $0.

In 1992, Epstein obtained another property in New Albany, this time via a trust linked to John Kessler. Former Epstein employee Maria Farmer filed a lawsuit alleging that she was attacked by Epstein at the property in 1996, and that Wexner’s security prevented her from leaving the home for close to 12 hours. A Washington Post report confirmed that Wexner’s security team “monitored” the home when Epstein owned it. Epstein sold this property in 1998 to a company called HHD & B LLC, which has the same mailing address as the New Albany Company, suggesting they were connected. That same year, Epstein was listed as co-president, alongside Leslie Wexner, of the New Albany Company.

Beginning in the early 1990s, Epstein was also president of the New Albany-based N.A. Property Inc., which early records also refer to as part of the Wexner Investment Company. Later records show that it had also used the name the New Albany Investment company (as well as New Albany Investments). The Wexner Foundation later referred to Epstein’s role as president at N.A. Property as being one of his “Wexner-related roles.” Though the Wexner Foundation claims that Epstein resigned from that role in 2007, he was not removed as the company agent until 2008. Despite Wexner’s previous claims that Epstein “stole” his money and that they had broken off all association the year prior, recent releases have shown that Wexner was still in communication with Epstein during that time.

According to a 2002 New York magazine profile, Epstein maintained a branch of his financial advisory firm in New Albany. The article notes that Epstein’s presence in the Columbus suburb was incredibly strong in 2002, and that Epstein’s staff for his financial advisory firm were spread between Manhattan, New Albany and the USVI. The report notes that he had “reincorporated” this company as Financial Trust Co., based in the USVI. Financial Trust Co. and its successor Southern Trust, were alleged by USVI authorities to have served as cover for Epstein’s illicit activities. Southern Trust later became intimately involved with the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in financial markets, with goals to expand into healthcare. It is unknown for how long Epstein’s Financial Trust Co. and its precursor maintained its New Albany branch, though it is likely related to the aforementioned N.A. Property/New Albany Investment Company, which –– as noted above –– was also an entity connected directly to Wexner.

In the years that followed Epstein’s supposed break from Wexner, records show that Gary Kerney, the former CEO of the New Albany Company Limited Partnership, managed multiple Epstein properties, including now infamous properties in New Mexico and the USVI. The two men had met in New Albany via their roles at the New Albany Company. Kerney started managing properties for Epstein at least as early 1999. Roughly a decade later, in 2009, Kerney recruited Stephen Caplinger, the former New Albany director of planning and design, to help Epstein further develop Little St. James, Epstein’s infamous island. That same year, Kerney was listed as the island’s construction manager and was one of four people, including Epstein himself, that had an affiliated credit card. According to reports, by 2010, Kerny was making roughly $368,413 per year between his salary, housing stipend and travel costs. This would make him Epstein’s second-highest paid employee at that time. Kerney wasn’t the island’s only long-term connection to New Albany either, as the island was insured by the New Albany-based Insurance Office Central Ohio through at least March 2019. 

Epstein’s extensive ties to New Albany, as detailed above, lend credence to Ghislaine Maxwell’s more recent statements to Todd Blanche, the current deputy Attorney General, that Epstein “ran” New Albany for much of the time she was affiliated with him, despite Wexner’s repeated downplaying of his role.

From “Silicon Valley” to the “Silicon Heartland”

In the decades after Wexner, Kessler and Epstein first dug in, New Albany has since emerged as the premier locale in the United States for the booming data center industry. In 2014, the first notable data center moved into the Ohio River Valley, with Compass Datacenters spending $60 million to place five data centers on a 9.2 acre parcel of land within New Albany Business Park. The New Albany Business Park is especially relevant to Wexner as it is owned by his New Albany Company. It is also home to Wexner-linked corporate data centers, including Wexner’s Abercrombie & Fitch. Shortly after Compass Datacenters joined the neighborhood, Amazon Web Services (AWS) built three campuses in New Albany, followed quickly by Meta (then Facebook) and Google each adding a campus in New Albany.

Compass Datacenters expanded their operations into Canada and Israel in 2019, with the latter coming to fruition through a partnership with AWS and after the Azrieli group purchased a 20% stake in the company. The Azrieli Group was founded by the Israeli-Canadian tycoon David Azrieli and went on to be the largest IPO ever on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in 2010. It has since grown into Israel’s largest commercial real estate developer. The Azrieli Group is a known partner of another Canadian family dynasty – the Bronfmans, who boast significant ties to both Wexner and Epstein.

As it stands today, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta all have data centers or commitments to build data centers within New Albany, Ohio. In addition to the data centers, Central Ohio has also welcomed a commitment from Intel to build one of the largest semiconductor factories in the world. This decision was made in no small part due to the state offering nearly $2 billion in incentives and tax breaks for the California-based Intel, including “a 30-year tax break” approved by state legislators allowing “Intel to save $650 million.” In February 2026, Intel announced delays until 2030 regarding this project. New Albany executives have described the Intel deal and the influx of Big Tech data centers as necessary to establish the “Silicon Heartland” in Ohio, with New Albany at its center.

Incidentally, Wexner and the New Albany Company played an intimate role in helping seal the Intel deal in Ohio. It was representatives of the New Albany Company who approached the once quiet town of Johnstown, offering to pay upfront for hundreds of acres in and around town. They paid well over market rate and many sold their properties for over a million dollars, though they had to sign nondisclosure agreements with the New Albany Company to lock in those prices. A few months after these deals were finalized, it was announced that Intel was planning to build its new semiconductor factories in that exact area. “It [the Intel deal] wouldn’t have happened without them,” J.P. Nauseef, the CEO of JobsOhio, the state’s private economic development group, told Forbes. JobsOhio, incidentally had secured a $150 million grant that paid for the land for the Intel factories, which formed part of an incentive package from the State of Ohio totaling over $2 billion. JobsOhio, a controversial “dark money” organization, is discussed in detail later in this piece.

Like other tax incentives prepared by the State to benefit Wexner-connected business deals, Ohioans are unlikely to reap any of the alleged benefits they will receive. Indeed, with New Albany’s data center growth long promoted as essential to the economic well-being of state residents, most Ohioans have instead only received engorged electricity bills despite the billions in taxpayer-funded incentives these large tech conglomerates have received. While Ohioans are turning out in record numbers to oppose building even more data centers, Ohio state legislators have responded by introducing legislation to create a new commission that would help “dispel inaccurate myths” about bringing more data centers into the state, particularly data centers planned to be built on land developed by Wexner’s New Albany Company.

In addition to Wexner’s direct ties to bringing Big Tech giants to New Albany, there is also an important possibility that Epstein himself helped sow the seeds for their presence in the Wexner-dominated Columbus suburb as well. For instance, during the time that Epstein was intimately involved with New Albany and allegedly “ran” it for Wexner, he was the main (and some years, the only) donor to the Edge Foundation. The Edge Foundation, beginning in 1999, was the host of the influential Billionaire’s Dinner, in which Epstein was involved from its inception. From 2001 to 2017, overlapping several years with Epstein’s deep involvement in New Albany, Epstein funded $638,000 out of the total of $857,000 raised by Edge during that period. Subsequent reports have alleged that Edge’s Billionaire’s Dinner was an “influence operation” ran for Epstein’s benefit.

Notable attendees of those dinners at the time Epstein was Edge’s most influential donor include several of the founders of major Big Tech companies that installed themselves at New Albany during and shortly after that period of time. Those founders include Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Bezos developed close ties to Epstein’s “fixer” Ghislaine Maxwell while Brin and Page were both subpoenaed as part of the USVI case against JP Morgan regarding the bank’s alleged facilitation of Epstein’s sex trafficking activities. These subpoenas were issued because Epstein allegedly led the Google co-founders to bank with J.P. Morgan and Epstein helped advise Brin on structuring trusts for his children.

In addition, Epstein attended a 2015 dinner meeting brokered by Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel where Mark Zuckerberg of Meta/Facebook was in attendance. Thiel was considerably close to Epstein during this time and beyond and was also an extremely influential early investor in and board member of Meta/Facebook. Thiel’s Epstein ties, combined with Zuckerberg’s own meeting with Epstein, could have played a role in Meta’s decision to establish a presence in Wexner-dominated New Albany in 2017. Last year, Meta announced that they would build yet another data center, promoted as the highest capacity data center in the world, in Wexner’s fiefdom.

How Wexner Designed Ohio’s Corporate Welfare System, Funded by Taxpayers

The question thus remains: Why Central Ohio? New Albany was hardly a formidable city before Wexner and Epstein located their business dealings there, with a population of just over 1,500 citizens in 1990. By 2000, it had grown to just over 4,000, and has seen a 180% growth since –– leaving the small but powerful suburb of Columbus sitting at a population of around 11,000 people today.

Reporting from Data Center Frontier in 2024 speculates as to why this region was chosen to house so many data centers. Historically, this parallel was of systemic importance to the Union Pacific Railroad system, and fiber providers such as AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and more, ran their broadband cables alongside the rails of the first transcontinental railroad. According to a LinkedIn post by current Oracle employee and former Program Manager of Microsoft’s Cloud Developer Services, George Moore, “this fiber optic infrastructure provides the data centers with unprecedented access to the absolute highest bandwidth in a virtuous cycle of investment: more data centers drive more traffic, which drives more fiber optic cables, which drives more data centers.”

Not to remain a speculative theory, this flywheel of data center build-outs pushed by fiber optic growth, as described by Moore, has driven Ohio to become a “leading state for data centers.” According to reports from DataCenterMap.com, Ohio is currently home to 193 data centers, making it the fourth ranked state in the country behind Virginia, Texas and California. It now boasts more date centers than its neighboring states –– Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Indiana –– combined. Well over half of these data centers are situated in Central Ohio, with 121 and counting in the Columbus/New Albany area.

Unsurprisingly, the New Albany Company views itself as being central to Ohio’s transformation. For instance, the company’s current CEO Bill Ebbing told Forbes that “the establishment of the ‘Silicon Heartland’ [in New Albany] will redefine Ohio’s economic future, providing generational job opportunities while helping to reduce the country’s dependence on foreign manufacturing of semiconductors,” referencing Intel’s planned New Albany-based plant.

As a result of New Albany’s efforts, Ohio has now “taken center stage as the hub of the Midwest Semiconductor Network (MSN).” That network is notably led by Ohio State University, which is deeply connected to Wexner, and “fueled by federal investment through the [Biden-era] CHIPS and Science Act.”

It isn’t just federal taxpayer funds that are fueling the construction of the “Silicon Heartland” right where Wexner conveniently wields such power. Another reason for Ohio becoming “the epicenter” for data centers is because of the unprecedented ways in which Ohio’s private sector, led by Wexner-linked entities, has been able to divert Ohio taxpayer funds to heavily subsidize the development of the state’s “Silicon Heartland.”

After re-making what was once the village of New Albany into a public-private partnership under his control, Wexner turned his sights to the far larger, neighboring city of Columbus, the Ohio state capital. In 2002, Wexner and Kessler teamed up with the long-time publisher of the Columbus Dispatch, John Wolfe, to create the Columbus Partnership. It is worth noting that Wolfe was very enmeshed with Wexner, serving on the board of the Wexner Center Foundation from 1990 to 2016. Wexner chaired the Columbus partnership for nearly twenty years, stepping down in 2021.

The partnership describes itself as a “a nonprofit organization of CEOs from Columbus’ leading businesses and institutions.” In reality, it is the de facto economic development authority for the Columbus region, which includes 11 counties in and around the city. In fact, the Columbus Partnership created Columbus 2020, which later became One Columbus –– now the official economic development group of the Columbus region. One Columbus is also a public-private partnership that is largely funded by private corporations with a significant presence in Ohio, including J.P. Morgan, Honda, AT&T, Bank of America and, of course, L Brands –– the Wexner-controlled parent company of The Limited. Several of its current investors are Big Tech firms like Amazon who have become deeply entrenched in Wexner’s New Albany. One Columbus also developed the local government’s current economic roadmap, which is “aggressively focused” on economic growth benefiting its corporate partners.

One Columbus’ partnership with local governments in the area has allowed them to offer the companies they court, many of which are foreign-owned, large incentive packages that are funded by public money. Several of the businesses they court move to New Albany. Those companies are attracted by these generous taxpayer-funded incentives and then purchase commercial real estate, most often from Wexner’s New Albany Company. The use of over-the-top incentives for corporate relocation to Columbus has been engineered by Wexner many times in the past, such as in the Wexner-backed effort to bring the CIA-linked Southern Air Transport to Columbus in the 1990s (discussed later in this article). Ultimately, the creation of the Columbus Partnership/One Columbus allowed him to both formalize and normalize arrangements like this that were once the product of backroom deals.

The Wexner-dominated Columbus Partnership has also produced another affiliate organization, Smart Columbus, which is focused on making Columbus a “test city” for other smart cities in the United States. Smart Columbus is another public-private partnership between the Columbus Partnership and the City of Columbus. One its goals is to end the use of privately owned conventional cars in the city, replacing it with electric public transportation. The organization was created in 2016, after the city received a $50 million Department of Transportation grant to aid that effort, along with millions more from the family foundation of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. This goal is notably analogous to a goal promoted by the U.S. government’s National Security Commission on AI, whose members included U.S. intelligence officials and representatives of Big Tech firms, including those which own major data centers in New Albany.

Wexner’s Columbus Partnership is also a network partner of an organization called JobsOhio. JobsOhio’s other regional partners, which are seven including the Columbus Partnership, are public-private partnerships or private sector-led nonprofits essentially modeled after the Columbus Partnership, but focusing on different areas of the state. As noted earlier, JobsOhio prepared the large incentive packages for the Intel-New Albany deal as well as the more recent Anduril deal (discussed in a later section of this article), among many others.

JobsOhio is a very controversial organization. Created in 2011, it is the privatized replacement of the Ohio Department of Development that takes in money from what was once a public asset, Ohio’s state liquor tax, which it leased the rights to through 2039 for $1.4 billion. Its lease was outrageously extended through 2053 at no additional cost to JobsOhio by the Ohio Controlling Board last year. Four years after it was created, it took in well over the $1.4 billion it had paid for those rights. Those funds, which would have otherwise gone to fund the public sector, have ostensibly been spent on “economic development.” However, JobsOhio has been unable to produce data to back up its bold claims about job creation. While it is unknown how many jobs the group actually added, what has provably stacked up over the years are the group’s known expenditures.

In addition, as a private corporation, JobsOhio is not required to show how the funds it takes in from the liquor tax are spent. It also oddly pardoned delinquent loans tied to a massive state bribery scandal (see the next section of this article) and has been tied to other scandals, such as that involving former Ohio State University president Ted Carter.

The large incentive packages of taxpayer money JobsOhio has awarded to corporations ultimately come down to a large corporate welfare scheme that is directly financed by regular Ohioans. Currently, JobsOhio is chaired by a corporate lobbyist closely tied to current Ohio governor Mike DeWine.

The problems with JobsOhio were succinctly summarized by the Ohio Capital Journal, which noted that, shortly after JobsOhio was created:

[…t]he group ProgressOhio immediately sued, claiming the JobsOhio scheme violated several provisions in the state constitution prohibiting the state government from giving special treatment to a single corporation, including by extending credit to it. The Ohio Supreme Court threw out the suit, saying those who brought it didn’t have standing to sue because they didn’t show that they were personally harmed by the creation of JobsOhio.

In a dissent, then-Justice Bill O’Neill was appalled.

‘Hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds are being funneled into a dark hole to be disbursed without public scrutiny, and the highest court in the land is looking the other way,’ he wrote. ‘The Supreme Court of Ohio is the last house on the street, and passing on this case is an abdication of our duty as protectors of the Constitution.’

Today, JobsOhio is another node in the latest iteration of the model first developed by Wexner and Kessler in the Columbus region. Corporate-controlled public-private partnerships in each region are now partnered with JobsOhio, which funnels what was once public money with zero transparency into the hands of corporations doing business in the state. While these incentives are often framed as essential to “creating jobs,” research has shown that, in about 75% of cases, the incentives packages like those developed by JobsOhio would not have influenced the company’s decision to settle or expand in the state.

JobsOhio was notably created by legislation signed into law by former Ohio governor John Kasich in 2011. That year, Kasich brought on venture capitalist Mark Kvamme to get JobsOhio “off the ground.” Kvamme was a veteran of Sequoia Capital before moving to Ohio to co-found the VC firm Drive Capital. Kvamme had donated $1.35 million to Kasich’s gubernatorial campaign prior to Kasich choosing him to set up JobsOhio. Kvamme’s more recent activities, including those directly linked to the New Albany Company, are discussed in detail in the next section.

In addition to the donations from Kvamme, the coffers of many of Kasich’s political campaigns, as well as those of the state’s Republican Party, have long been filled by Wexner, who has historically been the main political donor in the state for right-leaning politicians. However, Wexner also donates to Ohio Democrats. Kasich also received 35 “gifts” from Wexner in 2010, the year before he created JobsOhio with Kvamme, but Kasich declined to disclose the nature of those “gifts.” In addition to those ties, Kasich also tapped Wexner directly in 2013 to aid the state’s “marketing effort” to businesses based elsewhere. According to reports, Kasich compared asking Wexner for help in this effort to “a quarterback getting advice from Super Bowl champion Peyton Manning.” When asked about Wexner’s ties to Epstein and why it had not hampered Wexner’s businesses in New Albany, Kasich responded that it was because New Albany operates “at the speed of business.” Notably, a few years later in 2016, long-time Jeffrey Epstein associate Gwendolyn Beck emailed Epstein about joining Kasich’s campaign as an advisor for a committee on aging. This clearly suggests that Epstein, at the time, had a direct line to Kasich’s campaign that year.

It is also important to note that, while JobsOhio rakes in billions in what was once Ohio public funds and while Wexner greatly influences public spending on economic development, Ohio has been forced to drastically cut funding for public schools, libraries, publicly-funded healthcare programs and much more. Furthermore, many of the companies enticed to the state, and the Columbus region in particular, are data centers, which have also been raising electricity costs across the state. They’ve also been linked to serious health issues. While JobsOhio would argue that those data centers create jobs, the vast majority of the jobs they do create are temporary as they are construction jobs that predictably disappear once a data center is built. Public outrage against data centers have grown in the state as a result, with the state legislature recently voting to end some of the state subsidies that help Wexner’s New Albany, and other areas in the state, court them. Despite this legislation passing, Mike DeWine recently used a line item to veto to quietly allow those subsidies to continue.

InnovateOhio and the O.H.I.O. Fund

As Kasich was leaving the governor’s office in January 2019, he signed off on the creation of a new government agency called InnovateOhio. His successor, Mike DeWine and his Lieutenant Governor John Husted, both of whom have been heavily funded by Wexner, oversaw the agency’s efforts to “modernize” the state of Ohio’s public services. Not unlike the pitches for JobsOhio and related groups, the retooling of Ohio public services to be as digital-focused as possible was deemed necessary in order to “make the state attractive to outside business.” In April 2019, Mike DeWine issued an order forcing all state agencies, boards, and commissions to adopt and use InnovateOhio.

The initial board of InnovateOhio included Mark Kvamme, who had helped create JobsOhio, as well as Ohio businessman turned Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno and venture capitalist and current Vice President J.D. Vance. Moreno’s campaign, financed in part by Wexner, was notably dogged by accusations that he used his position on the board of InnovateOhio to boost a blockchain company in which he had held a large stake. Other notable founding members of the board at InnovateOhio included the head of U.S. intelligence and defense contractor Battelle, whose Columbus area facility was the alleged source of the anthrax used in the 2001 anthrax attacks. Vivek Ramaswamy, currently running to be the new governor of Ohio after DeWine, also joined the board of InnovateOhio after its founding. As part of its mandate, InnovateOhio laid the infrastructure for and then established digital identity via the OHID system for every Ohioan hoping to access state public services.

InnovateOhio’s advisory board is currently chaired by Falon Donohue, who co-founded Narya Capital with current US VP J.D. Vance and former Mithril Capital partner Colin Greenspan. Mithril is closely linked to tech billionaire Peter Thiel, whose deep ties to Epstein have been further illuminated by recent releases. Vance is also a Mithril alum and Thiel played a pivotal role in launching his political career. Narya has invested heavily in Vivek Ramaswamy’s Strive Asset Management, which has also received funding from Cantor Fitzgerald, whose long-time head Howard Lutnick is the current Commerce Secretary under Trump. Lutnick’s sons are currently running Cantor.

As previously noted, venture capitalist Mark Kvamme was central not only to the creation of JobsOhio but also to the early years of InnovateOhio. Prior to moving to Ohio while at Sequoia Capital, Kvamme was one of the earliest backers and board members of Reid Hoffman’s LinkedIn and has invested alongside Hoffman in other companies. Hoffman has since become infamous for his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

The firm that Kvamme co-founded in Ohio, Drive Capital, received $50 million from Ohio State University (OSU) for one of its funds. Reports suggested the controversial decision to put so much of OSU funds into Drive Capital was related to Kvamme’s ties to Kasich as well as John Gee. At the time, Gee was serving as a member of OSU’s board of trustees while also serving as a director of Wexner’s The Limited. Gee had also taken Wexner’s spot on the board when Wexner stepped down in 2012. OSU is also heavily funded by Wexner family donations. In addition, Kvamme sat on the board of the Wexner Center for the Arts, which is chaired by Wexner.

Kvamme has since developed what he refers to as Ohio’s own “sovereign wealth fund” modeled after Singapore’s state-owned investment company Temasek. That fund, called The O.H.I.O. (Ohio High-growth Investment Opportunities) Fund has raised hundreds of millions of dollars from Ohio-based investors whose identities have not been disclosed by the fund. The fund does have an advisory board of several prominent Ohio businessmen, each from a major Ohio city. Notably, the businessman chosen by the fund to represent Columbus is Alex Fischer, the former CEO and president of the Wexner-founded Columbus Partnership who is currently a partner at Wexner’s New Albany Company. Notably, the O.H.I.O. Fund has backed a recently approved New Albany development called the New Albany Innovation Center that is marketed by Wexner’s New Albany Company as one of the key “incentives” for business considering moving to the Columbus suburb he largely controls. In addition, the O.H.I.O Fund’s first big investment was the purchase of a large, 148-acre property roughly 12 miles away from New Albany in Sunbury, OH. The property is part of the Sunbury Business & Technology Park. The Sunbury Business & Technology Park, soon to be home to a massive $2 billion Amazon data center, is being developed by Wexner’s New Albany Company.

The O.H.I.O. Fund has also contributed significant sums to Narya Capital, the VC firm co-founded by Vice President J.D. Vance. Kvamme, who created the fund, has been a major fundraiser for Vance’s political campaigns. Kvamme, importantly, has his own political ambitions.

That isn’t the only investment that the O.H.I.O. Fund has made with ties to the current Trump administration. The fund recently teamed up with Terry Coyne, vice chairman of the Cleveland office of Newmark, to find the “next Anduril” to fill a large property near Columbus’ Rickenbacker Airport. Newmark’s recent acquisition of this land near Rickenbacker Airport neighbors the site chosen for military contractor Anduril’s planned large drone factory (discussed later in this article). Anduril was created by two figures close to Peter Thiel as well as J.D. Vance: Palmer Luckey and Trae Stephens.

The O.H.I.O. Fund is the only member of the group of investors behind Coyne that Coyne has chosen to disclose. Newmark, who owns the land in question and employs Coyne, is a subsidiary of Howard Lutnick’s Cantor Fitzgerald. The New York Times recently reported on how the Lutnick family and Cantor have been “cashing in” on A.I. data centers around the country, with the Columbus region apparently being no exception. Lutnick was very close to Wexner’s former money manager Jeffrey Epstein, who was Lutnick’s long-time neighbor and also his business partner. Epstein also hosted Lutnick at his infamous island.

The Power Behind The Power

The boom in AI data centers across the United States has also spurred a “renaissance” in nuclear power, as data centers continue to drive the country’s surging power demands. Ohio is, of course, no exception. However, unique to Ohio is the fact that the state’s largest corruption scandal ever is intimately linked to the state’s nuclear power industry and those seeking to further expand the “Silicon Heartland.”

In July 2020, five Ohioans were charged with racketeering in what has been described as “likely the largest bribery, money laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people of the state of Ohio.” This scandal led to the arrest of then-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges, Householder’s adviser Jeffrey Longstreth, and two Ohio-based lobbyists, Neil Clark and Juan Cespedes. The five men were found to be complicit in distributing bribes to members of the House in order to pass a controversial law that led to the bail-out of two aging nuclear power plants and two coal power plants paid for by “utility ratepayers” (i.e. regular Ohioans paying utility bills). The two Ohioan nuclear power plants, Perry and Davis-Besse, received a $150 million per year subsidy due to the passing of this law, known as House Bill 6 (HB6). The two nuclear power plants central to this scheme were owned by Energy Harbor, which was previously known as FirstEnergy –– the very company found guilty of bribing Ohio officials in order to ensure their hefty bailout.

Central to the bailout was the successful campaign by Larry Householder to take his position as the Speaker of the House. Householder had secretly controlled a 501(c)(4) non-profit called Generation Now, into which FirstEnergy had funneled around $60 million between March 2017 and March 2020. According to U.S. Attorney David DeVillers, who charged the five men, there was “no mistake, this is Larry Householder’s 501(c)(4).” Reporting from NPR in July 2020 stated that DeVillers had alleged that “the money from the scheme was spent to the detriment of other political candidates and the people of Ohio.” The prosecutors claimed that “members of Householder’s enterprise used those payments for their own personal benefit and to gain support for Householder’s bid to become speaker.”

According to the complaint filed in July 2020, during “the Spring and Fall of 2018, the Enterprise [Generation Now] spent millions in Company A [FirstEnergy] money to support House candidates involved in primary and general elections whom the Enterprise believed both would vote for Householder as Speaker and, ultimately, would follow his lead as Speaker and vote for bailout legislation” benefitting FirstEnergy. The company had notably announced it was closing nuclear plants and declaring bankruptcy shortly before, in March 2018. In exchange for these payments, Householder and his co-conspirators helped pass House Bill 6 (HB6). They also subsequently defeated a ballot initiative to strike down the law after its successful passing. The complaint confirms that Householder-backed candidates that had received money from FirstEnergy via Householder’s Generation Now organization helped elect Householder, who introduced the bill just three months into his term. As a result of this legislation, FirstEnergy’s $60 million racketeering scheme went on to be worth $1.3 billion. The aforementioned JobsOhio had lent FirstEnergy $12 million in 2015, but oddly chose to forgive the loan two years later.

As noted above, FirstEnergy sent “regular payments to Householder’s secret company,” Generation Now, beginning in March 2017. These payments began just a few months after Householder had accompanied FirstEnergy employees on their company jet. The payments from FirstEnergy to Householder increased after HB6 was introduced, including an $8 million wire to Generation Now in May 2019. This money was apparently used to help manufacture consent for the bailout via mailers and advertising, in addition to their own personal enrichment and benefit. The bill was passed by a 51-38 vote and promptly signed by Ohio Governor Mike DeWine. When a campaign was organized to overturn the law via a ballot initiative, FirstEnergy wired Generation Now an additional $38 million between July and October 2019.

Over the course of this three year period, FirstEnergy sent $60 million to essentially purchase the billion-dollar bailout. State prosecutors described the payments as “akin to bags of cash — unlike campaign or PAC contributions, they were not regulated, not reported, not subject to public scrutiny — and the Enterprise freely spent the bribe payments to further the Enterprise’s political interests and to enrich themselves.”

While certainly a notable story onto itself, with numerous implications for the state’s booming data center industry, there are multiple connections between the parties involved to the decades-old effort by Epstein and Wexner to build out New Albany, Ohio.

Neil Clark, a long-time lobbyist in Ohio and one of those charged with racketeering in 2020, was an essential figure within the scheme. During conversations with Householder which were recorded by the FBI, Clarke self-described himself as “Householder’s proxy,” and also claimed that the “dark money” at their disposal was “unlimited.” Clark was also recorded saying that “we call Company A [FirstEnergy] the bank… they can fund these things for 20 years if they want to… they’ve got too much money, too much power.”

In 1999, Clark formed State Street Consultants, an Ohio-based powerhouse lobbying firm, with former Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Paul Tipps. The firm grew into the largest government affairs consulting firm in Ohio, but not before both Tipps and Clark had spent years lobbying on behalf of Wexner’s Limited Brands, and the Epstein-Wexner run New Albany Company. During this period, Wexner was working with the lobbying firm The Success Group (to be discussed later), in addition to Tipps and Clark, to “persuade the (Ohio) legislature in 1990 to put an amendment into an unrelated bill that, in essence, allowed his company [New Albany Company] to create its own government within the development…The change enabled the private government to tax new residents, issue bonds and essentially control almost all the area.”

In 1992, Wexner sought an amendment to a state law preventing his golf course, the New Albany Country Club, from reapplying for a liquor license during a four-year wait after previously being denied said license. Clark, alongside his future partner Tipps, represented Wexner’s attempt to circumnavigate this long wait, with Clark noting he provided the services pro-bono. As a charter member of Wexner’s club, Clark expressed that he “might like to have a cocktail after I play 18 holes of crappy golf.” The same year, Clark and Wexner co-hosted a controversial fundraiser for then-President George H. W. Bush’s reelection campaign as well as Ohio House Republican campaigns.

In 2021, shortly before he was due to arrive in court in relation to the HB6 scandal, Clark revealed he was “working on a tell-all book of stories from his decades-long career as a lobbyist,” according to reporting from Fox. Clark furthered that he wanted to “set the record straight about what I did during my 40 years in the Statehouse,” and that he “say[s] things that people are going to be shocked about.” He told reporters the book was “nearing publication” in February 2021. A month later, in March 2021, Clark was found dead from a bullet wound to his head in a wooded area near his Florida home. The death was quickly ruled a suicide by local authorities. Sadly, Clark was not the only person tied to this scandal who would be be found dead by “suicide.”

In April 2024, the former Chair of the Public Utilities Commissions of Ohio (PUCO), Sam Randazzo, was found dead in Columbus, Ohio. Randazzo had spent years leading the charge in Ohio to deregulate the energy grid, before forming the Sustainability Funding Alliance –– a corporation that had received payments from FirstEnergy in January 2019. The morning Randazzo was supposed to “check in with the court,” his body was found hanging in a building he owned.

Previously, Randazzo had pled not guilty to 22 state and 11 federal charges relating to his role in the HB6 scandal. According to reporting from NBC, Randazzo was accused of taking a $4.3 million bribe from FirstEnergy’s ex-CEO Chuck Jones and ex-Senior Vice President Michael Dowling in January 2019 for “consulting services” related to writing “parts of a law that would send millions of dollars in subsidies to FirstEnergy.” Randazzo had been appointed to PUCO by Governor Mike DeWine in 2019 shortly after accepting the payment from FirstEnergy. He became PUCO’s chair in April 2019 –– the same month that HB6 was introduced. According to the Ohio Capital Journal, Randazzo had received a total of $22 million in consulting fees from FirstEnergy, including the $4.3 million in 2019. That same year, in November 2019, Randazzo and PUCO issued a new order which granted FirstEnergy a “major win” that would have been “worth hundreds of millions of dollars.”

In 2021, DeWine came to Randazzos’ defense when “links first surfaced between Randazzo and FirstEnergy.” Randazzo was not the only personal appointment made by Governor DeWine involving one of the major players in the scandal.

In January 2019, at the onset of the House Bill 6 introduction, Governor DeWine appointed Dan McCarthy to serve as his Director of Legislative Affairs. McCarthy had founded a 501(c)(4) entity called Partners for Progress in 2017, which FirstEnergy used to funnel money during their bribery scheme related to HB6. According to reporting from Cleveland.com, McCarthy’s Partners for Progress received “$5 million from FirstEnergy in 2017,” and “over the next several months” distributed “$1.2 million of that money to organizations working to elect Householder as speaker,” including the aforementioned Generation Now. The group “later spent millions funding ads and taking other steps to pass House Bill 6.” Another board member for Partners for Progress was McKenzie Davis, who worked with McCarthy while he was President of The Success Group. McCarthy had left the Success Group to join DeWine’s administration. As it relates to the power nexus in Central Ohio, the Success Group had previously worked for Wexner’s The Limited in the 1990s, in addition to the Ohio Electric Utility Institute, the Ohio Coalition for Customer Choice in Electricity, and military contractor TRW.

Tangentially, TRW had acquired Cam Gears in 1965, the latter being a firm managed by Douglas Sims Leese and founded by Leese’s father. Leese became the International Vice President of Customer Relations for TRW the same year of the merger. Leese would later go on to hire Epstein in the early 1980s, and is believed to have played a crucial role in connecting Epstein to Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi and his former business partner Steven Hoffenberg.

Notably, The Success Group was founded and chaired by long-time Ohio Democratic figure Dennis Wojtanowski, who acted as its CEO from 1984 to 2003. Wojtanowski had previously lobbied on behalf of Sir James Goldsmith during a failed take-over bid of the Akron, Ohio-based Goodyear Tire. Wojtanowski had attempted to cover his business associations with the controversial Goldsmith by not registering Goldsmith as his client, but instead listed Hahn, Loeser and Parks –– a Cleveland-based law firm –– which had hired him on Goldsmith’s behalf. Wojtanowski’s associations with Goldsmith in the late 1980s are certainly prudent to the Epstein/Wexner take over of New Albany as Epstein was apparently first introduced to this elite power nexus at Goldsmith’s New York mansion in the early 1970s. Goldsmith was closely affiliated with Robert Maxwell and Rothschild banking interests as well as a member of the organized-crime-linked Clermont Club in the UK. Wojtanowski found himself embroiled in a previous lobbying scandal with Wexner which came to light in 1995, when the Ohio lobbyist hosted dinner parties at his home where he illegally distributed $500 checks to state legislators from six subsidiaries of The Limited. Previously, while a state representative, Wojtanowski had chaired the Citizens’ Commission on Nuclear Power in Ohio and was a key-figure in a 1970s effort to amend the method of how electricity utility companies calculate their rate base.

These scandals and their players have direct implications on the future of Ohio’s data center growth, and perfectly illustrate how a small group of businessmen and lobbyists can commandeer local and state government policy-making.

Securing Questionable Tax Exemptions is Easy in Ohio

In 2013, Ohio passed a sales-tax exemption that “covers computer data center equipment” in addition to “materials used in constructing the centers.” This tax exemption remains controversial, particularly given the increase in regional electricity prices and other issues that come with new data centers. According to a January 2025 report from Policy Matters Ohio, “if the investments announced by Amazon, Google, and Microsoft in the past two years are all covered by the tax break, the state and localities could lose out on almost $1.6 billion in sales-tax revenue, with only modest job-creation to show for it.” The positive regulation for the data center industry in Ohio does not stop there, with the report further noting the state’s unique property tax abatements:

In addition to the sales-tax exemption, many Ohio data centers also get local subsidies through property tax abatements. It’s worth noting that Ohio does not tax tangible property like data-center equipment. In Virginia, the largest site for data centers, Loudoun County, received more than $600 million in property taxes from data centers in 2023, the vast bulk of which was from taxes on equipment Ohio doesn’t levy. So Ohio is providing large, invisible subsidies in the form of lesser property taxes on data center equipment than some other states. Some of the data center operators also receive other state subsidies. For example, even prior to its recent announcement that it would invest another $10 billion in Ohio data centers, Amazon was getting a Job Creation Tax Credit, so it is credited with much of the state income tax paid by its data-center employees.

According to 2024 reporting from Cleveland.com, these “stadium-sized data centers” from “Amazon, Google and Meta, plus less familiar names like Quality Technology Services and CyrusOne” often only “employ 20 to 30 or so workers when operational,” with “some earn[ing] tax perks for promising as few as 10 new jobs.” For example, Amazon’s three data centers located in Dublin, Hilliard and New Albany received “about $100 million” in state subsidies according to a 2016 report from Good Jobs First. These tax breaks, while leading to minimal employment boosts, are no small factor within Amazon’s $7.8 billion plans to build more than two dozen data centers in Central Ohio. Final approvals for these tax exemptions are made by the Ohio Tax Credit Authority, which itself is a division of the Ohio Development Services Agency –– the Director of which is notably chosen by the Governor of Ohio.

Public sector subsidies and tax exemptions carry a unique history in Ohio, and have been routinely exploited by Wexner-controlled business interests for several decades. Take, for example, The Limited’s efforts to relocate the CIA’s Southern Air Transport to the Columbus-area Rickenbacker airport in 1995. Wexner’s The Limited Inc., then-under the power of attorney of Jeffrey Epstein, specifically sought out, not one, but two CIA-linked airlines to run its cargo during that period.

As noted in One Nation Under Blackmail, beginning in 1992, The Limited began to be linked to efforts of different airlines to relocate, or set up a major presence, at Rickenbacker. The first of these was the Russian state-owned airline Aeroflot, which created a North American subsidiary called North American Aeroflot (NAA). Wexner’s The Limited was the main force behind NAA and its activities at Rickenbacker. NAA’s activities at Rickenbacker also intimately involved Arrow Air, a CIA-linked airline that had smuggled weapons as part of the Iran-Contra operation.

Less than a month after NAA/Arrow Air began running cargo through Rickenbacker, the main CIA-linked Iran-Contra airline –– Southern Air Transport (SAT) –– began its own efforts to become the dominant force at Rickenbacker. SAT first cloaked its initial attempts via the company Polar Air Cargo, which was comprised of three companies: SAT, Polaris Corp. and NedMark. At the time, SAT had the same owner it had had during Iran-Contra, former CIA lawyer James Bastian. Polar Air later dissolved its relationship with SAT and sought to expand its Columbus operations. However, The Limited wanted nothing to do with this newer iteration of Polar Air and instead began courting SAT directly.

Crucial to these negotiations was a “generous package of incentives from the state of Ohio” that included “a 75% credit against its corporate tax liability for the next 10 years, a $5 million low-interest loan, and a $400,000 job-training grant.” The package was offered by Ohio politicians in efforts to “please powerful Ohio businessmen,” namely Leslie Wexner. SAT ultimately relocated to Rickenbacker to run cargo for Wexner’s The Limited because the incentives deal “was too good to turn down.” Reporting from local Ohio journalist Bob Fitrakis linked Jeffrey Epstein, who had a background in arms smuggling and was enmeshed in Wexner’s finances, to the efforts to bring SAT to Columbus. Fitrakis later reported that key Iran-Contra figures, like Alan Fiers Jr. and Richard Secord, had also been instrumental in SAT’s relocation. He also was told by both Ohio’s Inspector General and Franklin Country’s then-sheriff that they believed Epstein and Wexner had ties to the CIA. More on what the Limited may have been doing clandestinely with these airlines is discussed in One Nation Under Blackmail, but is beyond the scope of this article.

Notably, despite the lofty promises from Ohio officials and lobbyists working for The Limited, SAT did not create the jobs it had promised, did not construct the maintenance facility it had promised to build, and began to financially implode rather quickly despite the $3.5 million in taxpayer funds it had received (not counting the low interest loans). SAT filed for bankruptcy in 1998 and its collapse was likely a controlled demolition, with $32 million of company funds allegedly appearing in the personal bank account of SAT owner James Bastian’s wife not long before it went bankrupt. In the years since, CIA-linked airlines like Landmark Aviation as well as Wexner-linked Lane Aviation made their homes at Rickenbacker. Those two airlines, after heavy lobbying from “local businessmen” saw local law change yet again in 2011, can clear private planes without regular custom checks at the private terminals they control at Rickenbacker.

Dollars and Drones: Anduril and Erebor

Now, Rickenbacker is due to have a new company grace its airstrips. In January 2025, Governor DeWine announced that defense contractor Anduril planned to lease property at Rickenbacker to construct a nearly $1 billion manufacturing facility dubbed Arsenal-1. As illustrated in previous reporting from Unlimited Hangout, Anduril was founded by Palmer Luckey, a long-time associate of Epstein crony and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel. Luckey met Thiel when he was only 19, shortly after Luckey founded his first company Oculus Rift, which was later sold to Facebook while Thiel sat on the social network’s board. Shortly after Luckey founded the modern warfare equipment and drone manufacturing company, Anduril was backed by Thiel’s Founders Fund, only to be joined by another Palantir co-founder, Joe Lonsdale (to be discussed below).

Luckey’s Anduril would not exist without the assistance of Thiel and several executives from Thiel’s Palantir. As Unlimited Hangout has reported in numerous articles beginning in 2020, Palantir is a CIA front explicitly aimed at resurrecting the controversial surveillance dragnet once housed by the Pentagon’s DARPA known as Total Information Awareness (TIA). TIA sought to use warrantless, dragnet surveillance of Americans to prevent crime and terrorism before it happens (i.e. pre-crime, a field which Palantir has since pioneered and which was essentially made DOJ policy by Trump’s Attorney General in his first term, William Barr).

Previous reporting on the founding of Anduril from Unlimited Hangout explains the intimate connections between Luckey, Thiel, and the Epstein network long before the announcement of Arsenal-1 coming to Central Ohio:

One of those Palantir executives who later came to Anduril, Trae Stephens, worked at a government intelligence agency (he declines to specify which one) before joining Palantir. From there, Stephens joined Thiel’s Founders Fund and ended up on the boards of some of the most controversial Founders Fund-funded companies, such as Carbyne911. Financed in part by Jeffrey Epstein and the brainchild of former Israeli Prime Minister (and Epstein associate) Ehud Barak, Carbyne’s platform also involves invasive data collection from civilians and “predictive policing” functionalities. On Carbyne’s board, Stephens originally sat alongside Barak as well as Israeli intelligence-linked figures like Pinchas Buchris (former commander of Israel’s Unit 8200), Lital Leshem (“former” Israeli intelligence operative who know works for documented CIA asset and former head of the infamous mercenary group Blackwater, Erik Prince), and Nicole Junkermann (an Epstein associate who has since rebranded as a venture capitalist in emerging technologies and FinTech). Stephens remains on Carbyne’s board, where he now sits alongside former US Homeland Security chiefs Michael Chertoff (Bush administration) and Kirstjen Nielsen (Trump administration).

Thanks in part to Thiel’s influence over the early Trump administration, Stephens was chosen to oversee Trump’s transition team for the Defense Department, where he “steered” Trump’s early Pentagon policies. At the time, Stephens was also in talks with Luckey to create a new company. After Luckey left Facebook under a cloud of controversy in late March 2017, he and Stephens created Anduril and other Palantir executives were recruited to join the company. Within a year of its existence, Anduril had already netted millions in contracts from the Department of Homeland Security. Stephens has remained at Thiel’s Founders Fund since co-founding Anduril.

An underreported revelation within the recent batch of Epstein emails released by the Department of Justice is that Epstein likely co-invested in Anduril alongside Founders Fund via Thiel’s Valar Ventures firm, specifically Valar Global Fund III. It appears as if Epstein invested $15 million into Valar through his Southern Trust Company in June 2015. In an email from former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to Epstein associate Nicole Junkermann, Barak implies that Thiel and Epstein co-owned the fund, although a spokesperson for Thiel would later deny the claims of co-ownership to the Byline Times while confirming that Epstein was a limited partner.

In recent years, Anduril and Luckey himself have certainly grown in public notoriety, including an appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience. On that podcast, Luckey expressed the need for the United States to “stop being the world police” and instead “become the world’s gun store.” Unsurprisingly, Luckey’s company would be set to benefit immensely from such an international policy pivot –– especially after the completion of Arsenal-1 in the Columbus area.

In a story all too similar to that of booming data center expansion, the build out of Arsenal-1 was made possible in no small part due to massive tax breaks unanimously approved by the Ohio Tax Credit Authority. Only a couple of weeks after the California-based defense contractor first expressed the intention to come to Ohio, Governor DeWine and Ohio Department of Development Director Lydia Mihalik announced “the approval of significant state tax incentives” including “employment tax credits for 30 years worth an estimated $452 million.” Those tax breaks were part of a massive incentives package prepared by the controversial group discussed earlier in this article, JobsOhio, along with involvement of the Wexner-linked One Columbus. The package JobsOhio, One Columbus and their partners prepared for Anduril is larger than the one they offered to Intel in New Albany. Luckey has stated that JobsOhio’s offer was an important factor in their move to Rickenbacker.

Upon completion, Andurils claims that the “five-million-square-foot advanced manufacturing facility” is geared to “build drones, missiles, and other high-tech unpiloted military weapons” in order to address “urgent defense needs.” Luckey has stated that Ohio is central to his company’s plans, stating “Ohio is going to be critical to allowing us to move fast into Arsenal-1 so that we can build the arms that the United States needs to deter, when necessary, large-scale conflicts.” Luckey furthered that “we need to build tens of thousands of autonomous fighter jets, autonomous missiles, and other combat systems that will again deter these wars. And if they break out, win them.” With the expansion of US military action in Iran in March 2026, Luckey and Anduril are situated to profit generously as Arsenal-1 is set to begin production of their first product –– the autonomous fighter jet YFQ-44A –– by Q2 2026.

And yet, it is Luckey’s other Ohio-based company that is arguably positioned to make even more money than selling weapons during wartime –– the stablecoin bank Erebor.

Luckey was a very early Bitcoiner, having expressed his involvement in the network as early as 2010 –– only one year after its creation –– and choosing “Buy more Bitcoin” as his quote for the 2013 Forbes’ “30 under 30.” As noted in previous investigations from Unlimited Hangout, the 2024 Trump campaign made Bitcoin, stablecoins, and cryptocurrency in general a significant part of their platform, and the first year of his second administration was chock full of executive orders and new regulations enabling this behemoth of an industry. Luckey has been an outspoken supporter of President Trump, including a $100,000 donation to Trump’s first inauguration, and was allegedly let go from Facebook in 2017 due to his political views regarding Trump. Luckey also credits Trump’s book, “Art of the Deal” as inspiring him to co-found Oculus, and “even wrote Trump a letter in 2011 urging him to run for president.” Thus it should be of little surprise that, in 2025, Luckey and a crew of ardent Trump supporters –– including Palantir co-founders Peter Thiel and Joe Lonsdale –– set out to actualize the second administration’s stated goal of pushing dollar hegemony through stablecoins by founding Erebor Bank.

Much like Anduril and Palantir, the name of Luckey’s latest venture is a J.R.R. Tolkien reference –– a mountain named Erebor which houses the dragon Smaug’s immense fortune of gold and jewels. Even though Ohio is arguably not at the forefront of financial technology, the founders of Erebor decided Columbus would serve as the grounds for their fortress of digital currencies. Erebor was controversially granted an OCC charter only four months after their application, notably the first granted from Trump-appointed Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould.

Within the announcement of Erebor, which includes investments from Palantir co-founders Joe Lonsdale and Peter Thiel, was the appointment of Jacob Hirshman as co-CEO. Hirshman was previously an advisor to Circle, including a stint as Chief Legal Officer for the second-largest USD stablecoin issuer. Erebor’s launch also noted intentions to become “the most regulated entity conducting and facilitating stablecoin transactions” and to fill the void left after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) –– which occurred in no small part due to the actions of Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund.

The rise and collapse of SVB was chronicled in a previous section of Unlimited Hangout‘s The Chain series, including noting that Circle’s USDC had kept reserves at the now-failed bank. The bank’s collapse led Circle’s stablecoin to “de-peg” as low as 86 cents. Howard Lutnick, the long-time CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald –– the holder of the world’s largest stablecoin, Tether’s USDT, reserves –– noted in a speech at the Bitcoin 2024 Conference that “Circle had USD $3.3 billion of your reserves uninsured in the Silicon Valley Bank when it went bust.” Tether’s ties to the Epstein network was also investigated deeply within The Chain series, including founder Brock Pierce’s intimate relationship with Epstein.

Lutnick, who currently serves as Trump’s Commerce Secretary, appeared at the CIA-funded Chainalysis Conference in 2024 to express his affinity for stablecoins: “Dollar hegemony is fundamental to the United States of America. It matters to us, to our economy. That’s why I’m a fan of properly backed stablecoins, Tether and Circle.” During his Presidential Campaign in 2024, Vivek Ramaswamy took a policy position on stablecoins, claiming he would “order the Federal Reserve to grant stablecoin issuers the same access to Fed facilities that incumbent banks enjoy.” Ramaswamy also responded to Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino on X in March 2025, expressing his affinity for stablecoins helping reinforce USD global reserve status. As Ohio governor, he can be expected to be a friend to Erebor. This is particularly obvious when one considers that Ramaswamy’s Columbus-based Strive Asset Management was seed funded by Peter Thiel and his Founders Fund, current Vice President and former Ohio Senator J.D. Vance’s Narya Capital, Howard Lutnick and Cantor Fitzgerald, and Erebor backer Joe Lonsdale.

A Vivek Win in Ohio Will Mean More of the Same

Vivek Ramaswamy, whose career began in venture capital after graduating with an undergrad degree in biology from Harvard, is but one of the many political stewards sprung from the power nexus Wexner and Epstein birthed in Central Ohio decades ago. Much has been written about J.D. Vance’s connections to Wexner and Thiel, as illustrated in a previous investigation by Unlimited Hangout, but far less has been spoken about Vance’s old friend and college buddy, Ramaswamy, who remains just as connected to the Wexner consortium as our current Vice President. Ramaswamy was an early adopter of the Anti-Woke movement, being labeled the CEO of Anti-Woke Inc. by The New Yorker, with his “anti-woke” investment firm Strive being bankrolled by Thiel, Vance, Lonsdale, and Lutnick. According to BitcoinTreasuries.Net, Strive Asset Management now sits just outside of the top 10 largest public holders of Bitcoin in the world, with 13,311 BTC. Strive strove to become the anti-thesis of “Woke, Inc.” investment firms such as BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard, and yet in the process, the firm’s founder has found himself mere months away from taking the throne of one of the most important states in the nation –– an appointment whose legislative decisions could influence not just the region, but the world itself.

While many pushed the rhetoric that Ramaswamy’s sudden removal from D.O.G.E. was some sort of demotion, his push to become governor of Ohio brings with it the lever to enforce State rights and establish the new, Anti-Woke Silicon Valley in Ohio’s heartland. But it is best to not get distracted by the incessant framing of woke or not woke when discussing Ramaswamy’s campaign, for the very stake for the domestic winners of the artificial intelligence arms race may very well fall into the Cincinnati-native’s hands.

As Wexner and Epstein proved throughout the 20^th century, local and regional governments can be bought and sold much like the acres of land their New Albany Company has leased and sold to the up-and-coming data center behemoths. This phenomenon is unfortunately quite known to Ohio, with Wexner and Epstein in effect building “their own government” in the New Albany area, not to mention the HB-6 scandal that rocked the Ohio State Senate and left two men dead at the end of last decade.

Ramaswamy, whose campaigns have taken immense monetary donations from the likes of Susquehanna International Group founder Jeffrey Yass, Bitcoin evangelist Ross Stevens, and Epstein-associate Glenn Dubin, has spent years in the circle of the technocratic elite that grew out of Silicon Valley. In his speech at a Lincoln Day Dinner in Ohio, according to reporting from The Chronicle, Ramaswamy expressed the intention to move the power nexus out of California and back into the heartland of Ohio: “If it was Silicon Valley leading the way the last 10 years, Ramaswamy said, it should be the Ohio River Valley ‘the next 10 years’ leading the way in manufacturing, energy and the development of artificial intelligence, or AI.”

As noted throughout this article, Ohio’s transformation into the “Silicon Heartland” has come courtesy of a nexus of Wexner-created public-private partnerships and dark money networks that are bleeding Ohio taxpayers dry by siphoning public funds to make their technocratic vision for the state a reality, while raising the cost of living and gutting public services on which many Ohioans rely. Despite Wexner’s role in financing Jeffrey Epstein and Epstein’s own role in the rise of New Albany and the public-private partnership takeover of Ohio state economic development policy, little is being done to prosecute any of the egregious corruption documented in this article.

Instead, thanks to a series of Wexner-funded governors, Wexner’s master plan that started with New Albany has now been replicated throughout the state. Ramaswamy, despite having once said that “transparency is everything” and his claims to have saved taxpayer money at D.O.G.E., has made no mention of any plans to bring transparency to these dark money funnels that benefit Ohio’s richest men on the taxpayer’s dime. He has not even acknowledged these systems exist.

While it is currently unknown how much money Ramaswamy’s current gubernatorial campaign has received from this network, his running mate Rob McColley, has taken money from Wexner’s Bath and Body Works, the New Albany Company and the consulting firm of New Albany Company partner Alex Fischer for his past campaigns. McColley is also the chairman of the Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee and was the lead sponsor of SB-52 –– a piece of legislation that gives “county commissioners new powers to kill wind or solar projects early in their development.” He notably received $13,500 from Energy industry PACs during the HB6 scandal. Ramaswamy, like DeWine and Kasich before him, is on track to continue to oversee the final stages of Ohio’s transformation into the “Silicon Heartland,” with Wexner’s New Albany at its center.

And yet, the overarching implications of this story hardly remain domiciled to just New Albany, nor the Central Ohio region. In fact, this influence nexus creeps far beyond the borders of the state –– even outside the jurisdiction of the country itself.

Welcome To Technate, Ohio

The localized issues downstream of a string of data centers popping up in an Ohioan municipality are numerous; electricity prices, aquifer drainage, strains on local governments and public infrastructure, air pollution and noise. When tax breaks and other incentives delivered by purchased state regulators are given to these server stewards of the internet’s lymphatic system, to the manufacturers of autonomous war machines, to the stablecoin bankers for agentic entities, or to the silicon brains behind AI usurping human thought, the regional conflict of interests collide with global control structures at breakneck speed.

The unfortunate example that Wexner and Epstein have made of Ohio during the last half century are but signposts of an encroaching technocratic theology that parasitically feeds on local hosts for the purposes of gestation and growth into a far larger –– and far more dangerous –– force. This is not to belittle the very real and tangible effects that citizens of Ohio must endure and pushback upon, but rather that this is a trope of how the technate governance structure utilizes balkanization and the limited resources of a local government as a means to pursue centralized outcomes of power within the hands of the technocratic elite.

The decentralization theater that has taken rise within the talking points of the internet’s most successful entrepreneurs is masking the greatest centralization of power in history. One simply has to look at the businesses investigated in this article to see a fully realized stack of technology that can influence human behavior immensely –– perhaps even to the societal level. Situated within the confines of Wexner’s terrarium are banking rails for monetary weapons of mass destruction (stablecoins), literal rails for building literal weapons of mass destruction (drones), and digital think-tanks capable of delivering insurmountable payloads of destruction to content creation and distribution (artificial intelligence). This three-pronged fork, held by the very hand of the very power nexus that brought Epstein face-to-face with the highest levels of government figures, will leave hardly a crumb for us humans to fight over on the plate of world power.

This is a coup d’état of the global order –– of the very nature of humanity –– actualized by a handful of men with bottomless pockets who were willing to wait decades for their plans to come to fruition. Had these conquerors simply stormed the gates of Capitol Hill, they would have been met with the defensive force of a nation, while simultaneously revealing their now-failed intentions of domination to the entire planet. The world will not be won overnight by overt kinetic force, but by synchronized maneuvers on numerous fronts over numerous decades –– by a seemingly innocuous string of conveniences woven into a penitentiary.

Ramaswamy, as noted in the introduction to this article, spoke these quiet parts out loud upon his departure of D.O.G.E. Musk and Ramaswamy were on the same page, with the former taking the technologic approach, and the latter focused on the State-level of governance –– all in an effort to divide and conquer to “save” the country. While there is little evidence of their efforts saving the country, there certainly is quite a lot of evidence that points towards a division and conquest, as exemplified by the corruption and consolidation within the Buckeye State.

Long gone are the days of Alexander the Great and Attila the Hun, when peoples were enslaved and commodified by the victors of a violent land war. Today, the fronts of the new world war are at the intersection of mind and technology, where the silicon conquistadors lay entrenched in their data centers, banks, and factories. While the internet is routinely compared to an ethereal cloud, in reality, its infrastructure remains tethered to the physical world –– a cluster of chips and processors connected by wires to data centers powered by generators built on land owned, maintained and governed by humans.

If this Central Ohio fiefdom is allowed to prosper without hardly an investigation or meaningful social pushback, the outcome and impact on the world might be disastrous. Centered and maintained in New Albany, Wexner’s and Epstein’s breakaway civilization could very well break apart civilization –– leaving behind a scattering of pieces to be easily consolidated and conquered in its disruptive, technocratic wake.

Technate, Ohio: How Leslie Wexner and Jeffrey Epstein Built The Silicon Heartland.

In this final installment of First Friends, a series that has examined figures with considerable overlaps between Jeffrey Epstein and the Trump family, a key nexus of Epstein’s activities, specifically in the USVI, has been illuminated by the recent document releases. It comprises Epstein, the Emirati elite Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem (Sultan bin Sulayem or bin Sulayem in the remainder of this article), and New York businessman Andrew Farkas. Sultan bin Sulayem is best known for controlling a significant portfolio of Emirati government-owned assets, particularly in freight and the maritime industry, with important holdings in logistics globally as well as major real estate holdings in the United States and beyond. He recently became the subject of national media scrutiny when his name was redacted by the DOJ in an exchange with Epstein, whereby Epstein told him he “loved the torture video” that Sultan bin Sulayem had sent him. The DOJ has provided no further information about the “torture video.”

Sultan bin Sulayem is the long-time and close business associate of Andrew Farkas, a New York businessman whose family’s ties to Epstein date back to the 1980s. Farkas has extensive ties to fraud that was, and likely still is, rampant in the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) during the 1990s. He later cultivated strong ties with the former HUD Secretary who once pursued him, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. After Cuomo left HUD, Farkas arguably became his most important source of campaign financing while also employing Cuomo in the private sector in between his stints in New York state and local government. As will be explored in this article, Farkas introduced his friend Sultan bin Sulayem to prominent figures in New York real estate, such as Donald Trump, and boasts extremely close business ties to Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and to the Kushner family’s business interests. Importantly, Farkas and bin Sulayem seem to have played a key role in forging the Trump family’s initial ties to the UAE, whose government has come under scrutiny for its questionable investments in Trump-linked companies in recent years.

How Epstein first encountered Andrew Farkas and Sultan bin Sulayem is unclear, but they were first photographed together in 2005, earlier than previously reported. This article will show that Epstein and his broader network, including offshore financial institutions tied to the Maxwell family, appear to have worked to enable UAE business interests to take over key aspects of American maritime infrastructure. This later resulted in a national security scandal that involved top officials in the George W. Bush administration. In the years after, Farkas helped Epstein develop key aspects of the infrastructure he used and abused in the USVI to facilitate his trafficking activities, with bin Sulayem also offering assistance to help Epstein cover his tracks in major USVI real estate purchases. The evidence contained in this article makes it clear that Farkas and bin Sulayem warrant further investigation regarding Epstein’s trafficking and other illegal activities. However, given the DOJ’s willingness to redact bin Sulayem’s identity on at least one disturbing email, and the close ties of Farkas to the Trump and Kushner families, who also have major Emirati business interests, it seems clear that a federal investigation of these two figures and their ties to Epstein is unlikely.

A Farkas Family Affair

Andrew Farkas was born into a wealthy New York family, with his grandfather having founded Alexander’s department store, and he attended the elite Trinity School. There, according to the New York Times, he formed “a close circle of friends – many of them scions of other New York business families.” With classmates from Trinity, he founded his first company, which focused on database management, at age 16. He later attended Harvard University, where he spent his summers working for the London Metals Exchange as well as Salomon Brothers, which he joined full-time shortly after graduating. He left relatively soon after to begin building his real estate empire, which started with his founding of Metropolitan Asset Group in 1984 after he secured a $60,000 loan with his family’s help. Farkas had pitched his vision for Metropolitan to his family, describing that the idea “was to put the family’s resources into securitized real estate transactions and then draw in other people the family knew who already were investing in real estate but were having to pay high fees.” Farkas later described Metropolitan as “a real estate investment banking firm that specializes in working with distressed limited partnerships.” By 1987, Metropolitan claimed to manage over $250 million (over $715 million today) “on behalf of itself and its affiliates.” By 1989, the company had completed nearly $750 million of asset restructuring.

Over the next few years, Farkas set his sights on U.S. Shelter, a major apartment management company and player in a variety of real estate markets. Farkas’ interest was publicly reported in 1990 alongside reporting detailing U.S. Shelter’s significant financial troubles, as it was estimated to have hemorrhaged $52 million over the previous four years. This was largely due to the 1987 downturn, which pummeled real estate markets. Even Farkas’ firm Metropolitan fell into financial trouble, but Farkas later claimed to have “stuck it out” to become a “white knight” in the 1990s. In reality, Farkas’ “sticking it out” was only possible thanks to the $5 million he received from his wealthy family, which he used to create the Metropolitan-associated Insignia Financial Group in 1990. True to his initial vision for Metropolitan, Farkas’ family not only backed his firm but also brought 65 to 70 other families with them. Farkas would use this network of his family and their friends to gain “access to the highest echelons of management at virtually every financial institution and expertise in securitized real estate.”

Flush with cash from his family and their friends, Farkas created Insignia Financial Group, with the apparent intention of acquiring U.S. Shelter. As will be discussed in greater detail in the next section, Farkas’ recapitalization efforts on behalf of U.S. Shelter were designed to set the stage for his takeover of the company not long after. The merger between Insignia and U.S. Shelter was sealed in 1991, a year after Insignia was created. By 1992, the resulting company had become “the second largest property management company” in the country. A year later, in 1993, they went public with the help of a Lehman Brothers banker named Robert Lieber. Lieber later went on to be New York’s deputy mayor for economic development before joining Farkas’ Island Capital years later.

As time went on, it became clear that Farkas’ real interest in acquiring U.S. Shelter via Insignia was to gain access to a lucrative, American taxpayer-subsidized money spigot: grants and subsidies for low-income housing issued by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Andrew Farkas already had some connection to HUD, since his uncle, Jonathan Farkas, had served as the government-sector representative to HUD’s manufactured home advisory council from 1987 through 1988, stepping down a year before the formation of Insignia. Such “revolving door” relations would soon become ubiquitous in the fraud-soaked world of HUD contracting, and Farkas, through his relationship with U.S. Shelter, became linked to a cabal of notorious HUD fraudsters.

Wading into a Cesspool

In its most egregious instances, HUD fraud relied on a dense web of home building companies, real estate investment trusts, and law firms. These entities frequently overlapped with the looting of America’s savings and loans industry and the questionable financial practices associated with Drexel Burnham Lambert’s junk bonds. A veritable leviathan, the reach of this fraud machine extended to the families of powerful American politicians and the intelligence community.

One starting point for tracing this maze is the first company Farkas’ Insignia acquired, U.S. Shelter. U.S. Shelter was founded in 1972 by N. Barton Tuck, Jr., who also acted as the company’s longtime president. $10,000 in seed funding had come from Buck Mickel, the head of a major South Carolina-based construction corporation called Daniel International. This financial relationship cemented a deep interrelationship between U.S. Shelter and Daniel International, as summarized in a 1987 lawsuit against U.S. Shelter:

[Buck] Mickel was chairman of Old Shelter’s Board of Directors at the time of the reorganization and became Chairman of New Shelter’s Board of Directors when the reorganization was consummated. Mickel was vice chairman of the Board and member of the Office of the Chief Executive of Fluor Corporation. He previously served as president and vice chairman of the Fluor Corporation, a Fortune 500 Company. He is also a director and former chairman of Daniel International Corporation which was acquired by Fluor Corporation in 1977. Mickel has served on the boards of numerous corporations and universities. He is active in various community activities in Greenville.

In 1977, the same year that Fluor absorbed Daniel International, U.S. Shelter crossed paths with a bank that would later re-emerge during the BCCI affair. In April of that year, U.S. Shelter acquired H.G. Smithy, a large Washington, D.C.-based real estate management company, from Financial General Bankshares (FGB). Within months, FGB became the subject of a covert takeover by the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), the sprawling, shadowy banking institution that had been established with the aid of the CIA and which moved money for a seemingly infinite parade of intelligence agencies, terrorists, financial criminals, and drug traffickers.

Daniel International’s real estate subsidiary was Daniel Realty Corporation, which separated from Fluor in the 1980s and became an independent company. Charles Tickle served as an executive for Daniel Realty, both during and after Fluor’s control of the company. He, too, boasts a series of intriguing ties. For instance, during the 1980s, Tickle joined the board of an important company, SICO-Curaçao. This was an offshore corporate vehicle and “player in real estate worldwide” that was, in fact, just one node in a web of subsidiaries, holding companies, and joint ventures cloaked in a pantheon of shell companies. This network of entities was overseen by its parent entity, SICO, the Saudi Investment Corporation.

Established in 1980, SICO was controlled by Yeslam Bin Laden (the half-brother of Osama Bin Laden) and other members of the Bin Laden family. Tickle ended up associating with Yeslam due to the fact that Daniel and SICO had been working together on a number of real estate development projects across the United States. Steve Colls recounts in his book The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century that:

They formed offshore corporations to serve as financing vehicles, with Tickle and Yeslam sometimes named as directors. The only real mystery, Tickle recalled, was whose money Yeslam was actually investing—his, or that of other members of the Bin Laden family, or that of other Saudi investors, or money from some other source. “That was always such a secretive thing,” Tickle said. At the time, as a business issue, “We could have cared less.” For Daniel Corporation’s purposes, all investment funds were the same; Yeslam had access to quite a lot of cash, and there was no reason for Tickle to believe that it was coming from improper sources.

Despite Tickle’s supposed lack of interest in the source of funds for their real estate ventures, there are reasons to raise questions about the money that SICO and Daniel were pouring into the United States. SICO’s expansive and convoluted network of companies intertwined with those of BCCI in numerous ways (making the cross-over between U.S. Shelter, closely tied to Daniel and Fluor, and banks targeted by BCCI in 1977 all the more intriguing). Other links existed between SICO and the financial networks used by the CIA for its covert funding of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, and to drug traffickers and money launderers operating in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.

The CIA connection is particularly interesting, as it quickly becomes apparent that the funding of the Mujahideen was not the only covert operation that SICO had brushed up against. The corporate structure of SICO was set up by the Swiss attorney Baudoin Dunand, who later served on SICO’s advisory board. Researcher Kevin Coogan found that Dunand was involved in another entity, Tyndall Trust, which former American tax attorney Willard Zucker managed. Zucker, in turn, was the man tapped to serve as the financial manager for “The Enterprise,” the private intelligence network tied to the CIA and Israeli intelligence that was established to manage the complicated plots and machinations at the heart of the Iran-Contra affair.

Fluor, the construction giant that had acquired Daniel International — and which interlocked with U.S. Shelter via Buck Mickel — also appears to have been involved in Iran-Contra activities in some capacity. This revelation came from journalist Gary Webb’s reporting on how the CIA-backed Contras were involved in the cocaine trade and had helped fuel the explosion of crack in urban Los Angeles in the 1980s. Of particular interest to Webb was Ronald Lister, a former police officer turned “cocaine hauler and money launderer” for Jose Blandon, one of the right-hand men for Panamanian strongman (and CIA asset) Manuel Noriega between 1980 and 1981.

Around the time he started working with Blandon, Lister formed a company called Pyramid International Security Consultants in California, whose purpose was to “sell weapons abroad” — particularly to the Contras through El Salvador. Webb learned that Lister himself had a CIA contact, Bill Nelson, who had previously served as the CIA’s deputy director of operations. However, at the time that Nelson was operating under a business cover for the CIA, he had been vice president of security and administration at Fluor.

Lister’s contact with Nelson reportedly took place while Nelson was working for Fluor, and the arms trafficker reportedly made frequent visits to the company between 1982 and 1983. Nelson, interestingly enough, had joined up with Fluor in 1977, the same year that Fluor had purchased Daniel International.

U.S. Shelter, meanwhile, embarked on an incredible expansion — and the development of an increasingly complicated corporate organization — in the years after 1977. A string of acquisitions saw the company gobble up smaller property management companies across the United States (such as Gold Crown Properties in Kansas City) and dip into banking by buying Malibu Savings & Loans in California. Subsidiaries were established, including U.S. Shelter Trust of Massachusetts, U.S. Shelter Corporation of South Carolina, U.S. Shelter Corporation of Delaware, etc. These were shuffled around and later merged in various combinations.

As previously mentioned, however, U.S. Shelter was flailing by the late 1980s. Suffering under the burden of “bad real estate investments and failure to meet new capital requirements for a savings and loan institution it owns,” the company embarked on a recapitalization plan. Key to this recapitalization was Andrew Farkas and his Metropolitan Asset Group. The plan ensured that Metropolitan would end up with a significant chunk of U.S. Shelter stock alongside Lambert Brussels Real Estate Corp., an American real estate arm of the Belgium-based Groupe Bruxelles Lambert.

Lambert Brussels Real Estate’s chief, Joseph Murphy, was also a member of the executive committee of Drexel Burnham Lambert, the major investment bank most infamous for being the seedbed for Michael Milken’s junk bond operations. Here, too, one finds the fingerprints of clandestine activities and covert operations. According to Ari Ben-Menashe, Drexel was one of the laundering mechanisms for the funds generated by the American and Israeli arms sales to Iran that were central to the Iran-Contra affair. This arms money, states Ben-Menashe, “added to Drexel’s stature, and Drexel’s share of the profits from deposits helped it underwrite huge quantities of junk bonds.” Some close Epstein associates, such as Leon Black, had been top executives at Drexel prior to its 1990 bankruptcy.

The recapitalization plan didn’t seem to function well enough for U.S. Shelter to recover, so a new scheme was put in place. U.S. Shelter would simply cease to exist, and its assets (minus its beleaguered California savings and loan institution) would be transferred to his new company, Insignia Financial Group.

When Farkas and Insignia finally acquired U.S. Shelter in early 1991, the primary goal was to take control of properties that had been owned and managed by A. Bruce Rozet. Once described as “one of the nation’s largest owners of subsidized housing,” Rozet had been the owner of the Associated Financial Corporation of Los Angeles, California. He was also a crook of the highest order: in February 1990, HUD suspended him from obtaining lucrative contracts due to his involvement in extensive fraud.

Rozet had been diverting HUD funds intended for maintenance and the upkeep of HUD-subsidized properties for personal use. In other instances, he tapped HUD funding for empty homes, all the while fudging paperwork to make them appear occupied. A blitzkrieg of lawsuits soon followed in Rozet’s wake, adding misdeed upon misdeed — insurance fraud, kickback schemes, and the like. In April of 2001, Rozet admitted guilt to a number of fraudulent activities and was fined $10.2 million.

Andrew Cuomo, who served as assistant secretary of HUD from 1993 through 1997 and as secretary from 1997 to 2001, described Rozet as “one of those ‘bad landlords who used HUD programs like personal ATM machines to enrich themselves and rip off the American taxpayer.’” Yet, Cuomo would soon work closely with Andrew Farkas, the man who ended up with Rozet’s properties through U.S. Shelter.

The HUD Fraud Octopus

When HUD began to unravel Rozet’s machinations, it demanded that the Associated Financial Corporation (AFC) “turn over the management of 79 properties to an independent firm, initially U.S. Shelter.” This was two months prior to Insignia’s formal acquisition of U.S. Shelter. However, as noted above, Farkas was already in the loop. He “consulted” with U.S. Shelter on their impending acquisition of the Rozet property portfolio and became privy to certain arrangements of a dubious legal nature that Rozet had engaged in. These involved a “payback” scheme, initially set up by AFC and later continued by Farkas, in which a portion of HUD-subsidized management fees would flow back to the property owners.

The AFC – U.S. Shelter – Insignia payback arrangement was discovered by HUD inspectors in 1995, leading to a joint HUD/Office of Housing/Department of Justice investigation into the companies, their financial arrangements, and properties under management. What they discovered was that HUD funds had not been used to maintain the properties, which had fallen into an extreme state of disrepair. Cuomo would later tell the Village Voice that the properties’ conditions were “despicable.” The Voice also reported that, when Cuomo visited one of these properties, he “’saw a broken pipe literally spewing human waste on the children’s playground.’ He said he saw children playing in it.”

In 1997, a lawsuit was filed against Insignia for “paying $7.6 million in kickbacks to the owners of 17 federally subsidized projects that Insignia managed.” Farkas paid an initial $5 million to HUD for diverted management fees, and in March 1998, Insignia paid another $2.4 million but declined to admit guilt. It then sold its residential units for a whopping $910 million. Not long after, in August of 2001, Insignia began making significant contributions to Andrew Cuomo, who had left HUD and was now running for governor of New York.

Cuomo lost the race. He first worked for the law firm of Fried Frank before taking a position at Andrew Farkas’ post-Insignia company, Island Capital, in 2003. There, he was paid an annual salary of $1.2 million.

This was not the first time a Cuomo had intersected with a Farkas. As the Village Voice recounts:

They [the 2001 contributions] were hardly the first Farkas contributions to a Cuomo; other members of the Farkas family, which used to own the Alexander’s department store chain, had contributed to the campaigns of Cuomo’s father, Mario, when he was governor. Mario Cuomo actually appointed Farkas’s father to the board of the state’s powerful Dormitory Authority in his final year in office in 1994, and Robin Farkas [Andrew Farkas’ father] became its chairman in 1995.

Farkas had other political ties beyond the Cuomo family. Through Insignia, his ties extended to the powerful real estate management companies and investment trusts that also drew on the HUD money spigot, and which had connections to that infamous American political dynasty, the Bush family.

In March 1998, right as Insignia was forking over millions in connection with Cuomo’s HUD lawsuit, Farkas was making major business moves. With the multimillion-dollar worth of fines on the horizon, Insignia unloaded its apartment portfolio to Apartment Investment & Management Company (AIMCO), a Denver-based real estate investment trust controlled by homebuilder and real estate manager Terry Considine. Around the same time that AIMCO was buying up Insignia’s portfolio, the company also found itself in hot water with HUD over its plans to repurpose HUD-subsidized properties to cater to higher-end clientele, thereby displacing lower-income renters.

Notably, Denver itself was a hotbed of HUD fraud. As investigator and journalist Rodney Stich recounted in his book Defrauding America:

A major segment of the HUD fraud was centered in the Denver area and committed by a group of closely related people and companies, who had close ties to the Reagan and Bush administrations. Numerous HUD officials left government to work for the Denver group that defrauded the American people of billions of dollars, much of which is hidden away in either offshore financial institutions or in secret locations throughout the United States. Philip Winn was one of the kingpins in the Denver group. He was a former HUD assistant secretary who joined the MDC group in Denver and became a key player in the HUD and savings and loan scandals.

A 1996 article by the Denver paper Westword confirms much of what Stich wrote, noting that former HUD assistant secretary Philip Winn “was part of what became known as the Winn Group, a collection of former agency officials turned developers who received more than $160 million in federal tax breaks and subsidies from HUD.” The article also notes that Winn was operating in the same business and social circles as the heads of MDC Holdings, owned by “mega-developer” Larry Mizel. MDC had been part of a complex “daisy chain” operation that involved Silverado Savings, Charles Keating’s Lincoln Savings, Drexel Burnham Lambert, and a number of other crooked financial institutions. The whole operation notably boasted exceedingly close ties to the Bush family, particularly to Silverado, where Neil Bush was a director.

To bring this full circle, Mizel hired Terry Considine — the owner of AIMCO, the company that purchased Insignia’s apartment portfolio — to run real investment trusts controlled by MDC.

There is also the case of NHP Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based apartment management and real estate company that, in the early 1990s, was one of the largest in the nation. The company had also built itself up through questionable activities involving HUD. Just a few short months before AIMCO purchased the Insignia apartment portfolio from Farkas, it purchased NHP, its real estate assets, and an associated company.

Shepherding the NHP sale to AIMCO was Michael Eisenson, the board member who represented the interests of NHP’s then-dominant shareholder: the Harvard Management Company, an investment company owned by Harvard University and the manager of the university’s endowment. Another curious place where Eisenson turned up as a board member — due to a large investment by Harvard Management — was Harken Energy. This obscure energy company counted George W. Bush as a major shareholder and board member. During the period when Bush was affiliated with the company, Harvard Management invested about $50 million in it.

Besides George W. Bush, Harken had significant ties to the intelligence community. Major shareholders in the company (predating Bush’s arrival) included an investor syndicate led by Alan Quasha, a New York attorney. Alan’s father, William Quasha, had been a licensed attorney in the Philippines, where he had close ties to figures involved in the infamous Nugan Hand Bank. Nugan Hand, run by several CIA and ex-military personnel, was deeply involved in the clandestine trade of arms and drugs.

While these elements might seem tangential to the world of HUD fraud that Farkas found himself entangled within, they may help explain a strange series of events in which Farkas made an appearance: the story of Catherine Austin Fitts and her company, Hamilton Securities. A veteran of Dillon Read & Co, Fitts had been recruited by HUD Secretary Jack Kemp in 1989 to serve as the Federal Housing Administrator. Her mandate was to reform “the scandal-ridden, fraud-plagued agency.”

After her stint at HUD, Fitts formed Hamilton Securities to clear out waste, redundancy, and economic abuse in the federal housing programs. Specifically, Hamilton was hired to help oversee HUD’s loan sales program, which was set up to shift delinquent mortgages from the government agency to private investors. What made Hamilton different is that, among other tools, the company implemented an online database and bidding software that helped establish an open market for the defaulted mortgages. By clearing these types of mortgages off their books, HUD would have been able to free up money that could then be used to lower the costs in other areas of its housing activities.

Such a scheme inevitably upset insiders who had been playing HUD for unsavory purposes for years. As Fitts would put it:

Hamilton’s efforts stood in the way of the “financial coup d’etat” – of engineering a mortgage bubble using federal mortgage fraud, of “disappearing” billions from federal accounts, and of a new wave of gentrification which would include the development of private prison companies financed with federal contracts.

Early opposition came from Michael Eisenson, the Harvard Management executive who sat on the Harken board (alongside George W. Bush) and was involved with HUD through NHP. He told Fitts that NHP disliked Hamilton because they “prefer[red] a bid process where we can win by ‘gaming it’ because we are ‘smarter.’”

Another opponent of Hamilton was Andrew Farkas. In addition to the loan sales program, Hamilton was brought in to consult with HUD on its “project-based subsidy” program — that is, subsidies for buildings that flow to the property owners and building managers. At the time, these subsidies were expiring, and HUD was deciding whether to renew the program or switch to a tenant-voucher approach, which issues vouchers to tenants to help them access low-cost housing and move without losing assistance.

In the midst of this debate, Farkas contacted Fitts at Hamilton and told her that “it was essential that all subsidies go to the owners of the properties in the form of ‘project-based’ assistance,” because tenants would use the voucher program to somehow “buy drugs.” The implications of Farkas’ statement are clear: his contact with Fitts would have coincided with the time when Insignia was embroiled in the payback scheme the company had willingly (and intentionally) inherited when it took over U.S. Shelter. Farkas simply did not want the HUD spigot to be turned off.

In October 1997, HUD fired Hamilton, sparking a protracted conflict that dragged Fitts and her company through the court system. Trumped-up charges and burying Hamilton in legal paperwork — a well-oiled and time-tested strategy — became the name of the game.

Is it a mere coincidence that within a year, both NHP and Farkas’ Insignia would be consumed by AIMCO in Denver, a company firmly entrenched in a complex network of HUD and savings and loan fraudsters connected to the highest levels of American political power? Whistle-blower Stewart Webb, an individual with significant knowledge of these white-collar criminal networks in Colorado, suggested that Fitts and Hamilton had been a “direct threat to the ‘Denver Boys’ — the Bush Crime Family’s money laundering operations based in Denver.” The HUD money spigot, according to Webb, was “a massive covert revenue stream for them.”

Who had been the person who fired Hamilton? The same man who had first investigated and then later went to work for Farkas: Andrew Cuomo. Yet, even before that, the first lawsuit had been filed by a company run by John Ervin, a former NHP employee.

Journalist Lucy Komisar has suggested that Farkas ultimately chose to back Cuomo so strongly because he benefited from Cuomo’s policies toward the end of his term as head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development under Clinton. She singled out Cuomo’s decision to fire Hamilton Securities Group, run by Catherine Austin Fitts, even though Hamilton had reduced fraud and helped create policies that had been applauded for benefiting homeowners and taxpayers. One of the biggest beneficiaries of Cuomo’s decision was Farkas’ Insignia. After firing Hamilton, Komisar notes, Cuomo’s HUD lost track of $17 billion, which was blamed on a company deeply tied to Clinton and then-Bush’s IRS Commissioner, Charles Rossotti. Subsequently, Rossotti was hired by the Bush family-connected Carlyle Group in 2002.

Farkas Goes to Dubai

Around the time Farkas began financing Andrew Cuomo, he also began forging ties overseas that would be critical not only to his career but to his future dealings and friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. In 2002, Farkas was introduced to Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, then head of the Dubai Port Authority (DPA). A few years later, in 2005, DPA merged with other Dubai-controlled logistics companies to form DP World, which bin Sulayem controlled and which later became Dubai World.

Farkas and bin Sulayem were first introduced by Sol and Howard “Butch” Kerzner, father and son hotel/casino magnates from South Africa. Mr. Farkas later told the Observer that “I was taken to Dubai by Butch [Kerzner] with a tremendous degree of frequency. Sultan and I became fast friends. We came to know each other very, very well.” A year after meeting bin Sulayem, Farkas sold Insignia and created Island Capital with the money from Insignia’s sale and other sources. He quickly began using his new company to develop marinas in Dubai “hand-in-hand with Mr. Sulayem,” per the Observer. Also in 2003, Farkas helped flood Dubai’s real estate market, in which Sulayem-controlled entities played an important role, with mortgage-backed securities (discussed in greater detail later in this article).

The Kerzner dynasty, responsible for introducing Farkas and bin Sulayem, was a controversial bunch. Sol Kerzner, once called “an unforgettable and important brick in the wall of [South African] apartheid,” had a long track record of accusations of bribery, financial crime, and using “apartheid to advance his business interests.” The Kerzners also owned Paradise Island, formerly a crown jewel of the mob and CIA-linked company Resorts International. They bought the island in 1994 from what remained of Resorts International after it was taken over by Merv Griffin, whose acquisition of the controversial company was fueled by the criminal bank Drexel Burnham Lambert and its junk bonds.

Kerzner also appears as “Sol Kersner” in Epstein’s “black book,” as does Gerard Inzerillo, who was COO of Kerzner’s Sun Resorts from 1991 to 1996 and president of the Kerzner Entertainment Group from 1991 to 2011. In the early 2000s, Inzerillo served as a founding advisory board member of the Clinton AIDS initiative, which Epstein helped launch, and was later put in charge of the Diriyah Gate Development Authority by Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MbS), who was also known to have been very close to, and likely advised by, Epstein.

Sol Kerzner was also very close to New York real estate developer Donald Trump, now U.S. president. Kerzner once told the Forward that Trump “is a great friend” and “helped me at a time when South Africans were not well received.” Trump was fond of both Sol and his son, “Butch,” calling Butch a “great visionary” and “one of the few sons who was able to stand up in terms of talent to a great father.” Trump, as a major figure in the real estate scene, has long boasted close ties with Andrew Farkas, as he once did with Jeffrey Epstein, who was once commonly referred to in press reports as a New York-based “property developer.”

It seems that one of the main reasons Sultan bin Sulayem was interested in Farkas is that he could help connect Emirati interests to the elite New York circles that Farkas had long inhabited. According to Muneef Tarmoom, the former CEO of Istithmar — an investment firm owned by Dubai World — Farkas was “the connections man.” Tarmoom added that “He knew everyone in New York. Whatever introduction he did, he usually would get a cut on it.” After meeting bin Sulayem, Farkas would introduce him to Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein, bin Sulayem, and Farkas are all pictured alongside Leslie Wexner in the front row of the 2005 Victoria’s Secret annual televised fashion show, with Farkas and bin Sulayem clearly being Epstein’s VIP guests for the star-studded event. This was roughly three years after the first meeting between Farkas and bin Sulayem. It is also the earliest documentation of the relationship between the three men. For both bin Sulayem and Farkas, their relationships with Epstein would prove highly significant.

In addition to Epstein, Farkas also introduced bin Sulayem to Kerzner’s friend Donald Trump. Trump subsequently became involved in a joint venture with the Dubai World-owned real estate developer Nakheel on Dubai’s The Palm, the world’s largest man-made island, and later worked again with Nakheel to build the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Dubai. In the planning phase, Trump remarked on what would have been his family’s first venture in the Middle East and that the Nakheel development was the best real estate investment in the entire region, stating that “When I look at potential sites for real estate investment, I concentrate on ‘location, location, location’ – and this is the best location not only in Dubai but the whole of the Middle East.”

However, the Nakheel joint venture was rebranded as a Nakheel-owned project featuring only Trump family branding in July 2008, after Nakheel began reeling from issues related to the 2008 economic crisis (more on that soon, as Farkas seemingly played a role in Nakheel’s troubles). Oddly, in the midst of that crisis, Trump nevertheless hosted a large, celebrity-studded party at his Los Angeles estate, announcing the Nakheel-developed Trump Tower in Dubai in August 2008. The hotel and tower plans were also eventually canceled in 2011 due to Nakheel’s dire financial situation, though Nakheel promoted it up through 2013. However, plans to build it were relaunched just last year, this time with a Saudi-based real estate developer. Even though the initial ventures with Nakheel were delayed and later canceled due to the 2008 economic crisis, the Trumps appear to have maintained ties to Sultan bin Sulayem, who attended Trump’s inaugural ball in 2017 alongside Farkas. Sultan bin Sulayem’s son was also in attendance.

Farkas, the man who initially brought Trump’s business interests to the Gulf, perhaps deserves considerable credit for the close ties forged by members of Trump’s family to the UAE, which have proven very lucrative over the years, including during his second term. They have also featured prominently in allegations of pay-to-play and conflicts of interest during his presidencies.

One particular member of the Trump family who has clearly benefited is Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. The Kushners, and Jared in particular, also notably boast long-standing ties to Farkas. For instance, Jared Kushner and Farkas were pictured together in 2011 at a “Masters of Real Estate” event, and in 2009 at the 80^th anniversary party of the Montauk Yacht Club, which Farkas owns. In the 2009 picture, Jared, his wife Ivanka, and Farkas are pictured with Andrew Cuomo, whose gubernatorial campaign finances have long been closely connected to Farkas, as noted previously.

In subsequent years, the Kushner family would come to rely heavily on entities controlled by Farkas for important real estate deals. In a 2017 Bloomberg article titled “Kushners’ New York City Buildings Are Mostly Owned by Others,” it was noted that a key source of funding for the Kushner family’s real estate deals in New York was Farkas’ C-III Capital Partners. One example given was a 2015 deal for 16 apartment buildings, which was credited to the Kushners even though the majority of the funds for the buildings’ acquisition had come from C-III. Also in 2015, Farkas became an important investor in Cadre, a real estate start-up co-founded by Jared and his brother Josh. A few years later, in 2018, a Farkas-controlled firm again provided financial backing to the Kushners, this time for the $102 million purchase of two New Jersey apartment buildings. At that time, Jared Kushner was one of the key figures for UAE relations in the first Trump administration. As noted above, Farkas had attended the inaugural festivities for Trump a year earlier alongside his “frequent business partner” Sultan bin Sulayem and his son.

In 2023, Kushner became even more entangled with UAE business interests, particularly via his firm Affinity Partners, which raised more than $200 million from a UAE sovereign wealth fund. He and Steve Witkoff, whose family has its own dubious conflicts of interest with the UAE, have become the key point men for Middle Eastern affairs in the second Trump administration.

In addition to the Trumps and Jared Kushner, another Farkas-brokered connection for Dubai World was to the Drexel Burnham Lambert-linked corporate raider Carl Icahn. Icahn subsequently convinced Dubai World to invest billions in Time Warner during a failed takeover attempt. During this period, the Kerzners also partnered with Dubai World’s Istithmar to build an Atlantis resort on The Palm. Istithmar later helped lead the consortium that took Kerzner International private and ultimately ended up with 30% of the Kerzner family empire.

Preying on Ports

For DP World, and later its successor Dubai World, Farkas was much more than a “connections man.” He served as a major adviser and dealmaker for the conglomerate and also for other powerful figures in the UAE. He, along with Andrew Cuomo, whom he hired in 2003 to work at his firm Island Capital, advised developers in Dubai, including those tied directly to Dubai World, both in the UAE and abroad, with a particular focus on the USVI. The extent of Farkas’ ties to the USVI, as well as the extent of his direct ties with Epstein, is detailed in a later section of this article.

As previously noted, the year before Cuomo joined Island Capital, Farkas had been one of Cuomo’s top fundraisers for his unsuccessful gubernatorial bid in 2002, with Farkas subsequently playing the role of Cuomo’s top “money man.” Farkas’ involvement in Cuomo’s campaign financing would be a recurring theme throughout their long-lasting relationship.

During the Bush era, with Cuomo alongside him, Farkas also made significant property deals with Dubai World’s Istithmar, among others. For instance, Farkas partnered with Istithmar on several Manhattan real estate purchases as well as USVI marinas. Istithmar ultimately bought a 29% stake in Farka’s marina development and management company Island Global Yachting, which owns American Yacht Harbor –– the marina that Epstein would later co-own with Farkas.

Inconveniently for Farkas and his Emirati associate, Dubai World’s port-focused subsidiary, DP World, became the focus of a major national security controversy from 2005 to 2006. In 2005, DP World moved to acquire the British company, Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. (P&O), which owned or leased terminals in many global ports, including six major U.S. ports: Baltimore, Houston, Miami, New Orleans, Newark, and Philadelphia. However, DP World’s attempts to acquire key U.S. infrastructure were even more extensive than these six ports, as they also sought to gain a foothold in the Port of Tampa, Florida, and key infrastructure near the Port of Charleston, South Carolina.

The P&O shares that facilitated DP World’s takeover attempt were systematically sold off during the 1990s and up until DP World’s successful acquisition in 2005. Many of these shares were incidentally sold off in connection with a money laundering scheme tied to Epstein-connected interests, particularly the family of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s long-time associate and accomplice. This P&O share sell-off is notably at the center of a recently filed lawsuit targeting HSBC, Barclays, and an “Epstein-linked Trust.”

The story of these P&O shares starts with a man named John Dick, who was linked by journalist Pete Brewton to the Denver-linked money laundering network discussed earlier in this article. In particular, Brewton linked Dick to the looting of the Denver-based Silverado Savings & Loan, where Neil Bush (brother to George H.W. Bush) served on the board and whose misappropriated funds were allegedly used to finance clandestine CIA activities. Brewton also connected Dick to other S&L frauds in Florida and Texas, particularly those involving the intelligence-linked Robert Corson, who also boasted close ties to George Bush Sr. When the money spirited out of these S&Ls was traced to the tax haven of Jersey, it was also revealed that Dick had been living in Jersey since at least the mid-to-late 1970s.

According to a copy of the complaint of the aforementioned lawsuit provided to Unlimited Hangout, one of the trusts set up for Dick’s children, but from which John Dick was explicitly excluded at his wife’s behest, included a major position in the company European Ferries. In 1995, one of the trustees — Barclaytrust, a Jersey-based trust division of Barclays — retired, transferring control to another Jersey company called La Hougue Boete. La Hougue was formed in 1984, and the company’s ultimate beneficial owner was none other than John Dick. This is despite the fact that he was meant to be entirely excluded from the trust’s management. Unfortunately for Dick’s children, La Hougue was a money laundering enterprise and, even though their father was at the helm, this company would soon strip their trust of its assets, including their major position in European ferries.

When European Ferries was acquired by and then merged with P&O, a deal finalized in 1987, the stock in European Ferries in the Dick children’s trust became P&O stock. According to a source with direct knowledge of the legal case in question, the John Dick-controlled La Hougue used a Jersey-based shell company called Cannon Nominees to progressively sell off this P&O stock, with none of the proceeds from those sales flowing back to the trusts in question. This sell-off created the opening that DP World later exploited to take control of P&O.

While the lawsuit brought by one of Dick’s children focuses on La Hougue’s activities related to P&O stock, La Hougue and its shell company Cannon Nominees were intimately connected to the finances of the Maxwell family, specifically Kevin and Ian Maxwell. La Hougue facilitated several murky transactions on behalf of the Maxwells, many of which involved shares in Kevin Maxwell’s company Telemonde. UK press articles have noted that after the death of his father, Robert Maxwell — a brazen financial criminal and spy — Kevin sought to become his “father reincorporated” and continued aspects of his espionage-tinged activities. During the period when Kevin and Ian were tied to La Hougue, Kevin served as director of 81 companies, only 32 of which survived, while Ian — in 2001 — was the director of 31 companies, four of which faced insolvency.

A key figure in the Maxwell family’s activities regarding La Hougue was George Devlin, a British lawyer and private investigator whose legal clients included the organized crime figures, the Kray twins, and Lord Lucan. Lucan was a member of the notorious Clermont Club, a gambling enterprise with close associations to Robert Maxwell, British intelligence, and organized crime. Lucan infamously disappeared in the mid-1970s after coming under suspicion for the murder of his children’s nanny and the attempted murder of his wife. Devlin created the UK property company Chelsfield alongside his close friend, Elliot Bernerd, which engaged in joint ventures with P&O. Perhaps more interesting is that Kevin Maxwell served as a front for Elliot Bernerd in at least one deal, revealing the interconnectedness of this particular group.

Notably, the Epstein-focused investigation of U.S. Congressman Ron Wyden (D-OR) has also led to scrutiny of La Hougue, as it is one of the institutions (#20) on the list of individuals, entities, and banks that are the focus of Wyden’s bill, the Produce Epstein’s Treasury Records Act.

The key takeaway from this legal case, as it relates to this article, is that a Maxwell/Epstein-linked money laundering enterprise directly facilitated the sell-off of P&O stock that enabled DP World’s takeover of P&O. This is particularly relevant given that, as will be discussed shortly, Epstein was first photographed in November 2005 with DP World’s then-chair bin Sulayem while its acquisition of P&O was still being finalized.

Although the involvement of La Hougue in the DP World takeover of P&O was not known at the time, the acquisition led to a major public outcry. These concerns were centered around the UAE’s ties to 9/11 money flows and the turning over of the ownership of the United States’ most important ports to a foreign country at a time when the War on Terror, and its propaganda machine, was still on full tilt.

The initial outcry soon became frenzied when it was revealed that the Bush administration had approved the deal in “secret” proceedings, led by then-Treasury Secretary John Snow. These proceedings provided no justification for the deal’s approval. Members of Congress were also irate that the DP World deal had been given government approval. One notable example came from Thomas Kean, the former governor of New Jersey, who had co-led the 9/11 commission. Kean told The Times of New Jersey that the deal “shouldn’t have happened” because there was “no question that two of the 9/11 hijackers came from there and money was laundered through there.” He added, “From our point of view, we don’t want foreigners controlling our ports.” Kean’s views were echoed by then-Congressman from New York, Peter King, who said that Kean “knows as much as anyone how risky it is to deal with the United Arab Emirates. This just proves that no real investigation [into DP World] was ever conducted” as part of the deal. The UAE responded by hiring a high-powered team of lobbyists, led by former Senator Bob Dole, to salvage the deal.

It turns out that no investigations into DP World or the deal were made by the Bush administration at all. In fact, major figures in the administration had told DP World and its head, Sultan bin Sulayem, that no U.S. government investigation of the deal was required, waiving it entirely. Lawsuits filed afterward alleged that this was not true and in violation of a statute requiring that such an investigation occur when ownership of a company by a foreign government-controlled entity could impact U.S. national security. The figures in the Bush administration who had waived an investigation included Secretary of the Treasury John Snow, DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. All were members of the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States at the time.

Reports soon appeared noting that Snow, before joining the Treasury Department in February 2003, had been the CEO of CSX, a company that had sold its international ports business to DPW a year after Snow joined the Bush administration and roughly a year or so before Snow “secretly” led the approval of DPW’s acquisition of P&O ports. The Bush administration claimed that Snow had not been personally involved in the CSX port sale to DPW in 2004, even though Snow was still receiving pension payments from the company as well as $8 million in deferred compensation from CSX the year of the deal’s approval. It was also noted that, prior to being given the top job at the Treasury, Snow had overseen the beginnings of the sale of another major CSX subsidiary to the Carlyle Group, which boasted deep ties to George Bush Sr., former Secretary of State James Baker (an Epstein associate from at least 1992 if not earlier), and the bin Laden family. The sale was formally cemented in late 2004 when Snow was the secretary of the treasury. Snow currently works for Cerberus Capital Management, whose long-time head, Steve Feinberg, is currently the deputy secretary of war in the second Trump administration.

Furthermore, a former top CSX executive who had worked under Snow, David Sanborn, had joined DPW as director of operations for Europe and Latin America. A month before the controversy around the DPW acquisition of P&O reached a boiling point, in January 2006, Sanborn was appointed to run the Maritime Administration of the Department of Transportation. The Bush administration claimed Sanborn had been nominated, not because of his ties to CSX and DPW, but because of his “experience and expertise.”

In addition to the apparent conflict of interest related to John Snow’s CSX connections, the UAE had given the Bush administration $100 million, ostensibly for Hurricane Katrina relief, not long before the deal was approved. However, the State Department denied any connection between the two events, despite the unusual timing and the fact that the UAE’s donation was several times larger than that of any other nation. Notably, billions in Katrina relief funds were wasted (and potentially looted) by federal agencies and contractors.

Concerns about these conflicts of interest further intensified when President Bush threatened to veto any law passed by Congress aimed at blocking DP World’s acquisition of the U.S. ports in question. When Congress garnered enough votes to thwart a potential presidential veto, DP World sold off its U.S. assets to American International Group (AIG) for an undisclosed sum. As noted in One Nation Under Blackmail, AIG was interwoven into a complex web of organized crime and dark money networks that were connected to the Iran-Contra affair and also boasted ties to the Bush family. In addition, AIG’s chairman at the time, Hank Greenberg, had longstanding ties to the CIA, even nearly leading it under Ronald Reagan. Greenberg also served alongside Jeffrey Epstein at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Trilateral Commission during this period.

An Emirati Link to the Sweetheart Deal?

As previously mentioned, Bush’s Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had been part of the group of top Bush officials who had waived an investigation into the DPW deal. Notably, according to journalist Nick Bryant, either Gonzales or former President Bush was responsible for telling former U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta to “stand down” with respect to prosecuting Epstein after his first arrest in 2007. The ultimate result of this decision to “stand down” was the affirmation of Epstein’s notorious “sweetheart deal.” Congress subpoenaed Gonzales in August of last year to testify as part of the investigation into Epstein’s activities. Gonzales, however, did not testify, instead offering a sworn statement that appears not to have been made public.

It is worth considering that part of Gonzales’ or Bush’s reasoning in pressuring Acosta may have been the same rationale they both tried to force through the DP World deal. Indeed, there is a possibility that the two events are connected, as Epstein may have played a role in brokering the “secret” approval of the DP World deal. For instance, during the same time the DPW deal was taking shape in 2005, Farkas and bin Sulayem were photographed sitting in the front row of the Victoria’s Secret fashion show with Jeffrey Epstein. The lingerie brand’s owner and Epstein’s long-time benefactor, Leslie Wexner, was also in the front row. That fashion show took place on November 9, 2005. Notably, bin Sulayem’s DP World had made contact with the Bush administration about his intentions to acquire P&O’s U.S. ports a month prior, and negotiations were well underway.

Were bin Sulayem and Farkas meeting with Epstein about bin Sulayem’s most pressing issue in the United States at the time –– the DP World deal? It seems highly likely that it was brought up, if not the main reason behind their meeting. Epstein would have been capable of influencing these events to some degree –– he already boasted ties to former President Clinton and influential officials from the previous Clinton administration; he was well-connected to influential Israeli politicians who had a track record of pressuring U.S. presidential decision-making (e.g., Ehud Barak’s role in securing the presidential pardon of Marc Rich); he had long-standing and extensive ties to dark money networks connecting the Gulf nations (including the UAE) to the dark underbelly of the U.S. national security state, which –– again –– boasted ties to the Bush family.

It is also worth noting that Epstein was closely connected to key figures at the Carlyle Group during this period, which had close ties to CSX, the UAE, and the Bush family simultaneously. Carlyle has, notably, long been regarded as “the CIA of the business world – omnipresent, powerful, a little sinister,” as the Washington Post once stated.

Epstein was a member of the Rockefeller-created Trilateral Commission when David Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group, joined the organization. They also served together on the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR). Epstein likely gained membership in these organizations through his apparent association with the Rockefellers, as claims that he managed “Rockefeller money” had circulated in the press well before his first arrest in the mid-2000s (Epstein also sat on the board of Rockefeller University during that period).

Rubenstein was also connected to Epstein’s financial network, sitting on the National Advisory Committee of JP Morgan, which –– at the time –– was intimately connected to the Wexner family’s interests as well as Epstein’s USVI activities, including those that intersected with Andrew Farkas (discussed in detail in a subsequent part of this article). However, the clearest ties emerge from the close relationship between Rubenstein’s wife from 1983 to 2017, Alice Rogoff, and Ghislaine Maxwell, along with organizations tied to Maxwell (e.g., TerraMar), and Maxwell’s “secret” husband Scott Borgerson.

However, another figure at Carlyle Group who was arguably closer to Epstein was former Secretary of State James Baker. Baker worked for Carlyle from 1993 until his retirement in 2005, during which time he helped expand Carlyle overseas, including into the UAE. Prior to that, he was secretary of state under the administration of George Bush Sr. Baker had an established yet murky relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, as confirmed by Epstein’s lawyer Jeffrey Schantz. Epstein’s relationship with Baker, as revealed in documents related to later litigation between the State Department and Epstein, enabled Epstein to lease a large State Department property in Manhattan, beginning in 1992, while Baker was still serving as secretary of state until 1997. Connections between Epstein and top figures at the Bush-linked Carlyle Group suggest another possible reason the Bush administration intervened in Epstein’s 2007 court case, as detailed above.

Reporting from Drop Site News last year revealed that bin Sulayem worked to arrange a meeting with Epstein in November 2006, roughly a year after they were pictured together at the Victoria’s Secret fashion show with Farkas. Drop Site notes that the email correspondence between the two men was in the aftermath of the DP World scandal and that Epstein was eager to meet Sultan bin Sulayem, urging him to “come sooner.” The article also notes that in the following year, which saw Epstein’s first arrest and the Bush administration’s intervention to broker the “sweetheart deal,” Epstein advised bin Sulayem on an expected IPO for DP World and reviewed the then-unpublished book manuscript of Dubai’s ruler, Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. Also, in a few 2007 emails, the two men crudely discussed women, business strategy, and arranged vacations on Epstein’s private island. In a March 2007 email to bin Sulayem cited by Drop Site News, Epstein told him that he had “the three largest private equity people in the states,, [sic] excited about visiting dubai” and asked about “boat plans” and if they could “go to turkey” together in April 2007. It seems almost certain that one of the “largest private equity people” in the United States Epstein referenced was David Rubenstein or another top executive at the private equity giant, the Carlyle Group. This is especially likely given Rubenstein’s and Carlyle’s connections to Epstein, noted earlier in this article.

Notably, a few months after Epstein sent this email to bin Sulayem, Carlyle announced in September 2007 that it would sell a 7.5% stake in its operations, worth $1.4 billion, to an investment arm of the UAE government, specifically Mubadala. Mubadala had also committed $500 million to an investment fund Carlyle managed as part of the deal, under an agreement brokered earlier that year by Carlyle executives and UAE officials. One of the Carlyle executives in question was Rubenstein. This exchange again lends further credence to the possibility that connections between Epstein, the UAE, and Bush-connected firms like Carlyle influenced the Bush administration’s handling of the 2007 criminal case against Epstein.

Another interesting wrinkle is that as Carlyle (and Rubenstein) embarked on a trip to Dubai, apparently with Epstein’s direct involvement, Dubai Aerospace made a deal to purchase Landmark Aviation from the Carlyle Group in August 2007 as part of a $1.9 billion agreement. Notably, Landmark Aviation had, by that point, been involved in extraordinary rendition flights on behalf of the CIA. Its board also included figures such as former CIA head James Schlesinger and former Pentagon comptroller Dov Zakheim. Landmark Aviation, along with the Epstein-connected Lane Aviation, was one of the two private terminal operators at Port Columbus in Ohio at Rickenbacker airport. They took over that role from the CIA-linked airline Southern Air Transport, which had moved to Rickenbacker because of lobbying efforts closely tied to Leslie Wexner and Jeffrey Epstein.

As noted in One Nation Under Blackmail, 2011 lobbying efforts linked to Wexner led to rule changes that allowed U.S. customs officials to clear private planes at the private terminals controlled by Lane and Landmark instead of the main terminal. Given that Rickenbacker airport, particularly from the Southern Air Transport era and onward, was suspected of smuggling and links to organized crime, including by Ohio state officials, Wexner-led legal efforts suggest that the CIA contractor Landmark Aviation was potentially involved in these activities. As in the case of DP World and U.S. ports, there was government resistance to a Dubai-based company taking over the management of these private terminals, which eventually forced Dubai Aerospace to sell off some of Landmark’s U.S.-based assets. The Carlyle Group then moved to reacquire Landmark in 2012 for an undisclosed sum.

It is also worth noting that Epstein, as well as the broader network of intelligence and criminal interests he served, would have been interested in developing close ties to DP World and extending its network into the United States due to his history in arms trafficking and smuggling networks. Indeed, Epstein had a reputation for smuggling weapons in the 1980s into the 1990s, overlapping with his aforementioned involvement in the relocation of the CIA-linked Southern Air Transport on Wexner’s behalf in the mid-1990s. During much of this period, he was linked to BCCI, the CIA-linked bank used by intelligence agencies, mobsters, and drug cartels. Among its many financial crimes, the bank also engaged in a sex trafficking operation where pre-pubescent girls were trafficked to UAE elites who were “VIPs” of the bank. The sex trafficking operation, as described in the U.S. Senate report on BCCI, bears remarkable similarities to the sex trafficking operation in which Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell would later engage.

Epstein’s known ties to Gulf countries, notably Saudi Arabia, were first forged during this period, as evidenced by the travel stamps on Epstein’s Austrian passport discovered during the 2019 raid on his New York residence. Drop Site notably details how, during the 1980s, when BCCI and the UAE were at their closest, bin Sulayem became the chairman of the Jebel Ali Free Zone Association. This group controlled Dubai’s largest “free trade” port, which –– as the authors note –– did not report cargo data to the United Nations and allowed firms to move cargo by boat or plane without customs inspections. The result under bin Sulayem’s watch was that “free zones” in the UAE like those bin Sulayem managed (he later led the Dubai Port Authority) became “popular transit points for illicit goods traveling to and from Africa.” Many of the goods smuggled through UAE ports under bin Sulayem were the very “arms, drugs and diamonds” that Epstein previously bragged to journalist Vicky Ward as having allowed him to amass a fortune.

From Dubai World to Debt World

Yet another layer of connective tissue fleshing out the Epstein–bin Sulayem–Farkas connections can be found during this period. This particular connection involves the 2008 financial crisis and how it brought Dubai World to the brink, largely due to the activities of Farkas and Epstein-linked bankers, and potentially, Epstein himself.

In 2003, Farkas helped create the Emirates National Securitisation Company (ENSeC), which was “created specifically to facilitate the development of a secondary mortgage system in Dubai, similar to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the United States.” Initially, a partnership of Dubai Islamic Bank, the bin Sulayem-controlled Istithmar, Bahamas-based Pender Ltd., and Farkas’ Island Capital, ENSeC issued commercial mortgage-backed securities to “create adequate liquidity in the mortgage financing for the real estate sector.” Farkas served as its executive vice chairman. Later reports credited Farkas with “help[ing] Dubai set up a Sharia-compliant mortgage industry.”

One report from May 2005 revealed that a considerable amount of ENSeC’s activities were conducted by ENSeC Home Financial Pool I Ltd., a Cayman Islands-registered special purpose vehicle (SPV). The report also noted that, in 2005, this Cayman-linked entity issued $350 million in bonds linked to $350 million in mortgages for properties at The Palm, Jumeirah. Per the report, demand for the bonds exceeded $4 billion. The use of the Cayman Islands here is interesting, given that these islands, as well as other Caribbean offshore tax havens, were used by major banks in the lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis to move toxic mortgage assets off their balance sheets by parking mortgage-backed securities with Cayman Islands financial institutions.

Soon after its launch, Bear Stearns and Citigroup also became involved with ENSeC as placement agents. ENSeC was created in 2004 in the lead-up to the global financial crisis in 2008, largely driven by the explosion of mortgage-backed securities. At the time, Epstein was closely linked to Bear Stearns, particularly Bear Stearns’ toxic mortgage-backed securities. At the time, Citigroup was chaired by Robert Rubin, the former Treasury Secretary who helped deregulate the banking sector, thereby helping create the 2008 economic crisis. Rubin was also the official at the Clinton White House who is believed to have first invited Epstein to the president’s official residence in 1993, and his deputy and later successor, Larry Summers, was courted by Epstein and flew on Epstein’s private plane while serving in the Treasury’s top post. During that period, Summers oversaw the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, creating the modern Citigroup, and laid the groundwork for the subsequent 2008 crisis. In recently released emails, Summers refers to his close friend Jeffrey Epstein as “Mr. Money.”

Epstein was directly involved with toxic and risky mortgage-backed securities as chairman of the $6.7 billion company Liquid Funding from 2001 until at least March 2007. Bear Stearns, Epstein’s former employer, had a 40% stake in Liquid Funding. It is unknown whether any of the mortgage-backed securities created by the Farkas-linked ENSeC ended up being held by Liquid Funding, but given the connections between Epstein, Farkas, bin Sulayem, ENSeC, and Bear Stearns, it seems likely. This is even more likely given that Epstein was pictured with Farkas and bin Sulayem shortly after ENSeC was created, as well as Epstein’s known ties to bin Sulayem and the UAE after 2005 — not to mention the fact that Epstein was considered a foremost expert in the exact type of financing in which ENSeC, Bear Stearns, and others were involved. For instance, Epstein was infamously described as the inventor of derivatives by figures like Reid Hoffman. As a result, it is possibile that Epstein had advised Farkas and bin Sulayem about ENSeC in the lead-up to the 2008 crisis. Adding to this possibility is a recent Bloomberg report, which revealed that Epstein had at least one bank account in the Cayman Islands that were reportedly linked to criminal activity.

In addition, after Dubai World suffered from bad debt due to its links to ENSeC and the global economic crisis, Epstein attempted to find the struggling company a buyer. More specifically, Epstein tried to convince Jes Staley to market Dubai World to the Chinese in 2009. In November of that year, Staley forwarded Epstein an internal email regarding high-level talks with senior officials from the Dubai and Abu Dhabi departments of finance. A few days later, Epstein subsequently wrote to Staley, “The first most elegant deal that you can do. is to have China buy Dubai World Ports. They want turnkey, ops where they can then use their worldwide construction cos for building. would be a first great deal for the new ceo of the IB [investment bank].” Furthermore, in December 2009, Epstein attempted to schedule a meeting between bin Sulyaman and Staley. Epstein told Staley that “sultan is laying the groundwork for you to establish a serious presence. Jpm [JP Morgan] reputation in the region is poor.”

Dubai World’s debt crisis was truly massive, so much so that it threatened the UAE’s entire economy. After investors panicked and the country’s economy teetered, Dubai World attempted to calm them by stating that only its real estate developer, Nakheel, which had been intimately involved with ENSeC, was in peril. Reports noted that Rothschild banking interests, which Epstein was known to represent, were advising the debt restructuring efforts. Dubai World was set to default on December 14^th, 2009, but disaster was averted that very morning by a $10 billion bailout from the UAE government that very morning. It seems almost certain, given the timing of his emails, that Epstein was attempting to use Staley and his bank, JP Morgan, to find a buyer to fix the serious problems that Farkas, and likely Epstein, appear to have created for Nakheel and its parent company, Dubai World.

To tie these worlds even closer together, consider Unlimited Hangout’s previous reporting detailing the close ties of Leslie Wexner and other Wexner-linked figures to JP Morgan, which notably swallowed up Bear Stearns after the 2008 financial crisis, and its current CEO, Jamie Dimon. Shortly thereafter, JP Morgan became a major facilitator of Epstein’s financial crimes and sex trafficking operations, per a lawsuit filed against the bank by the U.S. Virgin Islands, with JP Morgan paying $75 million to settle the case out of court in 2023.

Notably, none of the financial troubles he had helped create for Dubai World ended up hurting Andrew Farkas. As noted by the Observer:

Before Dubai World revealed its debt troubles, Mr. Farkas sold his [Dubai World-linked] marina interests to a Qatari firm, relinquished his interests in ENSeC, and sold his equity stakes in all of his Dubai World joint ventures in New York, save perhaps the most valuable, the Mandarin Oriental hotel in the Time Warner Center.

Somehow, Farkas knew exactly when it was time to get out. This seems to be a recurring pattern for him.

Yacht Havens, Tax Havens

Soon after Andrew Farkas founded Island Capital, he became intimately involved in the development of marinas both in Dubai and elsewhere. The company soon created a subsidiary called Island Global Yachting (IGY) in the USVI in 2005. Yet, before IGY was formally created, Farkas’ first marina project, the Yacht Haven Grande in Saint Thomas, USVI, began construction in 2004 and opened in 2007. The project’s acquisition allegedly dates back to 2001, years before Farkas founded Island Capital. In fact, in June 2003, the Yacht Haven properties were still owned by Farkas’ Insignia before being transferred to “CEO Andrew Farkas’s Island Fund I LLC,” an apparent precursor to Island Capital.

Andrew Farkas acquired another USVI harbor, American Yacht Harbor, in January 2007 for an undisclosed sum. Farkas gave half of the marina’s ownership to Jeffrey Epstein. It is also unknown how much Epstein paid, if anything, for his stake in the marina. Epstein had developed a presence in the USVI long before, purchasing Little Saint James island in 1998 for an estimated $8 million. However, as recently released emails reveal, Epstein and Farkas planned the acquisition of American Yacht Harbor together, despite Farkas previously denying it.

Having already established that Farkas and Epstein knew each other by November 2005, the reality is that the two men likely became acquainted earlier, given that Farkas’ own uncle, Jonathan Farkas, met Epstein during the 1982 recession and became a long-time friend. Jonathan Farkas later claimed that he was enthralled by Epstein upon meeting him, particularly by his “absolute certainty that he knew where the economy was going.” Jonathan remained close to Epstein from that time on, as evidenced by him infamously begging Epstein in 2017 to tell him if his mistress was “a hooker.” A few years earlier, Jonathan Farkas had also admitted to visiting Epstein when he was under house arrest following his first legal case involving minors. As will be noted shortly, Andrew Farkas also visited Epstein regularly during this period.

Jonathan Farkas’ wife, Somers Farkas, was also fond of Epstein, stating in a 2010 email, “I do know Jeffrey, and I like him. You wouldn’t think I would, but I do.” Somers Farkas is currently serving as U.S. ambassador to Malta and was appointed to the position by Trump after she donated $300,000 to his campaign. Oddly, her mother-in-law, Ruth Farkas, had paid the same sum to the 1972 Nixon campaign decades earlier. Testimony from the Watergate hearings revealed that she knew the money would result in her receiving an ambassadorship. Aside from Jonathan Farkas, another possibility for who may have first connected Farkas and Epstein is Donald Trump, who knew both men well prior to 2005. However, during the 1990s, both Epstein and Farkas were deeply involved in New York real estate, particularly “distressed” properties, which may have led them to meet through those avenues.

A month after Farkas and bin Sulayem joined Epstein at the Victoria’s Secret annual fashion show, in December 2005, Farkas’ IGY partnered with Dubai World’s Nakheel “to design, develop and manage all of Nakheel’s marina properties in Dubai.” Another Dubai World subsidiary, Istithmar, announced that it held around 25% equity in Island Global Yachting’s projects in Dubai and Saint Thomas, USVI. Farkas subsequently became heavily involved in even more UAE marinas, and IGY expanded by acquiring marinas in various countries. IGY’s holdings in the Caribbean grew rapidly after it acquired Sun Resorts International, which had belonged to the Kerzner family. As previously mentioned, the Kerzners were the controversial hotel dynasty that had brokered Farkas’ introduction to bin Sulayem in 2002.

Roughly a year later, in November 2006, Farkas emailed Epstein to tell him, “We are now in contract to buy American Yacht Harbor, where you keep your tenders.” At the time, Epstein already had some of his businesses registered at the marina. Epstein responded, “I would like to be in on that.” Epstein likely wanted to be “in on that” not only because he had businesses registered in that location, but also because he had paid $1.2 million in 2004 for the laying of a massive underwater fiber-optic cable from near American Yacht Harbor in Red Hook to his private island, Little Saint James.

Not long after IGY acquired the marina, its other USVI marina, Yacht Haven Grande, was in major financial trouble and nearly went bankrupt until IGY acquired the marina’s $120 million in debt in September 2008. Roughly a year later, in December 2009, Epstein claimed in an email to banker Jes Staley that he “owned” both American Yacht Harbor and Yacht Haven Grande. No evidence has been provided formally linking Epstein to Yacht Haven Grande. However, Epstein may have claimed ownership because he could influence the use of its facilities through his close relationship with Andrew Farkas. The relationship was indeed close, as new emails reveal, with Farkas regularly visiting Epstein during his 13-month jail sentence between 2008 and 2009. Though Farkas’ name did not appear on any visitor log, the New York Times recently reported that Farkas would meet his “dear friend” Epstein during the day, when Epstein was allowed to go to his Palm Beach office for a 12-hour “workday.”

In 2009, after his release from prison, Epstein changed his primary residence to his private island in the USVI. From then on, Farkas and Epstein regularly applied and then reapplied for special tax breaks with the Virgin Islands government, specifically its Economic Development Authority. The Times highlighted one email exchange where Farkas told Epstein in August 2009, “IGY finance and tax guy are going to speak with your guys to reconcile the tax treatment for you.” Epstein garnered an estimated $300 million in tax incentives from this point up until near his 2019 arrest. It is unclear how much Farkas financially benefited over that same timeline, given that their tax breaks were often coordinated.

A likely reason Epstein changed his primary residence to the USVI during this time is that he anticipated enjoying other special privileges there that went far beyond tax breaks. That was because the USVI’s governor, beginning in 2007, was John De Jongh, and Epstein had employed De Jongh’s wife, Cecile, since at least the year 2000. Cecile officially worked as an office manager for Epstein’s Financial Trust Company and later Southern Trust Company, both headquartered at American Yacht Harbor (co-owned by Farkas and Epstein since 2007). Over the course of De Jongh’s time in office, the political, economic, and other favors that he and his wife paid to Epstein were considerable.

For instance, it was later reported that Cecile De Jongh had helped Epstein obtain student visas for young women who were visiting the island under dubious circumstances while her husband was in office. This occurred the same year Epstein donated around $20,000 to the university that was named in connection with the visas. She also helped manage, and often seemed to direct, Epstein’s donations to USVI politicians while also helping influence the passage of legislation that helped Epstein waive a lot of the requirements he was expected to follow as a registered sex offender, especially with respect to his whereabouts and travel.

Another notable example of Cecile’s role as a conduit for Epstein’s political donations concerns Celestino White Sr., a longtime USVI Senator who helped oversee the USVI airport where Epstein also enjoyed special privileges (more on that shortly). As the Miami Herald reported in 2023:

Emails included in the [USVI vs. JP Morgan] lawsuit discovery show that White’s ‘consulting and management firm’ sent Epstein a contract for unexplained services for his island. ‘Senator White signed the contractor’s agreement and the confidentiality agreement …we will need to get him a check for $10,000 by Friday,’ Cecile de Jongh wrote to Epstein. ‘Approved.’ Epstein wrote back. In 2015, Cecile de Jongh suggested to Epstein: ‘You may want to consider putting Celestino on some sort of monthly retainer. That is what will get you his loyalty and access.’

In exchange for her services, Cecile was paid an annual salary of about $200,000, with Epstein also paying large sums to finance the college tuition of her (and the then-governor’s) children. Other help was offered to the De Jongh’s by Epstein after De Jongh became embroiled in a corruption scandal.

In 2012, the Daily Caller began reporting on a sealed DOJ indictment that named USVI Governor John De Jongh, his Attorney General Vincent Frazer, and several USVI Senators as having taken at least $20 million in cash bribes. De Jongh was eventually arrested in 2015 in connection with these and other crimes, mainly embezzlement. As noted in detail by Corey’s Digs, the broader scandal in which De Jongh was enmeshed involved an important campaign finance “bundler” for the 2012 Obama campaign and a former Clinton official. The case against De Jongh was later permanently dismissed after he paid a $380,000 settlement and “all other corruption seems to have been swept under the rug” (See Corey’s article for more details on this case).

Help in getting the case permanently dismissed may have come from Epstein, who had negotiated a scandalous sweetheart deal for himself in Florida a few years earlier. According to the Miami Herald, after De Jongh’s arrest:

Epstein offered to help de Jongh by loaning him money and offering ‘suggestions’ to the prosecutor in the case. ‘I will play any role in this you guys like,’ wrote Epstein. ‘I can lend John the money so he immediatly [sic] has it. I would gladly be on the phone (anonymouse[sic]) with …. the prosecutor offering suggestions.’

Other emails show De Jongh asking to borrow $215,000 from Epstein to pay off part of his $380,000 settlement.

During this period of obvious quid pro quo between the De Jonghs and Epstein, recently released emails show that Epstein’s then-business partner at American Yacht Harbor, Andrew Farkas, was also meeting with Cecile while her husband was governor. Emails detail a planned meeting on April 8, 2013, organized in part by Epstein’s assistants and employees between Andrew Farkas, Cecile De Jongh, and “John” at FTC, i.e., Financial Trust Company. As previously noted, that company was located at American Yacht Harbor. Given the extremely close ties between Epstein and the De Jonghs, as well as John de Jongh’s known corruption with respect to Epstein and other billionaires associated with him, it is absolutely plausible that the “John” referenced in this email is Cecile De Jongh’s husband, John De Jongh. Adding to the possibility that it was the then-governor is the fact that Epstein had also brokered an introduction between Farkas and other prominent USVI politicians who were on his payroll, like Celestino White.

This period was also notably significant for Epstein and Farkas’ business relationship, which grew even closer. For instance, in 2014, Epstein offered to connect Farkas to Norway’s sovereign wealth fund and also funneled donations to Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Institute, which Farkas chairs, a year earlier. In another example, recently released emails show Farkas becoming a trustee of Epstein-controlled trusts. First, Farkas became a trustee of “The Jeffrey E. Epstein 2001 Trust One”, which he helped terminate, before becoming a trustee in new trust agreements alongside banker Jes Staley, whose close connections to Epstein were a focus of the USVI vs. JP Morgan lawsuit. Around this time, Farkas discussed involving Epstein in some deal (indirectly) with his firm C-III, which — as previously mentioned — has been a key source of financing for Kushner real estate deals. Farkas helped Epstein open a USVI bank account, and he exchanged emails with Epstein referring to women as “gifts” as well as seeking a “masseuse.” Images released by the DOJ show Farkas on a yacht with Epstein, his co-conspirator in trafficking Jean Luc Brunel, and several young women. One image shows Farkas with his arm around one of the women.

In 2012, Farkas and Staley were also listed as Epstein’s references when he created and sought tax breaks for a new company called Southern Trust Company, which was also parked at the American Yacht Harbor offices alongside Epstein’s Financial Trust Company. However, Financial Trust was phased out to avoid registering with federal securities regulators and stopped managing money. Cecile de Jongh also became office manager at Southern Trust the year it was created. The company has notably been described in lawsuits as having “fund[ed] Jeffrey E. Epstein’s criminal activities.” USVI documents describe the company as:

specializ[ing] in the interpretation of biomedical and financial artificial intelligence and offers market intelligence to companies which operate in the financial, biomedical and pharmaceutical industries. Southern Trust’s primary goal is to become a successful competitor in the field of artificial intelligence concentrated in biomedical informatics and financial informatics and algorithms and technology. They focus on data acquisitions and locating and establishing wide-ranging, all-inclusive biomedical and financial information databases on servers located in the USVI.

According to USVI records, Epstein — a transhumanist and a pedophile — explicitly sought to train USVI children and teens to run Southern Trust’s servers as well as develop and manage its algorithms. At the time Southern Trust was being set up and for several years after, Epstein — through Southern Trust and also through its affiliated Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation — donated heavily to the USVI Department of Education, preschool programs, high school science fairs, educational charities, and several “youth initiatives,” including several targeting disabled children, “juvenile offenders and under-privileged children.” He also donated “critical funding” to the largest mental health clinic in the USVI. In interviews before his death about his “philanthropy” and funding of scientists, Epstein expressed a specific interest in “on the spectrum” kids. Given Cecile de Jongh’s apparent facilitation of his trafficking activities via USVI educational institutions (e.g., the student visas she helped acquire for Epstein) as well as her role in Southern Trust, one wonders about her role in helping Epstein pursue his goal of finding USVI children and teens to run Southern Trust’s AI servers.

A Closed System

In addition to buying out the governor and more than a few other key USVI figures, Jeffrey Epstein seems to have been building other connections that would have likely allowed him to move items and people in ways that were less than legal if he called in the proper favors.

Recent reports noted that Epstein made significant efforts to connect with key customs personnel in the USVI during the same period he was creating Southern Trust and had the De Jonghs in his pocket. Reports published last month detailed how recent Epstein releases revealed his extensive efforts to cultivate personal relationships with six customs officers in the USVI and Florida. Three of the officers were based at USVI’s main airport, Cyril E. King Airport (STT), including one supervisor. Epstein’s relationships with these men involved offering them free travel, financial advice, gifts, and employment opportunities. One solicited a “hard-money loan” from Epstein in an email but denied having ever received it when questioned by a journalist last month. Epstein’s relationship with one of the customs officers was so extensive that it was investigated by the FBI in October 2019, a few months after Epstein’s death.

The emails also show that Epstein frequently sought to determine which customs officers would be on duty when he was traveling to and from the USVI. He would complain to his “friends” in customs if he felt he was being slighted or questioned too extensively at the airport. As previously noted, Epstein also made payments to the USVI politician Celestino White, who served on the board overseeing the airport, demonstrating that he cultivated connections at multiple levels. Reports have shown that Epstein clearly enjoyed special privileges at the Saint Thomas airport when one (or more) of his customs officer contacts was on duty.

Epstein’s manipulations and circumvention of normal procedures at Saint Thomas airport hark back to his past involvement in the reshaping of Ohio’s Rickenbacker Airport. Officials working for Leslie Wexner’s The Limited, and with Epstein’s involvement, courted two CIA-linked airlines (Arrow Air and Southern Air Transport) that had been directly involved in Iran-Contra smuggling operations to run cargo, principally for The Limited, from Rickenbacker to the Far East during the 1990s. This shift at Rickenbacker overlaps directly with Epstein’s visits to the Clinton White House, where he met mainly with Mark Middleton, a central figure in the Chinagate scandal whereby Chinese arms were illegally smuggled into the United States in exchange for access to sensitive U.S. military equipment and communication systems. Officials at Rickenbacker openly told local journalists that they believed Wexner and Epstein had ties to intelligence, with one also speculating about organized crime connections and that this relationship was a motivating factor behind The Limited’s efforts to bring Arrow Air and Southern Air Transport to Rickenbacker.

A few decades later, in 2011, The Limited also reportedly played a role in allowing another CIA-linked airline mentioned earlier in this report, Landmark Aviation, to allow the circumventing of normal customs procedure at Rickenbacker by allowing private planes (such as Leslie Wexner’s) to be processed by private terminals it controlled instead of submitting to normal customs checks. Epstein’s past ties to these activities and his efforts to circumvent normal customs procedures are strongly suggestive that his smuggling activities from his past likely continued into the USVI, where he smuggled women and girls instead of weapons (and potentially more, per a recent Bloomberg report).

During the same period when he was cultivating ties with local customs officials, an accountant employed by Epstein set up a private communications network between his infamous island and American Yacht Harbor, which Epstein co-owned with Farkas. As discovered by Corey’s Digs, Jeanne Brennan Wiebracht, a CPA, parked her business — Accounting Strategies Group — at the Epstein–Farkas–owned marina at the same address that “several of Jeffrey Epstein’s businesses resolve to.” In addition, she is listed in Epstein’s black book under the listing for his USVI Financial Trust Company. Jeanne appears many, many times in the recently released Epstein emails and was clearly working for and managing his payments. She was also managing the travel of contractors from American Yacht Harbor to Little Saint James. This is relevant because, as noted by Corey’s Digs, Jeanne’s husband, Matias, is the founder and owner of See & Ski Powerboat Rentals, also located at American Yacht Harbor, which offers a water taxi service. Given that Matias is married to Jeanne Brennan, who was one of the main people managing travel to and from Little Saint James for Epstein, and See & Ski is also located at the same marina, it is highly likely that his company was used to move people — employees, contractors, and also potentially victims — between the marina complex and Epstein’s island. In other words, Epstein— if the right people were working at the Saint Thomas airport — could easily bring people (and/or items) into the USVI and onto his island without proper inspections and document checks.

Regarding the private communications network, Brennan is listed as the contact for a microwave industrial/business pool license, and the license is registered to an Epstein-linked entity, VT&T LLC. This license, first uncovered by Corey’s Digs in 2019, covers an 18.7 GHz microwave radio transmission running from Saint Thomas to Little Saint James. It is a private communications network, and documents from the company that helped install it refer to it as the Southern Trust–Little Saint James network. The system utilizes DragonWave’s products, a company specializing in video surveillance network solutions for state and local governments as well as law enforcement. Given what is now known about Epstein’s penchant for bugging his residences with hidden cameras, allegedly for the purposes of blackmailing high-profile guests, it seems likely that this is the infrastructure that would have enabled that same style of camera system on the island.

In summary, the marina co-owned by Farkas and Epstein was an essential hub for Epstein’s illicit operations on the island, with Epstein firmly controlling the people and infrastructure necessary to move anything, including minors and trafficked young women, without too many questions being asked. It’s also evident from emails and other documents that Farkas was meeting with Epstein at the marina during this period and was extensively involved with him. It is interesting to compare the extent of Farkas’ connections to Epstein’s USVI network with that of Jes Staley, whose relationship with Epstein was a cornerstone of its lawsuits against major banks and also of lawsuits targeting Epstein’s estate. Staley’s involvement overlapped with Farkas’ considerably and was, seemingly, an essential part of Epstein’s USVI operations. One has to wonder why the USVI authorities pursued Staley but not Farkas. This is especially curious considering that recent releases include photographs showing Farkas on Epstein’s boat with young women and Jean Luc Brunel, the deceased modeling mogul and alleged co-conspirator of Epstein’s trafficking activities. It seems Farkas was not only well aware of Epstein’s activities but intimately entangled in the infrastructure that made it possible.

Epstein and the Sultan

Farkas’ long-time associate, Sultan bin Sulayem, also stayed extremely close to Epstein after their initial meeting around 2005. For instance, back in 2023, it was revealed that bin Sulayem was scheduled to visit Epstein’s New York townhouse on multiple occasions from 2011 to 2014 and that he also attempted to connect him with his close associate, then-JP Morgan banker Jes Staley. In 2012, Epstein and Tim Zagat, who created an influential restaurant guide, developed a plan to entertain “the Sultan” in New York. The “sultan” is believed to refer to bin Sulayem, given that he was frequently referenced in Epstein’s calendars during that time.

The most recent releases have made it clear that the extent of bin Sulayem’s relationship with Epstein was much more extensive and, frankly, disturbing, given some of the emails. The most disturbing one, which subsequently received national attention, was sent between Epstein and bin Sulayem in 2009, and in which Epstein wrote, “Where are you? are you ok, I loved the torture video.” Bin Sulayem’s identity had been redacted until Congressman Thomas Massie revealed that it was a “sultan” who had sent Epstein a “torture video.” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche later confirmed that the sultan in question was bin Sulayem. However, the DOJ has declined to elaborate on the referenced “torture video” and what it shows. In addition to the “torture video” email, Epstein and bin Sulayem discussed sex with different women, shared pornography, and made extremely inappropriate statements in several emails.

In one email in which Epstein connected bin Sulayem to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Epstein introduced him as “the right hand of maktoum,” referring to the then-UAE Prime Minister. Epstein’s relationship with Ehud Barak was extensive, as Epstein introduced him to many of his contacts, and evidence has surfaced over the years pointing to Barak’s apparent involvement in trafficking. Notably, Barak, Trump, and several others had circled names in Epstein’s infamous “black book,” which meant Epstein’s former butler Alfred Rodriguez believed Barak was directly involved in Epstein’s trafficking activities. Epstein’s introduction of bin Sulayem and Barak dates back to at least 2012 and shows Epstein playing a major, behind-the-scenes role in attempting to connect the men in business ventures. One of those business ventures was Carbyne, an Ehud Barak-chaired Israeli intelligence-linked company that now controls a litany of 911 emergency call systems in the US and around the world. Emails show that bin Sulayem intended to invest in the company and sought its services to help manage DP World-owned port security.

In addition to Barak, Epstein also connected bin Sulayem to many other powerful and influential contacts, among them Steve Bannon, Joi Ito of MIT, and Peter Mandelson (then serving as British Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills). Epstein also sent one of bin Sulayem’s media interviews to Elon Musk (at bin Sulayem’s request), though it is unclear if anything came of that exchange. In addition, other emails have revealed that Epstein also had close ties to other UAE officials aside from bin Sulayem.

The relationship between bin Sulayem and Epstein also brought the former to the USVI and, more specifically, Epstein’s island. Sultan bin Sulayem traveled to Little Saint James several times, spending Christmas there at least once. In 2016, he also helped Epstein purchase the adjacent island, Great Saint James, by using his name to hide Epstein’s involvement in the purchase. Although an aide to bin Sulayem had previously claimed that Epstein used his name without permission, emails from 2016 show that bin Sulayem knew that year that Epstein, whom he calls a “very dear friend and a business associate of mine,” was the owner of the island. In those emails, bin Sulayem was connecting Epstein to the CEO of Creative Kingdom, which designed the Palm Jumeirah, to help Epstein “develop a private resort only for his, his customers and friends private use.” At the time of the email, bin Sulayem was attending the 2017 inauguration of Donald Trump alongside Andrew Farkas.

An Unaccountable Oligarchy

After the recent releases and the public scrutiny of the “torture video” email in particular, bin Sulayem was forced to resign his post as head of Dubai World. However, it is essential to note that during most of his known exchanges with Epstein, including his most disturbing one, he controlled a major conglomerate that dominates key aspects of global maritime freight traffic, as well as major real estate holdings in the United States and beyond. Here, one must consider not only Epstein’s history of trafficking both arms and young women alongside bin Sulayem’s revealing exchanges and activities with him, but also the documented history of UAE elites engaging in pedophilia in connection with intelligence-linked entities, as noted in the U.S. Senate report on BCCI. There is also the fact, as noted by Drop Site News, that free trade zones and ports managed by bin Sulayem in the UAE prior to the formal creation of DP World became hotbeds for smuggling. They also noted that the movements of arms and contraband, in some cases, were tied to entities later linked to Epstein, including BCCI and Southern Air Transport. Sultan bin Sulayem’s resignation is insufficient and does not preclude the need for a full investigation into DP World’s ties, including its obvious and extensive ties to the Epstein network and that network’s smuggling/trafficking activities.

There is also an obvious need to make deeper inquiries into the relationship between Andrew Farkas and Epstein, particularly regarding the American Yacht Harbor marina they co-owned and which was clearly an integral part of the infrastructure Epstein used to commit his crimes. Yet, Farkas’ close ties to the Kushner family, intertwined with the family of Donald Trump, who himself is a friend of Farkas, make the hope of an investigation from this administration extremely unlikely. It is also doubtful that Democrats will ever pursue Farkas, given his longstanding connections to Democratic fundraising and to one of the party’s most well-known politicians.

Unlimited Hangout has argued for years that the Epstein scandal is indicative of a bipartisan problem and that it also reveals how politicians and other prominent public figures serve a network of oligarchs. This, of course, includes Epstein himself, who had ties to oligarch dynasties such as the Rothschilds and Rockefellers. With such powerful entities so intimately involved, it is unlikely there will ever be a federal investigation, despite the hopes of many Americans, particularly those who were misled by Trump’s 2024 campaign rhetoric with respect to the Epstein case.

As this series has endeavored to show, Trump and his family are enmeshed in these networks, and his administration’s behavior regarding Epstein transparency should make it clear that they are covering up key aspects of the case, not just to protect themselves, but to protect their friends and benefactors.

First Friends: How Andrew Farkas and an Emirati Sultan Helped Epstein Build a Smuggler’s Paradise.

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One Nation Under Blackmail by Whitney Webb.

Redacted.

Kadlec most recently served at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as its Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) in the first Trump administration, where he played a crucial role in developing early Covid-19 response policies as well as conducting global pandemic simulations the year before the Covid-19 crisis, in 2019. These policies were sharply criticized by the man who is now head of HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Amid the silence from Kennedy and most other Covid-era critics regarding Kadlec, the seasoned government operative was finally confirmed for his Pentagon post by the Senate in December.

His one-time critics aside, hardly any mainstream news outlets covered Kadlec’s nomination or confirmation despite his new role bearing significant importance. This is despite not only his hand in early Covid policies, but his role in a simulation that eerily preceded, and seemingly predicted, the 2001 Anthrax attacks, which figures very close to Kadlec likely orchestrated in an effort to bio-terrorize the American public into supporting military adventurism abroad.

Since his time in college, Kadlec has been intertwined with the American military. He received a bachelor’s in science from the US Air Force Academy in 1979, and then graduated with a M.D. from the Uniformed Services University of Health Science — a federal government college meant to prepare students for medical service in the military. Kadlec went on to do exactly this, spending the next 26 years working as an Air Force physician.

Kadlec would soon entangle himself in a web of biowarriors and neoconservatives from the Reagan era who were bent on establishing a pretext to depose the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Notably, some of these very men had been involved in selling Hussein biological weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) the decade before. Behind a thick mist, these same characters also surrounded crucial events preceding and proceeding the 2001 Anthrax attacks. It would be from within this milieu that Kadlec played a key role in developing and manufacturing consent for critical pillars of what would become the nation’s biosecurity infrastructure in the years before and after 2001.

While the Trump administration has cultivated the perception of dissent as it relates to Covid-19-era biosecurity policy-making, Kadlec’s nomination is only the latest among a series of biowarriors and transhumanists who have come to fill the bureaucracy of the second Trump administration.

Now at the Pentagon, Kadlec — a crucial figure in cultivating the national-security based public health system being built out today — will hold vast power over the nation’s WMD policy, ranging from nuclear deterrence, developing “capabilities to counter” WMD threats, and “interagency coordination and international engagement on countering weapons of mass destruction (CWMD) policy and strategy,” as part of the Trump administration’s effort to “reshape the way the DoD meets and responds to WMD threats.”

If Kadlec’s record is any indication of how he will govern at his new post, then the U.S. will take a firm step towards the fulfillment of the neoconservative policy doctrine that came to rise during the Bush years. This doctrine envisions the empowerment of the most secretive sects of the national security state, a permanent state of war and emergency, the financialization of catastrophe, and the consolidation of power. Kadlec, often unnoticeable and out of sight, has long played a critical role in the implementation of these goals for decades.

Creating Enemies

Kadlec claimed he was first introduced to the world of biological warfare in 1991, “on the eve of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.” It was then that he was assigned to the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) at the now notorious Fort Bragg military base.

It was a transformational period for JSOC. The special missions unit had recently climbed to  new levels of military power — in part thanks to the president at the time, George “Poppy” H.W. Bush. In the aftermath of the Church Committee, which issued checks on CIA power by way of new reforms including “the establishment of standing intelligence committees in the House and Senate,” Poppy Bush, a former CIA director with family ties to corrupt banking interests, was the man tasked with reforming the CIA.

A few years later, Bush rose to the executive branch as Ronald Reagan’s vice president — a move that “coincided with a transfer of power from the CIA to the military.” Thanks to the creation of JSOC, the military was supplied with “operatives fully capable of carrying out the same skulduggery as [the CIA], but without the added baggage of congressional meddling.” In other words, a substantial amount of covert- operation-responsibility had been transferred from the CIA to JSOC — a Pentagon-housed shadow force less accountable to external oversight than its civilian counterpart. Indeed, JSOC was tapped throughout the course of the Reagan administration to aid in covert counterinsurgency operations in Central and Latin America, including working with the drug-smuggling Nicaraguan Contras. It was behind this backdrop of the restructuring of black operations, and the bolstering of JSOC as a “secret military within the military,” that Kadlec would first become embroiled in the controversial science of biological warfare.

This illuminates the role that Kadlec and the clique of biowarriors he has worked with have, for decades, played within the structure of the American war machine. These scientists have time and again utilized their academic credentials to cement alternative realities into the minds of the American public and key government leaders. These warped narratives work to manufacture consent for the geopolitical goals of the American power nexus, and as a result become reflected in reality; policy decisions, spending packages and wars are enacted to respond to these parallel realities. Likely beginning at JSOC, Kadlec became one of the managers of this dialectical system of propaganda. His career coincided with a years-long campaign to turn the threat of Iraqi-waged biological warfare into a psychological reality among the top brass of Washington, and eventually the American public.

To construct a potent alternative ideal reality, however, some semblance of it must emerge from the material world. Iraq did indeed possess biological agents — what Kadlec and company never admitted throughout the course of their exploitation of this fact, however, is that powerful factions of the American empire enabled this weapons buildup, and only later sought its destruction.

In the decade before Kadlec joined JSOC, figures with whom he would later become closely associated were enmeshed in business dealings with Iraq. At the time, the U.S. under Reagan chose to back Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988).

During this time, America sent a steady flow of economic aid, intelligence sharing, special operations training and “dual use” technology to Iraq in support of Hussein’s fight against Iran. Among the “dual use” technology sent were biological agents, including anthrax and botulism samples, that were delivered to Iraq at least in part by the private non-profit American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Donald Rumsfeld, who at the time was acting as Reagan’s envoy to Iraq, facilitated the transfer of “billions of pounds in loans” that appeared to aid Iraq in its chemical weapons buildup.

A government report uncovered this information regarding ATCC, and noted the “dual use” nature of these materials — meaning they could be used for both offensive and defensive purposes. Indeed, Iraq utilized chemical warfare against Iran dozens of times throughout the conflict. Journalist Mohamed Salam, in a guest passage in Robert Fisk’s book The Great War for Civilisation, recounted seeing the aftermath of the offensive use of these biological agents.

In Basra, for example, one of Saddam’s top generals faced a huge Iranian offensive — one which the Iraqis handled through “mass killing,” yet there was no “flooding, no fire, no electricity.” When Salam arrived at the scene in the desert, he saw thousands of dead Iranians “still holding their rifles…dead in their trenches, all still holding their Kalshinkovs.” The corpses had “no bullet holes, no wounds — they were just dead.”

All the dead Iranians had blood on their mouths and beards, and their pants below the waist were all wet. They had all urinated in their pants. The Iraqis had used, for the first time, a combination of nerve gas and mustard gas. The nerve gas would paralyse their bodies so they would all piss in their pants and the mustard gas would drown them in their own lungs. That’s why they spat blood.

Mohamed Salam as cited in Robert Fisk’s The Great War for Civilisation

This carnage was carried out with the support of the U.S. and of Western capital. To this end, Salam claims that he encountered an American engineer from Texas in an Iraqi quarry. The engineer and the Iraqi government minders told Salam that the site was simply producing fertilizer. In reality, according to Salam, it was producing mustard and nerve gas.

The controversy surrounding Iraq’s possession and use of biological agents dragged on after the Iraq-Iran war, particularly upon the advent of the Gulf War when the U.S. invaded Iraq following the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Though the conflict only lasted a few months, the physical aftermath of the war followed hundreds of thousands of veterans home in the form of “Gulf War Syndrome” — a sickness suspected to be caused by the exposure to chemical weapons during the conflict and/or the experimental and not properly tested anthrax vaccine. The administration of that vaccine, spearheaded by Kadlec associate William C. Patrick III, was justified due the presence of the anthrax samples in Iraq that, as noted above, just years prior, had been sent to Iraq by the Reagan administration. During the Gulf War, Robert Kadlec personally injected about eight hundred of the “warbound service-personnel attached to the Military’s Special Operations Command.”

In response to mounting pressure on the DoD to respond to the increasing cases of ill Gulf War veterans, the Pentagon dispatched the Nobel-Prize winning scientist and close friend of Robert Kadlec, Joshua Lederberg, to investigate the medical phenomenon. By the time Lederberg headed the investigation in 1994, he had already been a long-time advisor to the U.S. government. Though his rounded aviator spectacles and short, scruffy beard lend him the appearance of a humble professor, he was entrenched in the same coterie of biowarriors as Kadlec who often leveraged their scientific credentials to manufacture consent for the War on Terror.

Lederberg’s investigation found no evidence of the existence of Gulf War Syndrome, and thus discounted the idea that there were any possible side effects to potential chemical weapon exposure during the war or to the anthrax vaccine. This finding, however, would drag the veteran government scientist into controversy when it was revealed that he sat on the board of the American Type Culture Collection — the very non-profit that had sold Iraq anthrax and other biological agents between 1985 and 1989. His conclusion was later “harshly criticized” by the General Accounting Office, and the release of new evidence in 1996 even pressured him to walk back the certainty of his findings.

The flimsiness of Lederberg’s conclusion, combined with both his serious conflicts of interest and the incentive of the U.S. government to obscure its role in the armament of Iraq’s biological weapons program, raises the possibility that Lederberg’s “investigation” was an attempted cover-up — both for himself and the more powerful American forces behind him.

Indeed, an examination into Kadlec’s activities around this same period unveils further efforts to obscure the American origins of Saddam’s biological weapons program. Through the vehicle of the United Nations (UN), as well as through publishing academic works and teaching at the National War College (NWC), Kadlec and his cohort constructed crucial points of the distorted narrative that would eventually be used to launch the Global War on Terror.

After the Gulf War, the UN Security Council established the United Nations’ Special Commission (UNSCOM) to verify the elimination of Iraq’s biological, chemical and ballistic missile programs. Kadlec joined the inspections team as a representative of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which at the time was headed by Donald Rumsfeld — the same man that facilitated “billions of pounds” of loans for Iraq to build up their biological weapons program. Rumsfeld’s and Kadlec’s relationship would bloom into a geopolitically significant one, as Rumsfeld eventually came to shape crucial propaganda narratives in the aftermath of 9/11 and the Anthrax attacks while Kadlec was serving as his advisor.

In total, Kadlec made three trips to Iraq between 1994-1998. Also traveling to Iraq at the time as part of UNSCOM was his colleague William Patrick III, the aforementioned military science veteran who headed the offensive U.S. biological warfare program at Fort Detrick in 1951. Between Kadlec acting on behalf of Rumsfeld and William Patrick III, UNSCOM contained prominent actors close to powerful American military interests.

In between his trips in 1995, Kadlec was drafting hypothetical scenarios of potential ways that U.S. adversaries might wage biological warfare against Washington for the Air War College — implanting within military culture the hypothetical threat of bioterror. In this capacity, Kadlec was advocating for the construction of a national stockpile of medical countermeasures ready for use in a state of emergency. In the case of a bioterror attack, Kadlec warned that “Stockpiles of necessary antibiotics, immunoglobulins, and vaccines would have to be procured, maintained, and be readily available to administer within hours after recognizing an incident” in Battlefield of the Future: 21st Century Warfare Issues. At the time, no such stockpile existed — something Kadlec and the biowarriors he associated with would change in the years to come.

Meanwhile, William Patrick III, Kadlec’s colleague whom he traveled to Iraq with on behalf of UNSCOM, was shaping President Bill Clinton’s worldview on bioterrorism. In 1995, Patrick told Clinton — whose administration was working directly with the UNSCOM team throughout that decade — that a bioterror attack against the U.S. was inevitable, and implanted the myth in the President’s mind that a terrorist could make even the most dangerous pathogens in their “garage.”

That same year, UNSCOM extracted an admission from Iraq that it possessed biological agents when Saddam’s son-in-law Hussein Kamel defected to Jordan to cooperate with the UN team, according to the Arms Control Association. Robert Fisk notes in The Great War for Civilisation, however, that Kamel and another one of Saddam’s son-in-laws later told UN weapons inspectors that “all weapons of mass destruction programs in Iraq had been abandoned.” This information, Fisk says, “was not divulged until 2003.” These claims appear in line with the events that had transpired over the first six years of UNSCOM’s presence in Iraq; as Fisk notes, the weapons inspections program “had forced Saddam’s regime to destroy 40,000 chemical shells and other munitions, 700 tons of chemical agents, 48 long-range missiles, an anthrax factory, a nuclear centrifuge program and 30 missile warheads.”

Nonetheless, “the U.S. government was constantly raising ‘evidence’ from [potentially dubious] Iraqi defectors that nuclear production continued, that the Iraqis were burying biological bombs in the desert, [and] that Saddam’s refusal to comply with all requests for information on chemical materials was proof of his dishonesty.” In Saddam’s mind, this pattern of hostility likely deepened his concerns that UNSCOM was a front for the CIA, working to retain intelligence for future missile-strikes whenever the Pentagon next decided that it was time to bomb Baghdad.

Likely contributing to Saddam’s skepticism were the hawkish proclamations of President Bill Clinton in 1998. In February of that year, Clinton, with the aforementioned dystopian warnings of William Patrick III fresh in his mind, gave a nationally televised speech that, according to the DoD, was “in essence an explanation to the American people of why military action may be required against Iraq.” In the speech, Clinton proclaimed that:

It is obvious that there is an attempt here, based on the whole history of this operation, since 1991, to protect whatever remains of [Hussein’s] capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, the missiles to deliver them, and the feedstocks necessary to produce them. The UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to restart quickly its production program and build many, many more weapons.

On August 5, 1998, Baghdad “had suspended all cooperation with UNSCOM, claiming that it was being used by American intelligence agents.” The Western media, according to Fisk, announced that “Saddam…had ‘defied’ the UN Security Council—which was true only if the Iraqi allegations were false.”

Saddam’s orders became validated, however, on September 29, 1998, when UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter admitted to Haaretz that UNSCOM shared sensitive information regarding Iraq’s weapons program with Israel. Ritter — who has claimed that the FBI was investigating him in January of that year for allegedly spying for Israel — told the Israeli newspaper that his cooperation with Israel was conducted with the full approval of the head of UNSCOM, Rolf Ekeus, as well as the U.S. government. The Israeli collaboration, according to Fisk, was “proof positive for the Arabs that the UN was sharing its military secrets with Iraq’s only enemy in the Middle East.”

Amidst this heightened tension, on Oct. 21, 1998, Clinton signed into law an emergency budget supplement request that provided “$51 million for pharmaceutical and vaccine stockpiling activities at CDC.” This stockpile, notably, would be deployed in the event of a biological attack — which, at the time, Washington was heavily implying that Iraq intended to levy against the U.S. This was the first major iteration of the stockpile that Kadlec envisioned years earlier — one which would soon expand as a result of the Global War on Terror (GWOT).

In response to UNSCOM’s ouster from Iraq, the UN, “without revealing the truth of Iraq’s claims,” then withdrew its entire team from the country on Nov. 13. But with the seeds of the narrative of Iraq as a hostile and deceptive enemy of the West already planted, material reality was unimportant for the U.S. government response. They would respond to their reality — the version of events that divorced geopolitical context from Iraq’s decision.

In December of 1998, President Clinton launched Operation Desert Fox, a brutal bombing campaign into Baghdad that killed 62 Iraqi soldiers and 82 civilians. 540 bombs were dropped by U.S. jets across the country and — further validating Hussein’s concerns of intelligence meddling in UNSCOM — many of the buildings destroyed had just recently been visited by UN inspectors. Indeed, subsequent reports that emerged in early 1999 confirmed that the American intelligence apparatus had infiltrated the weapons inspection program to spy on Hussein and the activities of Iraq’s security services — in collaboration with British and Israeli intelligence. Tragically, over a dozen schools and hospitals were destroyed as well, along with water supplies for 300,000 people.

Undoubtedly, the role of Kadlec and the UNSCOM inspectors were one significant element of a multifaceted covert effort aimed at manufacturing a pretext for this slaughter, and in the long term, what Fisk called “an unlimited military offensive against Iraq.” Indeed, the subsequent presidential administration of George W. Bush only amped up the hostility that Clinton had first established — resulting in the Global War on Terror (GWOT), an illegal, imperialist incursion into the Middle East that saw the deaths of at least hundreds of thousands. This U.S.-waged war that successfully deposed Hussein, however, was only launched in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks of 2001 and, importantly, the Anthrax attacks that accompanied them.

Interestingly, Kadlec would spend the next three years working between the two agencies most notorious for black operations in the U.S. government — acting as a United States Special Operations Command detailee to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). While at the CIA, Kadlec served in the “Counterproliferation Division supporting intelligence activities,” a description of work notably similar to what he appeared to be doing at UNSCOM. He also began teaching at the National War College (NWC) in Washington D.C., a military school housed in a massive brick-colored building, its entrances supported by two columns with a stone eagle overlooking the grass field before it.

Kadlec was hired at NWC by the Air Force Colonel Randall Larsen, who at the time was “convinced that the most serious threat to national security was not Russian or Chinese missiles, but a pandemic — either man-made or naturally occurring.” Students at the NWC consist of officials from all branches of the military, as well as from the Department of State — meaning that via “experts” like Kadlec, the American foreign policy apparatus was inserting the threat of biological warfare into its culture and strategy in the aftermath of UNSCOM’s expulsion from Iraq and the subsequent carnage of Operation Desert Fox.

During this period, Kadlec, working for the CIA and U.S. Special Forces, was placed close to the origins of the narrative that helped twist the Anthrax attacks into a pretext for war with Iraq — directly linking Iraq’s government to those allegedly responsible for 9/11, and furthering the creation of the stockpile along the way.

Forging America’s Red Arrow

Though often forgotten in public consciousness, when the 2001 Anthrax attacks occurred in October, 2001, they were widely perceived as the second of a one-two punch carried out against the U.S. by the same actors who were behind 9/11. The attacks exacerbated the paranoia already spreading across the nation as the dust of the Twin Towers settled; they acted as a material demonstration that terrorism could reach anyone and anywhere, not only through physical threats like a plane hijacking, but also via invisible spores and innocuous everyday objects such as letters.

Only four months before the attacks would take place, however, a bioterror simulation convened at the Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. strangely predicted key elements of Amerithrax to a startling degree. Present at the event was Robert Kadlec, his boss at NWC Randall Larsen, the eventual Vice President of the CIA’s venture capital arm Tara O’Toole, and the man who was running security for the World Trade Center on the day of 9/11 (who will come up again in this article), Jerome Hauer. The exercise, titled Dark Winter, imagined a scenario in which terrorists unleashed weaponized smallpox upon the American people via aerosol spray.

In it, anonymous letters were sent to members of the media containing threats, including threats of “follow-up attacks with anthrax.” In the Anthrax attacks, anonymous threatening letters were similarly sent to members of the media — but were scribed to make it appear as though an Islamic jihadist delivered them.

Crucially, however, while the letters in Dark Winter were not written in the “style” of an Islamist jihadist, Osama Bin Laden was listed as a suspect in the exercise, just as he and Al Qaeda were in the Anthrax attacks. Furthermore, the Dark Winter script listed Iraq as a potential suspect of the attack and claimed that a “state-sponsored international terrorist organization” likely carried out the bioterror (emphasis added). The script also made mention of an Iraqi defector who claimed that “Iraq arranged the bioweapons attacks on the US through intermediaries,” but interestingly included a plot point that no “forensic evidence” existed to support the defector’s claim. This, of course, strikingly parallels the now-known bogus claims of Iraqi defectors who alleged Hussein had WMDs. These defectors were amplified by the mainstream media at the time.

Further thickening the haze of suspicion enshrouding Dark Winter, several key Dark Winter participants and co-authors briefed Vice President Dick Cheney on the exercise in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. These participants were Kadlec’s boss Randall Larsen, Tara O’Toole and Thomas Inglesby. O’Toole stressed to the VP that the U.S. was unprepared for a biological attack, to which Cheney “showed no reaction to.”

When O’Toole’s presentation concluded, Cheney asked, “But what are we looking for? What does a biological weapon look like?”

It was at this point that Larsen pulled out a tube of “weaponized [Bacillus globigii] powder…almost genetically identical to anthrax” and said, “Mr. Vice President…it looks like this.” “And by the way,” he added, “I just smuggled this into your office” — demonstrating to the VP the undetectable nature of the supposedly impending biological attack.

Yet, interestingly, the White House Medical Office dispensed Cipro — an antibiotic used to treat and prevent anthrax – to Cheney’s staff on the night of 9/11, a few days before this prophetic warning from Larsen.

These anecdotes absolutely contradict the narrative that emerged in that fall of 2001, as well as the official “lone nut” narrative of today, compound into a real possibility — whether participants of Dark Winter, and players adjacent to them, had foreknowledge, or even a role in orchestrating, the Anthrax attacks for geopolitical ends. If this possibility is true, then Dark Winter served more as a rehearsal for what was to come as opposed to a preparatory, hypothetical exercise. The most important part of that rehearsal would have been utilizing the attacks to establish the necessary links between America’s adversaries — Iraq and Al Qaeda — in order to manufacture consent for the waging of imperialist war upon them. This linkage was absolutely carried out by anonymous sects of the American government through the course of the Anthrax attacks.

During this period, multiple major dailies and other media outlets linked Iraq to the viral carnage, often citing unnamed government officials, including The Guardian and The Wall Street Journal. The Journal propagated this fiction in an editorial by former CIA director and Dark Winter participant James Woolsey — warning readers that America was facing an enemy from a foreign and uncivilized land, one which emerged from “a part of the world where the major aspects of war, for many centuries, have been clandestine raids, assassinations, terror against civilians, and deception.” While he claimed that America would rather fight its enemies “like a man,” he claimed that this omnipresent entity would only “[smirk] in the shadows” and deliver the citizenry “more anthrax.”

According to Rolling Stone reporter Seth Harp on X, many more articles “blamed the Anthrax attacks on Iraq.” Though it is often forgotten now, these false links between Iraq, Al Qaeda and Amerithrax that trickled into the media were crucial points of propaganda in the buildup to the American invasion of Saddam’s regime.

Robert Kadlec was close to the top centers of power dictating policy and messaging to the American people at the time. In the wake of 9/11, Kadlec promptly became the special advisor on biological warfare to George W. Bush’s Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. That very month, before the Anthrax attacks occurred, Rumsfeld announced that “he expected America’s enemies would try to help terrorist groups obtain chemical and biological weapons,” according to The Guardian — echoing Patrick’s warnings to Clinton the previous decade. Soon after, anthrax was delivered in the pockets of envelopes containing cryptic letters to prominent members of the media and political class with messages intended to appear authored by Islamic jihadists.

Rumsfeld went on to repeatedly suggest these ultimately false links were real through media appearances in the months to come — subtly seeding a connection between the Anthrax attacks, 9/11 and Iraq into American minds as the Pentagon geared up for war with Iraq — all with Kadlec operating quietly in the background.

Contextualized, Kadlec’s role in this hysteria is unsurprising. Three years before the Anthrax attacks, Kadlec was detailing the effects of hypothetical anthrax bioterror to the Vancouver Sun. “If several kilograms of an agent like anthrax were disseminated in New York City today, conservative estimates put the number [of] deaths occurring in the first few days at 400,000. Thousands of others would be at risk of dying within several days if proper antibiotics and vaccination were not started immediately,” he warned. Perhaps more importantly, he was well aware of the fear that such an attack would cause:

Millions of others would be fearful of being exposed and seek or demand medical care as well. Beyond the immediate health implications of such an act, the potential panic and civil unrest would create an equally large response.

Kadlec’s forecast echoed the script of Dark Winter. In a fictional news report within the simulation, Kadlec told the pundit interviewing him that without a stockpile of medical countermeasures to fend off the effects of the attack that “it could be a very dark winter for America.” The simulation drew its name from Kadlec’s scripted statement.

As Kadlec predicted, the fatal spores tucked away in the envelopes used in the actual Anthrax attacks delivered more than deadly bacterium to unlucky Americans — they sent fear of terrorism scourging through the U.S.

Kadlec, however, was present, deep in the background, of the most important story that erroneously linked these parties together.

That report was a story by ABC News’ Brian Ross which, citing four “well-placed and separate sources,” reported that the anthrax used in the letter targeting Senator Tom Daschle was treated with a particular chemical additive — the clay-like material known as bentonite. The report claimed that bentonite was “‘a trademark of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s biological weapons program’ and ‘only one country, Iraq, has used bentonite to produce biological weapons.’” According to ABC’s sources, the bentonite was uncovered through tests conducted at Ft. Detrick. It was later revealed, however, that “there never was any bentonite detected in the anthrax.”

Interestingly enough, none other than Robert Kadlec was working with a group of Ft. Detrick scientists who were studying the anthrax from the Daschle letter before ABC’s story broke — and these scientists believed that it had been treated with bentonite. According to David Willman’s book Mirage Man, when examining the anthrax sample under a microscope, the Ft. Detrick scientist Peter Jahrling became convinced that the anthrax “had been treated with a chemical additive” which could have suggested “the involvement of a foreign state.”  Within days, “Jahrling was briefing an array of officials throughout the government by phone and in person.”

Soon after, Jahrling attended a meeting with Rumsfeld’s Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, several of his aides — and Robert Kadlec. Jahrling told the attendees of the meeting that the anthrax may have been treated with bentonite, and how, if it was indeed bentonite, “it was a red arrow implicating Iraq in a biological attack upon the United States.” According to Kadlec, “Everyone grabbed on to that” — him included.

Kadlec called in a scientist he believed could assess the situation accurately — a highly accomplished Navy microbiologist and former UNSCOM inspector named James Burans. Burans quickly recognized the anthrax suspected of being treated with bentonite as the Ames strain, which originated in U.S. biolabs and had not escaped to the Middle East. Burans was “puzzled by the frenzy over bentonite and the suggestions of Iraq’s involvement with the letter attacks…scientists had already established that the anthrax mailed to Senator Daschle was the Ames strains.”

Yet, after Kadlec and Burans realized that the anthrax was not treated with bentonite, they remained silent as the fictitious links between Iraq and the attacks promulgated by ABC and other media outlets penetrated the post-9/11 American psyche. Years later, Kadlec recalled that the reference materials from Iraq and the weaponized anthrax delivered to Senator Daschle were “markedly different,” and didn’t “look like the material [they had].” Burans was quietly folded into the FBI’s investigation as a consultant, becoming “a reliable resource for investigators trying to sort fact from fiction.” He later reflected that the anthrax from the Daschle letter “didn’t look anything like the material that was harvested in Iraq.”

Despite this truth, however, the disinformation aired by ABC and maliciously planted by four “separate” sources had spread through the airwaves of mass media and seeped into the minds of Americans. Within a month of the report’s release, 75% of Americans believed it was “very or somewhat likely that Saddam ‘was responsible for any of the recent incidents involving anthrax.’”

Whether ABC’s four “well-placed” sources who fed lies to the media were the same Ft. Detrick scientists who were working with Jahrling at the time of his “discovery,” or whether they attended the meeting with Kadlec and Wolfowitz, is unknown. Notably, in the aforementioned book Battlefield of the Future, which Kadlec contributed passages to describing hypothetical bioterror attacks against the U.S., co-author Barry Schneider questioned if the goals of the Gulf War were defined “too narrowly” — specifically because the U.S. did not ouster Saddam from power “when the chance presented itself.” Undoubtedly, the Anthrax attacks — and the farcical bentonite story — helped pave the way for the eventual removal of the Iraqi president via American force.

Stockpiling for Pharma

It also facilitated a path towards one of the most consequential reverberations of the Anthrax attacks — the creation of the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS). The SNS is a government repository of antibiotics, vaccines and other medical supplies preserved to be distributed in the case of a medical emergency, long advocated for by Kadlec. The SNS acts as a massive subsidizer of Big Pharma, the industry from which it obtains its medical supplies, injecting nearly a billion dollars a year into the private companies that develop the stockpile’s aid.

Though multiple pieces of legislation led to the creation of the SNS, the Project Bioshield Act of 2004, enacted during the post-9/11 years of GWOT hysteria, most significantly authorized $5.6 billion “for the advanced development and purchase of security countermeasures for the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS)” — a significant expenditure compared to Clinton’s 1998 legislation. Then, in 2006, the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act of 2006 established the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) to manage the stockpile. Importantly, Kadlec drafted the bill, making him the “key architect” of the ASPR, and thus the current bureaucracy that manages the stockpile.

Eventually, Kadlec would come to centralize all control of the stockpile into the hands of the ASPR. Before that, however, he moved into the private sector — strengthening connections he’d forged in years prior and netting impressive profits along the way. Eventually, his failure to disclose these very connections would reveal the depth of corruption within the biosecurity industrial complex, and clarify Kadlec’s true role as a public health civil servant.

Emergent Profits

The anthrax vaccine that Kadlec distributed to hundreds of soldiers during the Gulf War was originally created by a government pharmaceutical company called the Michigan Biologic Products Institute (MBPI). Originally founded in 1926, MBPI was created by the state of Michigan to inoculate its rural population, many of whom were farm workers that needed protection against “naturally occurring anthrax spores and rabies.” Due to forces emanating from the national security state and Big Business, however, the company would later transform into an entity markedly different from its origins.

In response to a new demand from the Pentagon in the aftermath of the Gulf War for a massive amount of anthrax vaccines for U.S. soldiers, the once state-owned vaccine developer was put up for sale by Michigan’s governor — and purchased by a Saudi- and Pentagon-linked biotechnology company called BioPort.

To fully understand the importance of Kadlec’s connections to BioPort — and what those connections illuminate regarding the nexus of pharmaceutical profiteers, military men, and national security hawks that Kadlec operates in — a brief history of the company is warranted. As its origins demonstrate, BioPort resides in a space where the interests of Big Pharma and national security converge. Kadlec, a military scientist with ties to the company and its founder, resides in this same place.

A Brief History of BioPort / Emergent Biosolutions

In 1989, nearly a decade before BioPort was founded by Fuad El-Hibri, El-Hibri’s father, Ibrahim El-Hibri, became a silent partner at what would become the “largest biotechnology firm of its time” — the London-based Porton International. Soon after, Fuad became director of a Porton International subsidiary called Porton Products.

At this same time, the Prime Minister of the U.K., the “Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher, was initiating a mass privatization of British public assets. Amidst this period of balkanization, Fuad was able to snag the rights to “sell vaccines and other products” that the U.K.’s Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research (CAMR) had produced, according to Dr. Jennifer Terry in Attachments to War.

One of the medical products that CAMR had the rights to was the British-military developed anthrax vaccine — the inoculation that the El-Hibris would remain intertwined with for decades. The acquisition of CAMR would make the father and son duo a fortune, and foreshadow the profiteering achieved through the “public funding of private enterprise” that BioPort — as well as the American biodefense industry at large — would engage in in the decades to come.

Utilizing their Middle East connections, the El-Hibris sold “tens of millions of dollars worth of anthrax vaccine to Saudi Arabia and other countries in deals approved by the British Ministry of Defense” during the Gulf War. The Saudis paid $300-500 per dose of the anthrax vaccine, “thirty to fifty times more than what the DoD agreed to pay BioPort per dose nearly a decade later.”

Years later in 1997, Fuad El-Hibri got his first taste of U.S. military-supplied pharmaceutical contracts when Porton International partnered with the national security contractor DynCorps. Together, they formed the DynPort Vaccine Company and quickly won a bid for a $322 million contract with the Pentagon, according to Salon.

Then, in 1998, Fuad El-Hibri founded BioPort to do in America what he had done in Britain. When the publicly-funded Michigan Biologic Products Institute (MPBI) went up for sale — which was the only supplier of the anthrax vaccine in America at the time — BioPort acquired it. Importantly, Fuad was only positioned for this acquisition through the connection of his father to a career military man, who had previously served as Reagan’s top military officer, named William J. Crowe — a relationship birthed in Egypt back in the 1970s, when Crowe was head of the US Central Command in Qatar while Ibrahim El-Hibri was running several businesses there.

The year prior, when the Secretary of Defense announced a plan to inoculate members of the reserve armed forces with the MBPI anthrax vaccine, Crowe, “who had served on the board of the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer” drew up plans with the El-Hibris to dominate anthrax vaccine production in the U.S. “since it had been so lucrative in the United Kingdom during the 1990s.”

Soon after, BioPort was founded by Fuad El-Hibri and purchased the once publicly-owned MBPI lab. Likely in order to garner influence within the Pentagon, BioPort made Crowe its director and gave him about 10 percent of its stock, despite him investing nothing in the company — an early move that foreshadowed what would become the company’s main business strategy; forging and preserving connections at the highest levels of power.

Crowe’s appointment seemingly paid off with startling immediacy. According to Daily Press, in weeks the company “signed a new contract with the Pentagon providing for $45.1 million…, including $16 million in immediate cash for plant renovations. The deal required the government to pay for vaccine[s] even if the drugs weren’t licensed for use.”

The latter clause proved crucial. Through the next year, the company was unable to ship any anthrax vaccines due to multiple failed FDA inspections, leaving BioPort without an FDA-approved lab. To accelerate its slow start, in the summer of 1999, BioPort requested even more money from the Pentagon, which prompted auditors to take a look at the firm’s books. Their report revealed that millions of dollars were missing, that “BioPort didn’t even know the cost of making a dose of vaccine” and that millions were spent on office renovations and bonuses for senior management. Needless to say, the company failed to meet the legal requirements for the cash it requested.

Rather than forcing the company into taking accountability, however, BioPort came away unscathed. Citing “the interests of national security,” Pentagon contract officers came to the company’s rescue, overruling the denial of funds and approving “a $24.1 million bailout in September 1999.” Incredibly, the payout also “paid all the company’s debts and provided a 144 percent increase in payment for each anthrax vaccine dose, from $4.36 to $10.64” — effectively rewarding BioPort for its failure.

The plant finally regained its license in 2002. Between its failed FDA inspections and reentry onto the market, however, the company continued to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars in government cash — for products that were not even usable. As Daily Press noted:

By January 2002 – when federal drug regulators finally agreed that the plant and company could resume licensed operations – the Pentagon had paid BioPort $126 million for drugs that were stored and unlicensed, congressional records show.

Furthermore, whether or not BioPort truly earned its license back due to following government regulatory standards appears unclear. The lab’s approval only came after 9/11 and the Anthrax attacks, when fear of Iraqi bioterror was swarming the American public — and likely even more significantly, the American political class, who were directly targeted by the anthrax-laden letters.

As Daily Press reported:

Tommy Thompson, then secretary of health and human services and the Bush administration official responsible for vaccine and drug licensing, was caught between a Congress that wanted action and critics who feared political pressure would hasten licensure.

Though Thompson assured the public that “nobody [was] pressuring FDA to approve [the BioPort lab],” within three months, the company’s problematic and massively expensive facility had regained its license — ready to cash in on disaster.

Yet, the Anthrax attacks opened another business opportunity for the company. The government no longer only wanted an anthrax vaccine for the U.S. military — they now also needed a contractor to supply the civilian population of the U.S. with inoculation from the deadly disease. Conveniently, BioPort began claiming it faced strenuous financial circumstances yet again — and, at the same time, spent millions on an intricate P.R. campaign that recruited high-powered lobbyists, including military officials and government officials, aimed at securing the contract.

During this campaign, Bush-era political insiders became ingrained with the company, exercising political influence to win BioPort the lucrative contract. Importantly, these bureaucrats worked alongside Kadlec during the anthrax hysteria that arguably saved BioPort from ruin. While it is uncertain when Kadlec directly came into contact with the company — which, during his time heading the ASPR in the first Trump administration, he went on to bestow hundreds of millions of dollars to — BioPort’s links with Kadlec’s colleagues may provide insight into how the Kadlec-BioPort relationship was ultimately forged.

Killing VaxGen

In 2004, with post-9/11 hysteria still very much intact, a competitor to BioPort emerged ahead of the company in its race to win the $1 billion civilian anthrax vaccine contract. The San Francisco-based VaxGen appeared new and exciting in comparison to the everfailing BioPort — it promised to deliver an innovative “genetically engineered” anthrax vaccine, offering a new way forward for the nation’s stockpiled anthrax supply which had for years been plagued by BioPort’s corruption and inefficiency. VaxGen was consequently awarded the $1 billion contract — threatening the very existence of BioPort.

Rather than going quietly into the night, however, BioPort launched a multimillion dollar lobbying campaign to steal the contract from VaxGen. It soon recruited Dark Winter participant Jerome Hauer, who had previously served in the Bush administration’s HHS in multiple roles dealing with emergency response policy.

Hauer, a man that with his thick mustache, receding hairline, and thin spectacles looked more like an innocent football-dad than a scientist entrenched in the secretive milieu of U.S. biological warfare, was the first director of New York’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) in the years leading up to the September 11 attacks. The office was created by the New York mayor that rose to national prominence in the wake of 9/11 and the Anthrax attacks, Rudy Giuliani.

After the Twin Towers collapsed on 9/11, Hauer — who was then running security for the World Trade Center at the CIA-linked Kroll Inc. — promptly gave an interview on CBS News with Dan Rather where he suggested that Osama Bin Laden was responsible for the attacks. In the months after the Anthrax attacks, Hauer became a proponent of building up medical infrastructure to respond to “bioterror” attacks more effectively than the Amerithrax response.

One component of this build up included the procurement of more anthrax vaccines — but not the one developed by BioPort. In a paper that Hauer co-authored along with Thomas Inglesby and Tara O’Toole — the principal authors of the John Hopkins Dark Winter exercise — the biodefense experts advocated for the creation of a new vaccine that could be more “reliably produced” and would require “fewer inoculations.”

When Hauer joined the ranks of HHS not long after, he continued his advocacy for a newer vaccine. According to the LA Times, Hauer “told [BioPort, which by that point had changed its name to Emergent Biosolutions,] in a February 2003 letter that [HHS] had concluded a new vaccine was ‘a better long-range option than investing in expanding manufacturing capacity’ for BioThrax.”

After Hauer left the Bush administration, however, he changed his tune. He moved into the private sector, becoming the senior vice president of the public relations firm Fleishman-Hillard and quickly “[delivered] Emergent as a client to his new boss.” Later, in December 2004, Hauer “said the government should purchase more of [BioPort’s] old vaccine.”

Then, halfway into 2005, Hauer earned himself a spot on Emergent’s board of directors. According to the LA Times, records show that “in that year and 2006, Emergent paid $360,000 to Fleishman-Hillard.”

Emergent continued to recruit talent from the Bush administration. It hired two aides to Vice President Cheney, Cesar V. Conda and Ron Christie, both of whom “championed Project BioShield” — Kadlec’s brainchild. Emergent paid their firm $340,000 from 2006 through June of 2007, according to the LA Times.

Yet Conda and Christie are not the only entities tying Emergent to the Kadlec-authored Project Bioshield. Another one of the lobbying firms deployed by the company to combat VaxGen, McKenna Long & Aldrich, “has taken credit for helping write the Project BioShield law.” The firm had seven members “subsequently registered to lobby for Emergent.” “From 2005 through June 2007,” the LA Times noted, “Emergent paid the firm $380,000.”

BioPort’s efforts proved fruitful — the government cancelled VaxGen’s contract in December 2006, and the company later acquired the rights to VaxGen’s anthrax vaccine technology in May 2008. In killing the company, BioPort solidified its position as a dominant and permanent supplier to the Strategic National Stockpile.

This revolving door between Project Bioshield players and BioPort, however, did not end here. Years later, it would open for Robert Kadlec.

East West Corruption

In 2012, the first direct documented tie between Kadlec and Emergent Biosolutions would take form. That year, Kadlec and Fuad El-Hibri started the biodefense company East West Protection. Interestingly, the first potential client they would tap was the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Though the proposal never went anywhere, it harkens back to El-Hibri’s initial entry into the world of biodefense, and the model of corruption on which much of it operates. Indeed, the formation of East West Protection was the first official step of a relationship between Kadlec and El-Hibri that would eventually entangle the government scientist in controversy.

Through the early 2010s, as Kadlec and El-Hibri worked to sell biosurveillance to the public sector at East West Protection, Kadlec also began a well-paying consultancy career that netted him $451,000 in a single year. During this period, Kadlec directly consulted Emergent Biosolutions (formerly BioPort) — a fact he failed to disclose during his 2017 confirmation hearings to head ASPR. Kadlec would also fail to disclose his founding of East West Protection, his role as director of the company from 2012 to 2015 and his subsequent selling of the company’s shares to Fuad El-Hibri thereafter.

Kadlec had good reason to hide these connections. As he held the reins of the stockpile within ASPR, the longtime government scientist effectively became Emergent’s inside man within the Trump administration. Acting as the Saudis had for Porton International decades prior, he paid questionably high rates for Emergent products that were previously being considered at more modest prices. Kadlec’s bountiful spending made Emergent his office’s top contractor, raking in more than $733 million in contracts for the company during his time in office.

Kadlec’s ASPR paid “more than double the price” per dose of a smallpox vaccine than the agency had previously paid with a prior contractor. Furthermore, Emergent was directly involved in the decision-making process of the deal since the company was “the only licensed maker of the vaccine” — meaning that ASPR “arrived at the price through negotiations with the company rather than through bidding.”

Furthermore, Kadlec paid Emergent another $535 million for a product that treats the adverse effects of their smallpox vaccine — the same vaccine that he had just purchased at plethoric rates and in extravagant quantities. His office also “exercised a $260 million option to extend an Obama-era contract with Emergent for an anthrax vaccine,” according to The Washington Post.

Kadlec’s most important contribution to Big Pharma during this period, however — that which presumably enabled him to deliver Emergent such substantial payouts — was his role in centralizing total control of the strategic national stockpile (SNS) within ASPR. Notably, Emergent lobbied for this very measure — listing the transfer of control of the stockpile from the CDC to the ASPR “as part of its annual corporate strategy for 2017.” Emergent correctly understood that centralizing control of the stockpile would break down the bureaucratic barriers that often slowed down, or even blocked, the profitable stockpile acquisition process.

By 2018, with Kadlec inside ASPR, Emergent’s vision for the stockpile had come to fruition. He did away with the previous process of supplying the stockpile, which involved interagency correspondence with multiple departments, and folded all operational control of the stockpile into the jurisdiction of the ASPR. With these barriers destroyed, Kadlec laid a clear path for potential contractors to directly lobby a single entity — the ASPR — for the purchase of their products for the stockpile, ensuring, for those well enough connected, sure fire profits. This inverted, in Kadlec’s eyes, the “bottom-up” management of the stockpile — and positioned him at the top.

Warp Speed

A few years later during the latter half of the Trump administration, the weight of government public health infrastructure was unified under a medical response to the global outbreak of COVID-19. Kadlec promptly took charge of one of the main pillars of the U.S. pandemic response policy — the formation of Operation Warp Speed (OWS), a public-private partnership between the U.S. government and pharmaceutical companies to develop emergency vaccines for every American.

Kadlec and Peter Marks, the head of the FDA’s vaccine program, urged Alex Azar, the secretary of HHS, to embark on an effort to “maximally expedite” the creation of COVID-19 vaccines. From its conception, however, Kadlec viewed Operation Warp Speed as a military project. In fact, he and Azar originally proposed calling it “Manhattan Project II,” or MP 2.0, dubbing the program the spiritual successor to the WWII effort that saw the development of the atomic bomb.

Their belief that the public-private development of pandemic vaccines was a military project extended beyond the program’s name, however. Early on, Kadlec and Azar wanted to enlist the Pentagon “as a key partner in both the science and the logistics” of OWS. In the ensuing months, officials from the Intelligence Community and DoD became entrenched in the program’s operations, with FDA officials reportedly being stonewalled and kept on the outside of OWS’s inner workings.

Notably, with a range of intelligence officials in the mix, OWS procured biosurveillance contracts for Google and Oracle to track vaccine recipients for two years “to monitor them for adverse health effects.” These agreements, however, were not announced by any of the parties involved and instead only reported on through claims made by the director of OWS, Moncef Slaoui, who detailed them in The Wall Street Journal. Given this lack of transparency, these contracts were likely doled out in relative secrecy via private intermediaries, according to Whitney Webb, circumventing federal oversight and garnering immunity from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Meanwhile, Emergent Biosolutions continued to cash in on their cozy relationships with the top centers of power in the U.S. government — most clearly through Robert Kadlec. OWS issued the controversial company more than half a billion dollars in subsidies to develop both Johnson & Johnson’s and AstraZeneca’s vaccines at its Baltimore plant, a deal that was approved by Kadlec himself. The rate Emergent was paid proved to be significantly higher than other private contractors who carried out similar tasks under OWS.

This was despite the fact that in the years prior, Emergent had experienced a myriad of quality control issues — ranging from cracked vials, failing to “properly control contamination” and even leaving hair on equipment.

While one health department official “said that none of the issues [were] ‘so dramatic that it changed our assessment’ that the facilities were ‘fit for purpose and in a state of compliance,’” Emergent inevitably validated its naysayers when it was revealed that the company had to destroy nearly 400 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccines “due to poor quality control.”

While this ultimately resulted in the termination of Emergent’s $600 million contract, the company still took away over $400 million dollars from the deal, only foregoing $180 million.

More importantly, the company still retains its massive contracts with BARDA, supplying the nation’s emergency vaccine stockpile with its anthrax inoculations — which, for most of the last decade, have constituted “nearly half of the stockpile’s half-billion-dollar annual budget.” The company’s inefficiency and unreliability, as its record reveals, have not harmed its standing. Instead, its connections — like that it possesses with Kadlec — have manipulated it into a perpetual pillar of America’s biosecurity infrastructure.

Whitewashing Covid Origins

More recently, in July 2025, Kadlec authored a report at The Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs at Texas A&M University that suggested that the “[Covid-19] pandemic began due to a virus escaping a laboratory rather than natural spillover from infected animals.” Yet in the Scowcroft announcement of Kadlec’s analysis, the blame was effectively placed on Chinese military researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) — even though the National Institutes of Health, via the EcoHealth Alliance, was funding gain-of-function research at the WIV before the pandemic. Also, in 2018, EcoHealth Alliance submitted a proposal to the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to create “full-length infectious clones of bat SARS-related coronaviruses and the insertion of a tiny part of the virus known as a ‘proteolytic cleavage site’ into bat coronaviruses” (emphasis added).

Regarding Covid-19’s origins, this is particularly concerning because, as Rutgers University microbiologist Richard Ebright told The Intercept, “The relevance of this is that SARS Cov-2, the pandemic virus, is the only virus in its entire genus of SARS-related coronaviruses that contains a fully functional cleavage site at the S1, S2 junction…And here is a proposal from the beginning of 2018, proposing explicitly to engineer that sequence at that position in chimeric lab-generated coronaviruses” (emphasis added).

USAID — which has acted as a CIA front in the past — also funded research at the WIV that was aimed at creating a global database of viruses to identify which pathogens were most likely to be transmitted to humans, to the tune of more than a million dollars. The agency also left thousands of samples from bats collected by a USAID biosurveillance program in WIV freezers, according to U.S. Right to Know.

Despite this American collaboration, however, the Scowcroft Institute warned that while the research may have been public health oriented, “Chinese military strategists have also expressed interest in the brain as a new combat domain and created a military medical specialty devoted to brain science” — suggesting that the “brain fog” caused by long-Covid may actually be the intended effect of Chinese bioweapons research. Furthermore, according to Scowcroft, China “appears to have suppressed early information on COVID-19’s impact on the brain and cognition.” This information taken together, the institute claims, raises “concerns about whether the People’s Republic of China is abiding by the letter and spirit of the Biological Weapons Convention” — despite direct U.S. involvement in the gain-of-function research at WIV.

Indeed, in the report’s foreword, co-authored by the director of the Scowcroft Institute who is a former administrator for USAID under George W. Bush, as well as by a senior Scowcroft fellow who previously served in the Army, “the report’s findings are enough to justify placing a much greater priority on intelligence efforts aimed at possible Chinese [biological weapons] activities.”

The findings and spinning of Kadlec’s report here harkens back to his time at UNSCOM when he patrolled sensitive Iraqi government infrastructure in search of hidden WMDs. There, he also utilized his academic credentials to cast international skepticism on a country for a program the U.S. was directly involved in creating. His work also suggested an adversary of the U.S. was not abiding by international treaties, and likely conducted intelligence operations weaponizing this very pretext. In that case, his contributions aided in the eventual removal of Saddam Hussein from power and the launching of the war in Iraq. Now, as Politico noted, with Kadlec in Trump’s Pentagon he will be “well positioned to push for greater scrutiny of China.”

As his past with Iraq demonstrates, when it involves special operations scientists and CIA agents, the line between scrutiny and acts of war is thin.

Neocons Making America Theirs Again

Since the Gulf War, Robert Kadlec’s career has been entangled with the neoconservative movement that grew out of the Reagan administration, and came to shape the future of the world in unthinkable ways during the George W. Bush years. Kadlec played a critical, though relatively unseen, role in the amalgamation of this group’s rise to power, and their subsequent reverberations on American foreign and domestic policy.

Through multiple presidential administrations, Kadlec and the clique of biowarfare specialists he was a part of manufactured consent for the invasion of Iraq. They used their credentials to stoke fear of Iraqi biological weapons attacks, exaggerated the simplicity of the means by which a terrorist could create biological weapons and even potentially exploited their positions as UNSCOM weapons inspectors in Iraq to gather intelligence for future American bombing campaigns. All of these actions and more slowly but surely, over the course of many years, justified what Robert Fisk called “an unlimited military offensive against Iraq.”

During this time and the years following, Kadlec and his clique laid the groundwork for what would become the nation’s emergency infrastructure for pandemics and bioterror-related emergencies. Like so much of the emergency policy cooked up by the neoconservatives that filled the Bush administration, this policy emphasizes the consolidation of crucial government power into the hands of small groups of bureaucrats, breaking down the barriers erected by democratic norms in the name of efficiency, and combating irrational, unpredictable enemies.

Always inherent to this emergency policy making are immensely profitable business opportunities jointly pursued by both the government and its trusted private contractors. As the creation of Kadlec’s emergency stockpile demonstrates, a “whole of government” approach to solving crises produces an economic landscape with extraordinary opportunities for Big Business. With the birth of the Strategic National Stockpile, HHS was able to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars into companies that would otherwise have no demand for their products. Furthermore, the passage of the series of bills that created the SNS paved the way for “emergency” regulatory mechanisms that would eventually bring the COVID-19 vaccines to market without approval. This emergency regulatory system, which involves greatly diminishing the standards a drug needs to reach the marketplace, is something biotech developers direly need.

And of course, like so many of the government actors working to create the legislative legitimacy for mass deregulation and centralized, “emergency” power, Kadlec has been quite comfortable profiting from the relationships he’s forged along his career. His role in overseeing the allocation of billions of dollars to the blatantly corrupt Emergent Biosolutions highlights the predatory, self-justifying opportunism that this larger convergence of Big Pharma, Big Tech and the national security state signifies.

Ultimately, this milieu that pairs “emergency” doctrine with revolving doors between the corporate and public sectors concentrates increasing amounts of capital into the control of a small group of oligarchs. With players like Kadlec sounding the alarms of terrorism from within the government, politicians and bureaucrats codify the justifications for the use of state power to enable these cash flows — be it through the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, or the creation of an emergency stockpile that funds corrupt pharmaceutical companies.

Now, with Kadlec sworn into the Department of War, he is responsible for dictating policy regarding WMDs and nuclear deterrence, including ensuring “chemical and biological defense and compliance with international NCB treaties and agreements.” Given his corrupt past, his previous exploitation of international treaties as a UNSCOM weapons inspector and the Trump administration’s ever-increasing military adventurism — the appointment of Kadlec signals a dark future for those in the crosshairs of the American Empire. Not because of what Kadlec alone will accomplish, but what his appointment symbolizes: unaccountable corruption, the exploitation of chaos to drive imperialist warmaking and unfettered profiteering along the way.

Robert Kadlec: The Man Behind Trump’s Biowarfare Policy.

Links Discussed:

• The Techno-Optimist Manifesto – Marc Andreessen
• 2 part series from Iain Davis on the Networked State – City-States Without Limits – Part 1
• City-States Without Limits – Part 2
• The Age of AI : and our human future | Kissinger, Schmidt: Internet Archive
• Joe Rogan: Jesus Could Return as AI – YouTube
• Peter Thiel is delivering 4 private sold-out lectures—about the Antichrist | Fortune
• The Straussian Moment – Peter Thiel
• Solari video series “Digital Money and Digital Control” is also available to Unlimited Hangout members – https://unlimitedhangout.com/join
• Acts 17 – The Silicon Valley Christians Who Want to Build ‘Heaven on Earth’ | WIRED
• “Sustainably” Surveilling and Tokenizing Nature: The Case of O.N.E. Amazon | Unlimited Hangout

Follow Iain: Pre-Order The Technocratic Dark State : Trump, AI, and Digital Dictatorship, IainDavis.com, Iain Davis, Author at Unlimited Hangout, Substack, and Iain Davis @_InThisTogether | X.com.

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Chapters:

• 00:04:10 – The Technocratic Dark State and the COVID Era Backlash
• 00:10:20 – UN and WEF Goals for Smart Cities and Global Governance
• 00:37:33 – The Network State and Public Private Partnership
• 00:47:46 – Larry Ellison and Oracle
• 00:59:34 – AI, Media, Religion
• 01:20:48 – Financial Aspects of the Technocratic Dark State
• 01:34:30 – Solutions

See Podverse.fm for clickable chapters, transcript and clips.

Trump & the Technocratic Tyranny with Iain Davis.

This anecdote, along with a few others in Bloomberg’s first exposé into the cache of emails, shed light on a lesser known aspect of the mysterious Jeffrey Epstein: his fascination with transhumanism, or neo-eugenics. While eugenics has traditionally referred to the study of how to best arrange human reproduction to increase the rate of “desirable” traits within a population, transhumanism seeks a somewhat different approach to making more of us “desirables.”

Transhumanism relies on technology to “enhance” our genetic outcomes and phenotypic inevitabilities. For example, author David Galton, a member of the Eugenics Society, has celebrated technological advancements that have enabled parents to artificially select which genes their child receives in order to create “designer babies.” Academics such as Nicholas Agar have defended this practice, calling it “liberal eugenics.”

Despite whatever ambitious terminology is employed to rebrand the age-old scientific-ization of racism and elitist supremacy, the philosophical underpinnings of eugenics remain the same. Whether one seeks to eradicate undesirable traits within a population through top-down arrangement or transhumanistic alterations, each strategy breaks down individuals into measurable parts — rejecting the sanctity of human life. Both confuse seemingly “optimal” traits with inherently valuable ones, and cling to the material world in such a way that reduces the complexity of the universe into an algorithmic, “scientific” system. The spontaneity found in a forest becomes replaced by the structural organization of a corporation or a state. Most simply, the material world becomes the answer to everything –– to evolution, death and life itself.

But Epstein’s eugenics fantasies are not the mad thoughts of a singularly strange individual isolated from the rest of society. Quite to the contrary, they represent a way of thinking endemic to the Big Tech oligarchs that have come to dominate the American political sphere in the 21st century. Indeed, as the new Bloomberg cache reveals, Epstein’s eugenicist ambitions tie him to some of the most prestigious figures and institutions in academia, Big Tech, and science. Furthermore, they express the convergence of these sectors, and the deluded, self-serving ideologies to which they are tied.

The Source of Beauty

Harvard’s PGP is effectively a spiritual successor to its more ambitious forefather — the Human Genome Project (HGP). HGP was a National Institutes of Health- (NIH) funded effort to map the entire human genome, whereas Harvard’s PGP seeks to utilize data from individual genomes to help develop personalized medicine. The Human Genome Project, however, like Harvard’s successor project, is intimately tied to the eugenics movement. Its first director, James D. Watson, was a racist eugenicist who believed Black people were plagued by genetically inferior intellect, and who also headed the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. At its founding, the Cold Spring Harbor lab housed the Eugenics Records Office which sought to store “a comprehensive registry documenting the ‘pedigree’ of every American…” It was funded by notable robber baron lineages such as the Rockefellers and Carnegies. Fittingly, Epstein actually hosted Watson at his house where they discussed how “the cellular mechanisms of plants might be relevant to human cancer.”

George Church, the silver-haired, bearded director of the Harvard PGP who proposed “re-engineering humans” to Epstein, spent his time in graduate school working under his doctoral advisor, Walter Gilbert. Earlier in his career, Gilbert jointly ran a lab with Watson before the eugenicist moved on to head the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. The New York Times has described Church as “a molecular engineer who has worked to identify genes that could be altered to create superior humans.” He’s also more explicitly been referred to as a eugenicist — courtesy of his effort to create a genome-based dating app. In the later years of his career, Church co-founded two different companies aimed at expanding the use and sharing of genetic data.

One of these companies, Nebula Genomics, provides whole genome sequencing for users who provide the company with genetic data and medical records, promising customers enhanced privacy through blockchain technology. Yet despite this allegedly refined protection, Nebula offers a nice carrot for anyone willing to sacrifice privacy for the company’s “‘sponsored sequencing’ model, which offers customers a free clinical-grade genome if they let Nebula share their de-identified DNA and other data with pharmaceutical partners.” This function of the company recalls an idea of Epstein’s, in which he developed plans to create a search engine of human DNA in order to pinpoint “genetic links to diseases like cancer.”

Despite whether Nebula actually ensures the privacy of its users, however, its platform still enables the funneling of personal genetic and medical data to Pharma companies. Importantly, this practice is a central component of the development of biotechnology, which is the driving technological force behind transhumanism. Indeed, biotechnology is often dependent on the funneling of a steady stream of “real-world data” (as opposed to data collected within a clinical trial setting) to Pharma companies. This is due in part to the incentive of biotech developers to move as much of the drug development process outside of clinical trials as possible — something the companies aim to do in order to circumvent the consistent obstacles that biotech drug developers face in getting their products to market within the current regulatory paradigm. “Real-world data” is also valuable because there is an increasing amount of biotechnology that relies on AI and machine learning, which feeds on data to train and improve its models.

Furthermore, Church’s connection to the national security state through figures such as Peter Thiel and organizations like the CIA through their investments in his most recent venture, the “de-extinction” company Colossal Biosciences, which is attempting to resurrect the woolly mammoth, raises even more concerns regarding the proclaimed privacy protections of his projects. The CIA’s investment was “less about the mammoths and more about the capability,” which importantly appears to exclude privacy entirely. According to The Intercept, Colossal’s biotech “will help allow U.S. government agencies to read, write, and edit genetic material, and, importantly, to steer global biological phenomena that impact ‘nation-to-nation competition’ while enabling the United States ‘to help set the ethical, as well as the technological, standards’ for its use.” In other words, the technology and data provided by companies like Colossal will help the agency in what it effectively views as a biotech arms race. In conflicts with such significant stakes, it is easy for protections such as privacy to quickly become insignificant.

With Harvard’s PGP, however, Epstein was not seeking a cure to cancer or victory in a futuristic arms race — but rather, the discovery of whether “beauty resides in DNA.” Epstein’s interest in this model that relies on the constant mining, sharing and analysis of patient/user data — effectively making it a model built on mass surveillance of health data that can be weaponized by law enforcement and the national security state — highlights how these datasets can be retooled and exploited to serve the interests of anyone powerful enough to control them, even to explore strangely eugenicist ideas like DNA determining “beauty.” Indeed, another similarly esoteric question Epstein explored with Church and other scientists further accentuates this point.

A few months before Epstein was inquiring to George Church on the genetic source of beauty, he was exploring a different idea with the PGP director, an academic who is now the president of an AI education startup and a scientist who won the Nobel Prize last year. They were discussing something that they believed would “bring together experts in law, psychology, biology and economics.” This enticing subject that would apparently pull a myriad of prestigious individuals among the academic elite together was “to describe the ‘pleasure signatures in the brain’ that they said could correspond to hunger, sexuality and fear,” or what one participant in the discussion called “the pleasure genome initiative.”

In an email to Epstein’s assistant, the participant added “let me know if this subject is too strange for our patron,” to which Epstein replied “the patron has no boundaries.” Epstein’s comment, however, was only a microcosm of a more pervasive, consequential reality of our mass surveillance paradigm. These datasets, made up of millions of genetic data points from large swaths of individuals, similarly have “no boundaries” in their potential applications by the ruling class.

Defeating Death

Within days of Epstein reaching out in January 2006 to Stephen Kosslyn ––the then-chair of Harvard’s psychology department –– Kosslyn was “proposing a dinner with bigwigs across economics, genomics and limb regeneration to discuss a lab ‘centered on genetics and the brain’ that would explore ‘far-out ideas such as life extension.’” (emphasis added). To someone unfamiliar with the strange obsessions of the ruling elite, “life extension” may allude more to the ramblings of a mad scientist in a science fiction novel than any real phenomenon. Were it not for Big Tech billionaires and other ruling class elites, that might be true.

Epstein, for example, financed the Edge Foundation — described as a “ casual salon of like-minded scientists and futurists that came to be known as the Reality Club” that formed in the 1980s — which extended the reach of his tentacles to influential academics and figures within genetic science, specifically ones exploring the darker questions of their field.

Among these scientists was Craig Venter, a grizzly-bearded geneticist with piercing grey eyes and “balls of steel” who remains a significant figure in the annals of the Human Genome Project. Notably, Venter and Church — the aforementioned Harvard PGP director — once led an “Edge master class” together, lecturing to a who’s who of Big Tech oligarchs and media figures, including Google founder Larry Page and Elon Musk, both at the luxurious Andaz Hotel off of Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, right next door to the world famous Comedy Store, and at the uncomfortably white SpaceX building in Hawthorne.

Their lecture focused on a utopian future, one in which man is merged with machines via computer readings of genetic sequences “where the code can be replicated exactly, manipulated freely, and translated back into living organisms by writing the other way” — or more simply, gene editing. Church delivered the clarifying cherry on top of this technocratic proposal: “We can program these cells as if they were an extension of the computer,” he said.

Over a decade before this “master class,” Venter famously led the challenge against the publicly funded Human Genome Project with a privately funded competitor. Utilizing “whole-genome shotgun” sequencing and private capital, Venter sought to accelerate what he saw as the slow pace of the HGP and sequence the human genome faster than the NIH’s project. His effort proved fruitful; he and his corporate team ended up sharing credit for the sequencing of the human genome with the NIH.

One of Venter’s colleagues at Edge is Eric Weinstein, the managing director of Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm, Thiel Capital. New York Magazine described the members of Edge as part of the group that Weinstein has called “the intellectual dark web,” whom the magazine claims have sparked “an effort to reopen areas of intellectual inquiry — about innate differences between the races, say, or the genders — now considered problematic, at a minimum.”

Indeed, Venter’s notable association with the HGP, linking him to eugenicists like Watson, appears to align with this description of Edge scientists “reopening” controversial areas of intellectual inquiry. However, his most recent and ambitious venture since his role in sequencing the human genome — his founding of a company named Human Longevity — ties him to science focused less on rebranding forbidden subjects of the past, and instead intent on opening a Pandora’s box of futuristic practices that seek to alter humanity’s relationship with death. Specifically, Human Longevity is dedicated to “trying to take the DNA information [Venter] helped unlock and figure out how to leverage it to cheat death for years, or even decades.”

A notorious profiteer, Venter set up a program at Human Longevity to charge patients $25,000 for ultra-detailed physicals, replete with blood tests, two MRI scans, an ultrasound and CT scan of the heart, a stool sample as well as a Blade Runner-esque “cognitive test in which letters flash on a computer screen at a dizzying pace.”

Yet, beyond generating revenue for the company, these enhanced physicals also serve as significant data miners. As Bio IT World detailed, Human Longevity seeks to “build the world’s most comprehensive database on human genotypes and phenotypes, and then subject it to machine learning so that it can help develop new ways to fight diseases associated with aging” — in other words, capturing and then applying giant collections of intimate biodata. This data is thought to be the missing link needed to “finally deliver on the genome’s promise” — which, in Venter’s eyes, includes robust life extension. The kind which Epstein appears to have been interested in, and which Church still is.

Another figure that is currently carrying the mantle for the late Jeffrey Epstein in the fight against death is founder of PayPal and Palantir, Peter Thiel. One of the more mild steps Thiel is taking towards this end is his plan to freeze his corpse — something Epstein allegedly considered as well. On a podcast appearance, Thiel told the anointed Editor-in-Chief of CBS News Bari Weiss, “I don’t necessarily expect it to work…but I think it’s the sort of thing we’re supposed to try to do.” To Thiel, freezing his corpse is more of an “ideological statement,” than anything — an impassioned yet likely inconsequential feat of activism in the “fight” against death itself.

More recently, a Thielverse alumnus also interested in anti-aging, Jim O’Neill — who, after working in the Bush administration, headed the Thiel foundation where he helped found the Thiel Fellowship — was appointed to be second in command at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Before entering his prestigious new post in government, O’Neill helped kickstart the career of venture capitalist Laura Deming by awarding her $100,000 through the Thiel Fellowship. With that cash, Deming started a venture capital firm called The Longevity Fund, focused on investments in life extension and reversing the effects of aging.

Deming later went on to co-found another anti-aging VC firm, “age1” with Alexander Coville, a Stanford alumnus who studied the “biology of aging.” Coville is an advocate of “reduced regulatory burdens” regarding biotechnology — a position he shares with O’Neill, who believes that the FDA should test drugs for efficacy after they’ve been approved and brought to market.

In 2019, O’Neill became the CEO of the SENS Research Foundation, where he had already served as a board member for nearly a decade. SENS, a non-profit that invests in anti-aging startups, was co-founded by the radical English gerontologist with an alleged taste for minors, Aubrey de Grey. Grey, whose face is covered in a wizard-like beard accompanied by a long, flower-powered ponytail, has been described as a “prophet of immortality.” He believes that with the correct development and application of technology, humans can live for “millennia,” and the lucky ones, even longer. Notably, SENS’ first major funder was the man who kickstarted O’Neill’s private sector career, Peter Thiel.

Yet, Grey was not the only immortality voyager with an affinity for minors with whom Thiel was acquainted; he also knew Jeffrey Epstein. In 2015 and 2016, Epstein injected $40 million into two funds of the Thiel-founded venture capital firm Valar Ventures. This preceded Thiel’s 2018 investment into the pre-crime Israeli- intelligence- / Unit 8200-linked company Carbyne911, which invasively collects data from users who phone 9-1-1 call centers in order to help predict crimes before they occur. Epstein invested in Carbyne three years prior through former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s limited partnership company, Sum. Given this timing, it is likely that the pair’s investments in Carbyne as well as Epstein’s hefty investment into Valar Ventures were points of discussion in the series of meetings that Epstein and Thiel had scheduled in 2014.

Beyond his investments in anti-aging biotechnology companies, Thiel has stated “People have a choice to accept death, deny it or fight it…I think our society is dominated by people who are into denial or acceptance, and I prefer to fight it.”

Thiel is hardly the only Epstein-connected billionaire waging war against death. Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google who became a client of JP Morgan through Epstein in 2004 and later hired Epstein to advise him on a trust for his children, is the founder of a “super-secret biotech outfit [called] Calico [that] is ‘solving death.’” According to The Standard, Brin “has no plans to die.” Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who dined with a fresh-out-of-prison Epstein, has reportedly made significant investments in the anti-aging startup Altos Labs that has raised billions of dollars. Altos is developing “reprogramming technology” which in Frankenstein-like fashion could rejuvenate “cells in the lab that some scientists think could be extended to revitalize entire animal bodies, ultimately prolonging human life.” Mega-Zionist Larry Ellison, whose CIA-contracting company Oracle has partnered with Palantir, has invested over $300 million into anti-aging research. Bryan Johnson, the tech entrepreneur who sold his company Braintree (the then-owner of Venmo) to the Thiel-founded PayPal and wrote a book called “Don’t Die,” infuses himself via blood transfusions with the plasma of his teenage son and does “penis shockwave therapy” as part of his probe to uncover eternal life. Mark Zuckerberg, a mentee of Thiel’s who has been intimately linked to the Palantir founder virtually his entire career, awards $3 million per year to anti-aging scientists through the scientific award he co-founded called the Breakthrough Prize. The Breakthrough Prize is also funded by Sergey Brin and his former wife, founder of genetic data-collecting company 23andMe, Anne Wojcicki.

In short, Epstein was only one man among a group of elites seeking to transcend the limits of human life through transhumanist biotechnology. This obsessive fear of death, and anxious attachment to all that is material, casts a looming shadow over these supposedly larger-than-life billionaires who wield exorbitant power over American politics.While conventional wisdom would lead most to believe these billionaires all acquired their fortunes through unique intelligence and logic defying diligence, their quest to immortality suggests something else; that they fear, more than anything, reality — which they cannot control.

Baby Incubating

Indeed, an irrational desire for control is a driving force of eugenics. Eugenicists are not only focused on controlling their own lives or even their immediate communities, but the evolutionary future of the entire human race. Naturally, someone with such an ideology is likely to see their own genes as the ones to lead the human race to new and improved heights. One such way to ensure the spread of your genetic makeup across the population is primitive and simple; having as many children with as many different partners as possible.

Among the scientists that Epstein corresponded with in the Bloomberg cache was Howard Gardner, a developmental psychologist at Harvard who is the co-director of “the Good Project.” In response to an email from Epstein, Gardner said he’d get back to him on two requests, one of them being “advice about offspring.”

Gardner told Bloomberg that the “‘offsprings’ question may have been ‘about the possibility of having children.’” Given past reporting on Epstein’s interest in cultivating “offspring,” this was likely the case.

According to the Times:

“On multiple occasions starting in the early 2000s, Mr. Epstein told scientists and businessmen about his ambitions to use his New Mexico ranch as a base where women would be inseminated with his sperm and would give birth to his babies…”

Yet, like all the other components of Epstein’s interest in eugenics, his baby ranch scheme did not arise from his own strange predilections. He allegedly based the idea “on accounts of the Repository for Germinal Choice, which was to be stocked with the sperm of Nobel laureates who wanted to strengthen the human gene pool.” Unsurprisingly, it seems that in Epstein’s alleged pursuit to “[perfect] the human genome,” he believed his own genes could pave the way to perfection.

Similarly, another billionaire linked to Epstein seems to have an obsessive interest in seeding his sperm and DNA into the general population: Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder, Elon Musk. Musk, who may have hired Epstein for consulting services as Musk sought to take Tesla private, and whose brother Kimbal Musk allegedly got set up with one of his girlfriends through Epstein, has “offered his own sperm to friends and acquaintances,” including RFK Jr.’s former running mate and Sergey Brin’s ex-wife, Nicole Shanahan, according to the Times.

While Epstein’s baby ranch was focused on producing many children at once, Musk reportedly sought to build a massive compound in Austin, Texas, to house his 11 children and three wives. As detailed by the Times, his efforts to produce many children through different partners at once through methods such as I.V.F. appeared more sporadic, impulsive and less organized than Epstein’s baby incubator fantasy.

Unlike Epstein, who allegedly has criticized “efforts to reduce starvation and provide health care to the poor” out of fear of overpopulation, a common train of thought among eugenicists, Musk is more concerned with declining birth rates as opposed to overpopulation. Yet, Musk still appears to maintain that the reproduction of a particular kind of person is important, as the Tesla founder is apparently “worried that educated people [aren’t] having enough children.”

“I notice that a lot of really smart women have zero or one kid,” he said. “You’re like, ‘Wow, that’s probably not good.’”

Though ostensibly for different reasons, Musk and another associate of Epstein, billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, have both funded research studying human population trends. Musk donated $10 million to the University of Texas for this research. Gates, whose philanthropic foundation has taken a clear stance against overpopulation, created the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health, and has donated to organizations to study population growth and develop “sound public policy by promoting the use of accurate population data and its analysis in the decision-making process.” Epstein himself invested in a field adjacent to population studies through his $6.5 million donation to the Harvard scientist Martin Nowak, who studies “Evolutionary Dynamics in Structured Populations.”

Gates, who worked with Epstein to invest in the MIT Media Lab after Epstein’s 2008 conviction, and for some unexplained reason acted as a liaison between Epstein and the university, also has other troubling investments and opinions regarding fertility and population growth. These include his endeavor to create an implantable birth control device that could “be turned on and off with a remote control,” his idea to ration healthcare based on an individual’s perceived value to society, as well as his effort to promote long-acting reversible contraceptives in Africa with a company whose initial mission was “improving the biological stock of the human race.” Though Epstein and Musk may have disagreed on the purpose of population studies, it would seem that Gates and the late pedophile were aligned on the cause.

The Epstein Brain

In the early months of 2008, as the Democratic primaries were unfolding and the soon-to-be President Obama was still just an Illinois state senator, Jeffrey Epstein was communicating with “star researchers across universities” to back efforts to “better understand the brain.” Bloomberg noted that one of these researchers, Elkhonon Goldberg, “a renowned neuropsychologist then at New York University,” thanked Epstein with a seemingly concerning level of adoration:

“‘We are quite confident that with your support our Brain can become an exceptional scientific endeavor and we will proud to name it ‘The Epstein Brain,’ Goldberg wrote, adding a smiley face.”

One of the researchers who was “set to be [included]” on this project was NYU’s Yann LeCun, who since 2013 has been working on AI at Meta, where he is now the Chief AI Scientist. While LeCun told Bloomberg that he had never heard of Epstein before this interaction, that Epstein never funded his work and that he had no further correspondence with Epstein after “this one meeting,” LeCun’s connection to the “Epstein Brain” again demonstrates the convergence of Big Tech and transhumanism — specifically when placed into the context of other Big Tech-connected “brain” projects.

Most notably, in 2016, Facebook (now Meta) — which has been embroiled in government mass surveillance privacy scandals — hired Regina Dugan, the first female director of the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and a former Google executive, to head its research development team, Building 8. During its short lifespan, Building 8 sought to provide Facebook with “DARPA-style breakthrough development” for its products. Notably, Dugan arrived at her prestigious leadership role at DARPA by way of her hiring by President Barack Obama back in 2009. Years later under Dugan’s leadership, Building 8 worked on brain-computer interface technology, developing tech that would “allow people to send text messages by thinking — tapping them out at 100 words per minute.” Using “optical technology,” the innovative products were poised to allow Facebook to “read thoughts.”

Hyping the project, Dugan posed a question: “What if you could type directly from your brain?…It sounds impossible, but it’s closer than you realize.” Unfortunately for Facebook and hopeful technology optimists, however, the project floundered.

Yet, it would not be the last time that Dugan worked on brain tech. From Facebook, she moved on to become the CEO of the Wellcome Leap — an initiative that was spun out of the Wellcome Trust, a Big-Pharma connected philanthropic organization focused on funding biomedical research that has troubling ties to the British Eugenics Society. Like Building 8, Wellcome Leap has adopted the DARPA model of innovation, demonstrated by Dugan’s leadership role.

One of the projects Dugan launched at Wellcome Leap is called “The First 1000 Days (1kD),” which is focused on “Promoting Healthy Brain Networks.” Utilizing wearable technologies, the program aims to constantly monitor children in their first three years of life, collating data points to enable the digital extraction of “meaningful signals” from infant brains that are then fed into AI algorithms to “assess brain development” in the “real world.” In turn, these algorithms generate a myriad of “scalable methods” including “therapeutic interventions” to improve a child’s “executive functioning.”

The program “promotes” these “healthy” brain networks, therefore, towards ends that are more obviously eugenicist in nature than Facebook’s failed brain-typing pipe dream. 1kD assumes there is a scientific model of the brain that leads to enhanced cognitive abilities — a model which the mental organs of young children should be warped to replicate through “interventions” and mass surveillance. Indeed, if this wasn’t clear enough, 1kD also aims to create an in-silico model of the human brain, generated with the massive amounts of data mined by wearables. The program envisions this model as possessing “predictive” capabilities — able to map the likely development of the brain based on different variables. Yet, inherent to this strategy, which aims to map, predict and then steer the development of the infant brain towards greater cognitive capacities, is the idea of an ideal model — an allegedly scientific, data-dictated, superior version of the human brain.

While the “Epstein Brain” project remains obscured in vagueness, it appears that within the Tech milieu, which Epstein was so significantly linked to, exists a belief in the scientifically superior human. In the paradigm of innovation and mass surveillance established by Big Tech overlords, this ideal man is created through the extraction of human traits by data-mining devices — devices that can break their subjects down, and reorganize them according to in-silico standards developed by scientists and their oligarchic benefactors.

Epstein, meanwhile, had more direct plans for the actual “Epstein Brain” — as in, his literal brain. He reportedly sought to preserve it through cryogenics, frozen upon death to be reanimated at a later point, along with his penis. Epstein likely wanted to do this for selfish reasons; with his brain and genitalia well-preserved, he could return to the material world which death releases humans from, and then reattach his most prized possessions to a new body years after his demise. But perhaps he sought to do this for noble reasons too — to gift humanity with ideal “models,” ones to be studied, replicated and used as a reference to mold lesser brains and penises into. Whatever his intentions, they likely died with him in 2019. The concepts and ideologies that shaped them, however, live on.

Cold Harbor – Breaking You Down and Selling the Parts

While many Americans are likely unaware of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and its housing of the Eugenics Records Office, one of the most acclaimed television shows of 2025 was the second season of Ben Stiller’s Severance. In the show, the protagonists uncover a secretive program that the corporation which dominates the series’ world, Lumin, is carrying out called Cold Harbor. The evil scientists conducting the operation induce in an unwitting subject, who is kept in isolation from all of society, multiple personalities, all of which have no recognition or remembrance of each other.

While Lumin’s Cold Harbor is most akin to the CIA’s secretive Cold- War-era mass torture/mind control program MKULTRA, it also parallels the underlying philosophy of eugenics; the belief that human beings are not whole, but rather, comprised of measurable and manipulatable parts, parts that with enough care and precision can be extracted, studied, changed and exploited to produce superior outcomes. Going back to early 20th century eugenics, before biotechnology was being produced by Big Pharma en masse, this belief was embedded in the field, with eugenicists believing that with the correct arrangement of society, society’s leaders could make “desirable” traits proliferate, and wipe “undesirable” ones from existence.

With transhumanism, however, made possible through mass surveillance-reliant biotechnology, the idea of the measurable, divided human becomes even more clear. Inherent to transhumanism is a near-religious deference to data — for in the minds of transhumanists, it is data that extrapolates the divided parts of humanity into a form that is applicable and manipulatable.

Indeed, it is for this reason that Big Tech has made itself the vehicle by which transhumanist infrastructure is being built. Many of these Big Tech oligarchs ultimately believe in the technological singularity, a dystopian future in which technological growth outpaces human intelligence by such a vast degree that it threatens humanity itself. For these technocrats, the solution to this alleged inevitability is a merging of the human race with artificial intelligence — in other words, the creation of a master race, lifted to perfection via technology built on the decades-long extraction of innumerable datapoints of unpaid serfs. Importantly, as Whitney Webb noted in her analysis of Henry Kissinger and Eric Schmidt’s book, The Age of AI, this master race will not be comprised of all humans, but rather, a selective few at the top of a new two-tiered system:

In the coming society shaped by the AI “revolution,” [Kissinger and Schmidt] openly note that there will be two tiers of society. One tier will find AI’s impacts “empowering”; this tier will be largely composed of “the people who build [AI], train it, task it, regulate it” as well as “policy makers and business leaders who have technical advisers at their disposal.” The other tier may occasionally experience the coming AI-driven society as “gratifying” but will also find its impacts “disconcerting or disempowering.”

This [lower] tier will comprise “those who lack technical knowledge, or participate in AI-managed processes primarily as consumers,” which is to say the vast majority of people.

In the pair’s second book, Genesis: Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit, they make another prediction that gives insight into how this two-tiered society will come into existence: through transhumanism. Specifically, they foresee a future where all men must merge with machines and become Homo technicus. Unlike previous evolutions of the Homo genus, natural selection would not push humanity into the Homo technicus future. Instead, the controllers of modern technology would produce a conscious, imposed evolution of Homo sapiens, carried out in the name of resisting AI’s allegedly inevitable domination of humanity.

Epstein almost certainly bought into this reality, and it is likely part of the reason why he inquired about a “‘Manhattan Project’ for AI” to a computer scientist, according to Bloomberg. Indeed, the primary goal of Epstein’s start-up, Southern Trust, according to court filings from the US Virgin Islands, was “to become a successful competitor in the field of artificial intelligence concentrated in biomedical informatics and financial informatics algorithms and technology.” To do this, notably, it “[focused] on data acquisitions and locating and establishing wide-ranging, all-inclusive biomedical and financial information databases on servers located in the US Virgin Islands.”

Now, Epstein’s data aggregation efforts are being posthumously carried out primarily by OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Oracle’s Larry Ellison, who are both pursuing the “Stargate” project — the construction of an expansive amount of data-centers that will process and integrate the constellation of data points spread across the web into AI models that will generate profit and control for their owners, and, as Webb noted, occasional “gratification” for everyone else.

Ultimately, this is a crucial part of the context behind Epstein’s connection to the elites of academia and kings of Silicon Valley. It is why when asked by journalist Russ Douthat if he’d prefer that the human race endure, Peter Thiel umm’d and uhhh’d his way into the now notoriously viral moment where he took a full twenty seconds to respond, “Yes, I would.”

Less discussed were Thiel’s words following his half-hearted assurance to Douthat. “I would also like us to radically solve these problems.” The ideal iteration of transhumanism, he went on, “was this radical transformation where your human natural body gets transformed into an immortal body. And there’s a critique of, let’s say…the transvestite [as] someone who changes their clothes and cross-dresses, and a transsexual is someone where you change…your penis into a vagina…but we want more transformation than that…we want more than cross-dressing or changing your sex organs” (emphasis added).

The total transformation Thiel envisions is spiritual:

“Transhumanism is just changing your body. But you also need to transform your soul, and you need to transform your whole self.”

Incredibly, Thiel may be right — just not in the way that he thinks. If transhumanism is only one step in “transforming” the human spirit, this transformation will not result in something greater than the material perception of reality that humans are, for the most part, restricted to. Instead, a full embrace of transhumanism is poised to tether the soul to the divisions that racist eugenicists, AI algorithms, and elitist oligarchs break it into. It will drag the “soul,” or whatever one might consider the spiritual, sacred, or ethereal, entirely down to the material world.

As the building of the technocratic infrastructure to create such a system accelerates by the day, the fate of society — or perhaps even humanity — rests on one of two fates; whether the structures of transhumanism truly can bind the soul to the material world, or whether inside us all there exists a spark of something greater, something inextinguishable, something that Big Tech’s all-seeing surveillance tools cannot measure, predict, or control.

We can likely assume which side of the argument Jeffrey Epstein would fall on.

Cold Harbor: Eugenics, Epstein and Big Tech.

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One Nation Under Blackmail by Whitney Webb.

The Chris Hedges Report.

The model of “government” the NRx technocrats propose is unlike anything we are currently familiar with. It is much more akin to the kind of authoritarian dictatorships exercised by the feudal monarchs of Medieval Europe. These gov-corp Technates, as envisaged, effectively amount to dictatorial city-states under the direct control of oligarchs. 

The NRx technocrats seek to break nation-states apart into technologically governed “enclaves” (gov-corp Technates). These “realms” will form an international “Patchwork,” with each enclave or “network archipelago” represented as a digital node, almost certainly on a single, overarching blockchain or “unified ledger.” The digital access permissions to the node, which serves as the digital twin for the physical realm of the city-state “enclave,” will be controlled by the “founder” or their selected administrators of the realm. This forms a gov-corp Technate ruled by a CEO King (oligarch) where “nothing officially exists” unless it is represented digitally on the realm’s ledger (blockchain).

The citizens of the realm are customers of the sovereign corporation (sovcorp) that rules the gov-corp Technate. The customers will have no individual sovereignty unless they purchase it from the “founder.” All value is digital in the realm. The life of your “digital twin,” monitored through the requirement to use digital ID, seamlessly links a customer’s offline life to that of their online digital twin. 

By controlling the programmable digital currency allotted to the customer’s digital twin, via their digital ID, any misbehaviour can be punished by the founder or their delegated system administrators. For example, by freezing “their deposits” or locking people “out of all doors for a time period as a punishment.” There are no means of recourse in a gov-corp Technate. The only option open to the persecuted customer is to flee, if they have the means. 

We also discussed how governments around the world have already started carving out nascent gov-corp Technates in the form of thousands of Special Economic Zones (SEZs). Some of which, such as Shenzhen in China, have already been established as de facto city-states with their own increasingly independent jurisdictions and embryonic city-state governments. 

At the heart of this effort to create a global patchwork of city-states are the NRx technocrats, perhaps most notably Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen in the US, and venture capital firms like NeWay Capital and Pronomos Capital. But they are far from alone. The NRx technocrat network is global and, at the highest governmental and intergovernmental level, the hope is to bring about the global governance of a patchwork of city-state gov-corp Technates. 

Smart-City-States Without Limits

NRx technocrats want to create a global “patchwork” of digital surveillance societies where “nothing officially exists unless it’s on-chain.” All value is digital and the private founder[s], by virtues of the supreme sovereignty they have purchased with their investment, control their private fiefdoms as CEO “kings” of the ruling corporations. In effect, by exploiting digital technology and, most notably, Artificial Intelligence (AI), the NRx technocrats want to create a global network of privately financed smart-cities.  

A smart-city can be said to be “an urban area where technology and data collection help improve [. . .] the sustainability and efficiency of city operations. [. . .] Technologies to collect data—including real-time data—are central to smart-city initiatives.” The objective of smart-city design is to control the urban environment and its inhabitants’ behaviour. 

Taking a positive view of smart-city behavioural control, researchers from the Indonesian Journal of Information Systems and Informatics nonetheless noted: 

The influence of smart city technology on consumer behavior in urban environments and  people’s daily routines and lifestyle habits is significant. [. . .] The development of smart-cities through the application of various technologies such as smart transportation systems,  traffic management applications, and smart sensors [. . .] has changed the behavior of people. [. . .] Thus, the application of smart city technology not only transforms city infrastructure and services, but also brings significant changes in citizen behavior. 

Though behavioural control exercised by smart-city operators could possibly be benign, it could also be abused by despots to effectively program our lives. That is certainly what the NRx technocrats have in mind—engineering the “unthinking demos” whose sovereignty will be treated with “derision.” Regardless of the risks, smart-cities are being constructed the world over. 

The China Global Television Network (CGTN) is part of the state-run China Media Group. In July of this year, CGTN reported how the Chinese government was “accelerating” the development of smart-cities. CGTN revealed that Shenzhen won an international award for smart-city of the year from the 2024 Smart-City Expo World Congress (SCEWC).

The SCEWC emphasised how the congress was impressed with Shenzhen’s application of the Chinese “Smarter City, Better Life” policy initiative that seeks to address “urban challenges” through the rapid deployment of technology. Just like the NRx technocrats in the West, Chinese policy think tanks apparently see technology as the solution; full stop.

The SCEWC said: 

The initiative has pursued an aggressive digital transformation strategy to address these challenges across various sectors. Key components include the development of high-speed broadband networks, using digital twin technology to model and manage city systems, and integrating artificial intelligence and data-driven governance into city operations. [. . .] The city has also fostered an environment that encourages technological innovation and has attracted significant investment from private companies developing smart-city technologies.

Again, there is no notable difference between the stakeholder capitalist—public-private partnership—finance model for smart-city construction in China’s SEZs than that found anywhere else. 

The SCEWC continued: 

Shenzhen has pioneered the “4321+X” model for smart community development, emphasizing integrating government networks, video networks, IoT sensor networks, and the internet to create comprehensive data and service platforms. These platforms provide a foundation for various smart city applications, including public safety management, community governance, and the delivery of public services.

The 4321+X smart-city “community” is controlled based upon a set of clearly defined processes. The “4” refers to the integration of four data networks: the government’s network, private community CCTV networks, the internet, and specifically the Internet of Things (IoT). The “3” relates to the three areas of community activity to be integrated within and surveilled through the four networks: all business, public security (public conduct), and the local governance of services, including local security services. The “2” Refers to two major service sectors—called “platforms”—that combine to effect the monitoring of the three key areas of activity linked to the four networks. The two “platforms” are local government and law enforcement. 

Finally, the “1” refers to the master database which, when Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)—such as blockchain—is used, could be called the “unified ledger.” The ledger ties all the surveillance of the entire smart-city, combining 4, 3, and 2 together, into one centrally administered smart-city system. The smart-city supposedly facilitates “X” which is the artificially intelligent delivery of governance and services to the citizen. 

The unified ledger (“1”) is monitored and controlled by the “Urban Brain” or “City Brain” which is the central command system for the smart-city. The Urban Planning Society of China—a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that operates by approval from China’s Ministry of Construction and Ministry of Civil Affairs—states that the purpose of the “Urban Brain” is to allocate “public resources” and enhance “social governance” in order to provide “new pathways for promoting sustainable economic and social development.” 

As we noted in Part 1, China’s modern technological innovation is overwhelmingly the result of public-private partnership. In Hangzhou, for instance, the City Brain is managed by one global corporation:

Alibaba is the powerhouse of the technology from data platforms to advance analytics algorithm that enables all the smart city application.

In NRx technocrat terms, Alibaba Group is the sovereign corporation (sovcorp) of the city of Hangzhou, with a considerable ability to potentially control the lives of its nine million citizens or “customers.” As with all smart-city developments, the media only reports the realised or projected social benefits. The likely pitfalls are studiously ignored. To understand the danger we all face, if we take to living in such cities, we first need to consider how social credits systems are intended to work.

There are many, persistent myths peddled in the West about China’s Social Credit System (SCS). The mainstream media will sometimes have you believe that it is already a totalitarian nightmare and some in the independent media will try to convince you that is doesn’t exist. The truth lies somewhere in between. 

China is the only country to have formally established an SCS, but it is not the only country to have implemented one. The purpose of social credit is to reward or punish citizen behaviour, not through the courts or any legal process, but through the enhanced or restricted access to both public and private services. Operation Choke Point in the US saw the Department of Justice collaborate with private banks to cut-off access to finance for entirely legal small to medium size businesses deemed to present a “reputational risk.” Similarly, in Canada, the government worked with private banks, and insurers to shut down the small businesses of lawful and legitimate protestors. These are just a couple of the many clear examples of SCS operating in the West. 

China’s SCS was formally established in 2014. It is a sprawling and often confusing slew of government directives and regulations that each provincial authority has to decipher and apply as best as it can. The overarching objective is to establish a measure of “societal creditworthiness.” This does not just mean “credit” in the financial sense. It relates to the degree of “trustworthiness” the state credits to its own departments and local administrations, to businesses and to individuals. 

China’s SCS refers to “entities,” meaning both public and private organisations, including businesses. Much of the SCS is focused upon cleaning up public sector corruption, eliminating the “untrustworthiness” of those entities in order to promote a “harmonious” society. 

It also focuses on the “untrustworthiness” of individuals. An SCS objective is to “put untrustworthy individuals on a credit blacklist.” Another is to develop online systems to evaluate individual’s online social credit “trustworthiness” and, for instance, to punish those who engage in online “rumour-mongering;” it talks about systems to assess the “individual character” of citizens and the enforcement of “citizen morality.”

In China, a “natural person” is a legal construct that means a human being or citizen. In its 2025 announced improvements to its SCS, the Chinese government encouraged regional authorities to promote “the credit construction of natural persons” and to establish “sound credit records of natural persons.” 

Looking at the development of the smart-city in Shenzhen, and the risks of pooling “big data,” researchers from the Berlin Institute of Chinese Studies found: 

[T]he digital systems in Shenzhen entail a creeping centralisation of data that potentially turns lower administrative government units into mere users of the city-level smart platforms rather than being in control of their own data resources. Smart city development and big data ambitions thereby imply shifting stakeholder relations at the local level and also pull non-governmental stakeholders, such as information technology companies and research institutions, closer to new data flows and smart governance systems.

In a world shaped by stakeholder capitalism, “smart governance systems” are invariably controlled by the private sector. Local governments become the “mere users” of the “City Brains” overseen by multinational corporations. The evident objective is to link the behavioural control afforded by smart-city technology to SCS.   

As pointed out by MIT Technology Review in 2022, there is currently no crushing, universal social credit score in China that enables totalitarian control:

There’s no evidence yet that this system has been abused for widespread social control (though it remains possible that it could be wielded to hurt individual rights).

Indeed, smart-city technology combined with SCS certainly could be wielded to socially engineer populations. The push towards smart-city developments capable of applying SCS “rules” are by no means restricted to China. It is a global governance policy agenda and the rollout of the necessary digital infrastructure is worldwide. Though most of us are yet to experience the looming overt systematic oppression, it is extremely unwise to ignore that fact that the likely digital panopticon is being erected around us.

If we accept the ongoing transformation of the places we live into smart-cities and smart-suburbs, it is the “trust” we will have placed in our rulers, whoever they may be, that is the salient issue. We will have no choice but to trust that the digital control systems we will live in are purely for our benefit. We will have to trust that the enforcement of the SCS rules will be equitable. There is currently no reason to think that will be the case. 

The potential urban future that the oligarchs driving this agenda have in mind is aligned with the ambitions of the NRx technocrats. It appears that our planned smart city-state future is an envisioned tyranny. 

Intergovernmental Gov-corp Technates

The global proliferation of SEZs provides plenty of enticing investment opportunities for NRx technocrats and other oligarchs (See Part 1). SEZs, however, are just one avenue for the potential location of gov-corp Technates. The global transition toward urbanization offers many more. 

Ironically, the United Nations (UN) both reports on the rampant criminality common to many SEZ developments but also advocates the rapid and significant expansion of SEZs. As noted in Part 1, there is currently little or no evidence that SEZs deliver socioeconomic growth. There is considerable evidence that they seize national territory and transform it into effective private jurisdictions. 

Yet, in 2022, the UN established the Global Alliance of Special Economic Zones (GASEZ) to increase the SEZ global footprint. GASEZ claims:

Special economic zones (SEZs) can make important contributions to economic growth and sustainable development. Zones can help attract investment, create jobs, boost exports, and build productive capacity. [. . .] Collectively SEZs can be more effective in modernization and policy advocacy, and bring on board stakeholders, including governments, the private sector and international organizations.

Again, there is virtually no evidence to support GASEZ’ assertions about economic growth. The reason the UN is enthusiastic about SEZ hybrid zone/city developments is that the UN considers them a more effective route for its global “policy advocacy.” 

Launching GASEZ in 2022, the UN announced: 

UNCTAD [United Nations Conference on Trade and Development ] joined hands with seven global, regional and national associations representing over 7,000 special economic zones (SEZs) to launch a global alliance. [. . .] They [SEZs] go by many different names, including free-trade zones and industrial parks, and are widely used by developed and developing economies. The Global Alliance of Special Economic Zones (GASEZ) seeks to drive the modernization of these zones across the world and maximize their contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). [. . .] A new model of sustainable special economic zones is therefore rapidly taking shape and they are contributing to more inclusive, resilient and sustainable economies in the countries where they operate.

The UN calls the towns and cities we live in “human settlements.” Charter Cities, SEZs with residential capacity, hybrid zone/city developments, resilient cities, 15-minute cities, etc., are all “human settlements” as far as the UN is concerned. Furthermore, all such urban renewal consistently embraces smart-city technology. 

In 1977, the UN created the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) in order to promote “socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities.” UN-Habitat states: 

UN-Habitat is the focal point for all urbanization and human settlement matters within the UN system. [. . .] UN-Habitat collaborates with governments, intergovernmental, UN agencies, civil society organizations, foundations, academic institutions and the private sector to achieve enduring results in addressing the challenges of urbanization.

Urbanization is the process of the population shift from rural to urban living environments, or human settlements in the vernacular of the UN. UN-Habitat has wholeheartedly adopted the public-private partnership, or stakeholder capitalist, model of development to address “the challenges of urbanization.” 

In 2018, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) reported the findings of its research into World Urbanization Prospects: 

Today, 55% of the world’s population lives in urban areas, a proportion that is expected to increase to 68% by 2050. Projections show that urbanization [. . .] combined with the overall growth of the world’s population could add another 2.5 billion people to urban areas by 2050, with close to 90% of this increase taking place in Asia and Africa. [. . .] By 2030, the world is projected to have 43 megacities with more than 10 million inhabitants, most of them in developing regions [. . .] many of them located in Asia and Africa. [. . .] As the world continues to urbanize, sustainable development depends increasingly on the successful management of urban growth, especially in low-income and lower-middle-income countries where the pace of urbanization is projected to be the fastest.

With this urbanization prospectus in mind, and with a particular focus on managing urban development in the “Global South”—an umbrella term for developing nations wherever they are located—UN-Habitat released its Strategic Plan 2020-2023: 

UN-Habitat, in its role as a focal point, will call upon all development actors and stakeholders, [. . .] to work in concert to assist it in implementing its Strategic Plan. [. . .] An important effort is required to rethink engagement with the private sector to leverage investment in sustainable urbanization and to promote more appropriate models of development. 

The UN is eager to liberate private finance in order to construct human smart-megacity settlements, especially in the emerging and developing markets of the Global South, that meet UN sustainable urbanization targets. Sustainable Development Goal 11—SDG 11—defines the global public-private partnership’s city development agenda.   

The UN calls this its “New Urban Agenda.” The New Urban Agenda emphasises the importance of building “smart-cities” to meet SDGs: 

The New Urban Agenda calls for technology and communication networks to be strengthened and for smart-city approaches that use digitalization, clean energy and technologies. [. . .]  Innovative funding opportunities and partnerships need to be explored and the capacity of local governments to effectively procure, test and implement frontier technologies needs to be significantly strengthened. [. . .] To contribute effectively to urban sustainability, frontier technologies and innovations need to be applied. 

The “smart-city” is constructed by deploying so-called “frontier technologies” within its infrastructure. A smart-city could be built from scratch or developed in an existing city or conurbation. The UN explains what smart-city frontier technology it considers essential for urban sustainability: 

[Frontier technologies] currently include, among others, the Internet of things, sensor networks, machine-to-machine communication, robotics, artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, 3D printing, geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing, autonomous unmanned vehicles, drones, blockchain, cryptographic computing, and big data processing and visualization.

The UN’s “frontier technologies” are, of course, exactly the kind of technologies that the NRx technocrats allege to be the technological solution to everything (see Part 1). Gov-corp Technates are practically indistinguishable from the hybrid zone/city developments envisaged by the UN’s New Urban Agenda. 

The downside, from humanity’s perspective, is that at both the global intergovernmental level and at the global multinational corporate-network level, there is a firm commitment to install the biometric digital surveillance state that threatens to enslave us all. Though the UN calls this “sustainable development.” 

The Global Governance Patchwork

Not only is the UN amenable to the NRx technocrat’s digital panopticon plans, it also favours their “patchwork of realms” idea. The UN considers the future of global governance to lay in centralised global authority exerted over a transnational network of city-states. Or, as UN-Habitat puts it, “connectivity across urban networks, between cities and their surroundings [. . .] must be strengthened. That requires a country-wide – and sometimes cross-border – approach to development.”

The UN’s global governance model has been moving in this direction or a while. In 2005, then London Mayor Ken Livingston convened the C20 city network, inviting mayors from another eighteen cities to work collectively to reduce so-called climate pollution (CO2 emissions). In 2006, the addition of 22 city mayors created the C40 cities network. 

The C40 cities network is financed by, among others, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) which is heavily backed by the Gates Foundation. The aim of CIFF is to improve the lives of children living in the Global South by “lobbying” their governments to create regulatory “enabling environments” to stimulate national carbon trading in the global Emissions Trading Scheme (ETF) markets. 

Another prominent C40 funder is Bloomberg Philanthropies, led by oligarch and former New York City mayor, Michael Bloomberg. Always driven by a commitment to UN global governance policies, in 2011, C40 formalised its relationship with the UN by agreeing on a climate action partnership with the World Bank—a specialized agency of the UN. Such UN partnerships are in keeping with UN ambitions to cultivate its global governance through an international network of city-states.  

In 2013, American political theorist Benjamin R. Barber (1939 – 2017) published If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities. Barber contended that city administrations were more closely connected to their populations and thus more democratically representative than nation-states. He argued that city administrations, in countries around the world, had more in common with each other than they had with their own national governments. Unencumbered by political divisions and national rivalries, he posited that cities were better “building blocks of global governance.”

Advocating a global network of cities, Barber wrote: 

If democracy is to survive globalization, imagining a global democratic order with the city at its core may be crucial. Envision not states but cities as building blocks for global governance. [. . .] Global governance in which the city predominates is the aim.

Evidently enthused by Barber’s vision, Michael Bloomberg announced he was stepping down as Mayor of New York and set up the first CityLab summit in 2013. Mayors from cities around the world were invited to network and collaborate in order to “exchange ideas and tackle some of the most urgent issues affecting cities around the world.” 

In 2014, a month after officially leaving office in New York, Bloomberg was appointed as the UN’s first Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change. Thus strengthening the link between urban development and the implementation of the global governance agenda.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the objective of creating the post for Bloomberg was for the UN to consult “with mayors and related key stakeholders” in order to “mobilize action among cities as part of [the UN’s] long-term strategy.” Already the president of the board of the C40 cities network, Bloomberg soon established the Compact of Mayors committing city leaders to implement UN SDGs. 

In 2016, the UN’s Global Compact of Mayors joined with the similar European Union’s (EU’s) Covenant of Mayors to become the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (GCoM). Currently acting as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions, Michael Bloomberg is the current co-chair of the GCoM. 

The GCoM established the INVEST4CITIES initiative to generate “massive and targeted investment” to construct smart-cities. The private sector investment opportunity is set to provide “$23 trillion in investment potential” by 2030. The public sector’s (local government’s) role is to create “the enabling environments that support local investment.” The GCoM plan is that “large-scale financing instruments” will fund “local implementation” of frontier technologies to construct global governance (SDG) compliant smart-cities. 

In the same year (2016) that the GCoM was signed by an international network of mayors, Bloomberg created the Global Parliament of Mayors (GPM) to give the civic leaders formal global governance roles. The GPM was first mooted in 2013 by Bloomberg CityLab based on Benjamin Barber’s “idea of a global governance platform for cities.” Barber was personally involved in the formation of the GPM and, when he died in 2017, the GPM created the annual Benjamin Barber Award, given to the most global governance compliant mayor of the year. 

The purpose of the GPM is to attack the supposed political sovereignty of national governments and reimagine international relations. The GPM champions “the city’s right to self-government” and promotes “collective city decision-making across national borders.” The GPM is “actively engaged in decision-making by international organisations.” The GPM is the UN’s expression of Barber’s vision of “global governance in which the city predominates.” 

In 2017, adopting the NRx technocrats’ accelerationism, the C40 network started implementing a number of “High-Impact Accelerators.” The C40 accelerators form one of the “project pipelines” that contributes toward the GCoM’s INVEST4CITIES strategy. 

The GCoM aims to “accelerate city and local government access to financial resources” by “removing barriers to investor-oriented climate action plans and projects, and unlocking large-scale financing instruments to boost urban action implementation.” As you can imagine, with $23 trillion of investment opportunities in sight, the envisaged ROI is not only mouthwatering, if the planned city-state is a startup project it also promises oligarchs possible city ownership rights (see Part 1). 

The UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) convened the Day of Cities in 2019. Mayors from across, what the UN called, “the region”—meaning Europe—met to discuss “how to create smart sustainable cities.” This resulted in the 2020 Geneva Declaration of Mayors. In response to multiple alleged global crises—the pseudopandemic, the climate crisis, natural disasters, etc.—the UNECE mayors noted how the global policy response to the pseudopandemic could be adopted as a model for urban development: 

[C]ities were in lockdown – and many industries, transport networks and businesses closed – we [. . .] started to experience an unknown urban life: better air quality, the return of nature to our cities, and empty streets giving space to cyclists and pedestrians. [. . .] The pandemic provided a testing ground for what cities could look like; the transformation of urban spaces happened overnight. If there is only one lesson to learn from this crisis, it is that rapid change of our urban reality is possible [and] behaviour patterns can be adapted. [. . .] Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 calls for action to work towards [. . .] resilient and sustainable cities – it is now in our hands to place the SDGs at the centre of our recovery efforts and create new urban realities.

Today, boasting “over 13,500 cities and local governments” from “6 continents and 147 countries” the GCoM alleges that it represents “more than 1.2 billion people.” It is, however, hard to see how GCoM “represents” anyone other than its public-private “stakeholders.” One wonders how many people who elect their local and city “representatives” in these GCoM coordinated cities and suburbs are told that they are consenting to global governance and the transformation of their communities into smart-city gov-corp Technates.

Empty streets, no cars, drone ports, driverless AI controlled public transport, protein labs growing artificial food substitutes, augmented reality, insect-based snacks, and new religious identities are part of what leading oligarch-led think tank Chatham House (The Royal Institute of International Affairs) predicted in 2021 with its notion of our Futurescape. Whether this is the future city-life any of us want is irrelevant. At every level, NRx technocrats and their fellow oligarchs view such “urbanization” as the pathway to establishing effective global governance. 

That the UN considers societal lockdowns as an exemplar of what it calls a “better urban life” betrays the oligarchs’ true intentions. 

The Global Governance of Smart-Cities

The United Nations (UN) declares that it is responsible for global governance. The UN also says that “governance” means: “the process of decision-making and the process by which decisions are implemented.” Therefore, the UN asserts that it is the body which makes and implements decisions—which manifest as government policy—for the world. 

UN-Habitat—the UN’s “focal point for all urbanization and human settlement matters”—with its New Urban Agenda to transform the urban environment into a global network of smart-cities, extols stakeholder capitalism and is keen to use the associated public-private partnership model. In 2022, UN-Habitat and the World Economic Forum (WEF) created the The Global Partnership for Local Investment (GPLI). The GPLI immediately set up the G20 Global smart-cities Alliance and clarified its public-private purpose: 

Public-private collaborations reflect a form of indirect management in public administration, where [. . .] public, private or non-profit partners make decisions jointly. [. . .] Public-private collaborations can repurpose city assets for the deployment of digital infrastructure. [. . .] Physical assets, such as rooftops, utility poles, street lights, traffic lights, ducts and more, can become smart assets and be used to drive efficiencies and new services. Public spaces and airspace can take on new value as technology, such as drones, enabl[e] [sic] new use cases. 

UN-Habitat and the WEF highlight the private sector investment opportunity for those with the wealth to capitalise on them—oligarchs: 

[S]mart-city services can generate new revenue streams and revenue savings to be shared between partners. 

The Futurescape imagined by Chatham House is under construction with the support of the United Nations and the “leading” multinational corporations aligned under the WEF umbrella. It is also a project shared by the BRICS+ group of nations and their corporate partners. 

The BRICS have established the General Assembly of Cities and Municipalities which will focus on “inter-municipal cooperation” rather than international cooperation. Following the 2025 BRICS summit in Brazil, the BRICS group issued a joint statement: 

One of the key topics shaping the future of the BRICS is the development of smart-cities supported by emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence (AI). [. . .] With the recent expansion of the BRICS to include countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, and Iran, the bloc is establishing itself as a leading platform for Global South cooperation [. . .] particularly in the realm of sustainable urbanization driven by technologies such as AI. [. . .] Artificial intelligence is increasingly being adopted in major BRICS cities, notably impacting urban planning, public service management, and civic engagement. China is at the forefront of developing AI-powered smart-cities, particularly in Shanghai and Shenzhen.

The BRICS+ group emphasises the importance of the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) to “finance sustainable infrastructure” and “increase lending for AI-driven public service projects.” The group observes that “South-South cooperation through the BRICS creates active dialogue.”

The UN considers cooperation in the “South-South”—referring to partnerships between Southern hemisphere countries—“a key development modality to accelerate progress towards achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.” The UN Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) collaborates strategically with the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB). In turn, the IsDB has a close working partnership with the NDB. Both the IsDB and the NDB have joined seven other “Multilateral Development Banks” (MDBs) to form a global collaborative partnership coordinated by the UN’s World Bank Group: 

A much scaled up global effort is thus required to [. . .] tackle transboundary [meaning cross-national border] challenges. [. . .] We [Heads of MDBs] will deepen our collaboration around joint innovative mechanisms for boosting private capital mobilization, both domestically and globally. [. . .] We recognize the need to explore further avenues for strengthening mobilization of private capital.

Regardless of where you live on the Earth, your government’s commitment to creating a global network of smart hybrid zone/cities financed by “private capital” is unshakable because your government is following a global policy agenda it did not create and cannot change. 

In Vietnam, for example, the commitment to constructing smart-cities is significant. Vietnam’s state media, The Voice of Vietnam (VoV), reports: 

Vietnam is undergoing a sweeping transformation with a clear goal: to build smart-cities that serve the people. The effort is based on national strategies like the Sustainable smart-city Development Plan 2018-2025 with a vision to 2030, the National Digital Transformation Program until 2025 with a vision to 2030, the E-Government Development Strategy toward a Digital Government, and Project 06 on population data and digital identity.

The VoV states that residents in smart-cities can “report issues directly to authorities, who respond and take corrective action.” Vietnamese digital smart-city citizens can raise concerns relating to “public security[,] environmental management, healthcare, [. . .] education,” and more via their installed smart-city app. The VoV enthusiastically notes that centrally located AI monitored Intelligent Operations Centers (IOCs)—Urban or City Brains—linked to peoples’ devices and their Vietnam Electronic Identification (VNeID), issued by Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS), effectively turn the Vietnamese smart-city citizens’ “smartphones into ‘microphones.’” 

The VoV adds: 

Citizens must also play their part: verifying VNeID at level 2, uploading personal documents to their digital accounts, using the national portal [. . .] for public services, downloading their local smart-city app, and using cashless payments wherever possible. Every tap on a screen lays another brick in building Vietnam’s vision of modern, intelligent, liveable cities for the future.

The state taking almost unimaginable control of every “citizen’s” life is part of Vietnam’s digital transformation plan—Project 06. The Vietnamese government has already started the process of freezing up to 86 million of Vietnam’s estimated 200 million banks accounts unless they are “verified” using state approved digital ID (biometric authentication or VNeID). So clearly, every citizen “must” comply and the digital transformation, despite all the fluffy rhetoric about inclusion, is avowedly exclusionary.  

Project 06 is led by the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) working closely with the Ministry of Public Security (MPS). A major part of the role of the MPS is to ensure social order and to collect, analyse and evaluate information with a view to “prevent, detect and defeat any plots and acts of violation against national security and eliminate any threats to national security,” to protect the “Party” and the “State,” and to “implement international commitments and obligations.”

The digital surveillance plan has been promoted by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and other government officials, but the Project 06 policy initiative did not originate with the Vietnamese government. With its stated “vision to 2030,” Project 06 is firmly rooted in the United Nations’ (UN’s) global governance agenda. 

The Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Development noted that the country’s digital transformation will contribute to the reduction of (CO2) emissions, though it is obviously designed to enable state surveillance of the population. Speaking in January this year, UN Under-Secretary-General Amandeep Singh Gill said he was impressed with Vietnam’s public-private partnership (multistakeholder) approach to “harness digital technologies for inclusive, sustainable development.”

He added: 

I saw with my own eyes how Viet Nam is pushing forward strongly and proactively in the areas of digital transformation and AI. [. . .] [F]rameworks are needed to ensure that everyone benefits from the technical advancement, and that no one is left behind. [. . .] The Global Digital Compact offers such a framework at the global level, and Viet Nam’s willingness to play an active role in key areas of the [sic] is welcomed and appreciated by the United Nations.

The Global Digital Compact, adopted without a vote in September 2024 by UN member states as an annex to the UN’s Pact for the Future, is the UN’s “global framework” to facilitate “multi-stakeholder action” to enable “the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals.” The UN defined “digital public goods” as software, data, AI models, and all content published online. Further, it decided that “digital public infrastructure” essentially meant all hardware and the physical infrastructure for all digital communication systems. 

The UN said that it considered “digital public goods and digital public infrastructure to be key drivers of inclusive digital transformation and innovation.” It added that “[g]overnments, the private sector, civil society, technical and academic communities and international and regional organizations” should work together to to “leverage digital public goods and digital public infrastructure to advance solutions for the Sustainable Development Goals.”  

In other words, the UN decided that the internet and digital technology, in its entirety, should be leveraged to deliver the UN’s global governance policy agendas. The UN invited the “private sector and philanthropic actors [oligarchs]” to finance the digital transformation.

Populations might not want to go along with the digital transformation of their world, nor the degree of public-private state surveillance foisted upon them. Perhaps anticipating some pushback, the UN decided that anything that questioned its transformative global governance agenda constituted a “form of violence” it calls “misinformation and disinformation”: 

We must urgently counter and address all forms of violence, including [. . .] all forms of hate speech and discrimination, misinformation and disinformation. [. . .] We commit to, by 2030, [. . .] assess the impact of misinformation and disinformation on the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. [. . .] We further urgently [. . .] [c]all on social media platforms to provide researchers access to data [. . .] to build an evidence base on how to address misinformation and disinformation and hate speech that can inform government and industry policies, standards and best practices

The idea that governments and private corporations should form “policies” to address “misinformation and disinformation” might sound reasonable at first, but that all depends upon who decides what constitutes misinformation and disinformation. The UN is clear that misinformation and disinformation incudes information that undermines its policies related to “public health and climate action.” 

Questioning the global digital transformation that is designed to “advance solutions for the Sustainable Development Goals” threatens “climate action” and is therefore disinformation that governments and private corporations should “counter and address.” Governments around the world are implementing laws and regulations to seize control of the information we can share with that goal in mind.

Of course, this could not be more anti-democratic, but governments serve as functional oligarchies not democracies. None of the governments that have passed or intend to pass online censorship laws are the instigators of these policies or legislative moves. They emanate from the global governance of the UN and its agencies where real Orbital Authority is exercised. 

Real Orbital Authority

In Part 1, we discussed NRx technocrat Curtis Yarvin’s metaphorical exploration of global government that he termed “Orbital Authority.” The global transformation of our urban environments is already being propelled by such authority. 

It is an oligarch-led public-private, or multistakeholder, global governance authority. Oligarch-backed policy think tanks, such as Bloomberg’s CityLab, and the state-funded public-private partnership think tanks, like the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), form the policy and design the corresponding implementation initiatives. 

The CAICT calls itself “a specialized think-tank for the government and an innovation and development platform for the industry.” The CAICT acts as an “enabler for innovation and development in an information society.” It is a public-private partnership that “plays an important role in strategy and policy” with respect to the digital transformation in China.

Chinese state media recently reported China’s official launch of its plan to provide “processing resources across China,” to link City Brains and other smart-city elements together in a “mega computing project” that will create regional data hubs. From the reports, you would imagine that the CPC was leading the rollout. That impression is misleading. It was the CAICT that proposed the concept of the “National Integrated Computing Power and Network Scheduling Platform” that has given rise to the reportedly state-led mega computing project. 

The CAICT is also a UN partner with an agreement in place to implement the “digital transformation aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals” across Africa. African governments are not designing “Africa’s digital future” any more than China’s government is heading the “digital transformation” in China. The transformation is a global governance agenda, far beyond the influence of any electorate or population, and national governments’ role is merely to create the enabling environment (see Part 1) to establish the resultant global governance.

The UN fully backs and promotes this worldwide digital transformation. In addition, the UN has already established global governance structures “in which the city predominates.” This unwavering transformation of the global polity and societal norms is precisely what the NRx technocrats want and are committed to achieving. The Orbital Authority that Curtis Yarvin deems necessary for “thousands of independent sovereign states and city-states” to “flourish” is being constructed by the UN and its multinational corporate “stakeholders.” 

The UN is predominantly an oligarch-led project. In 2014, professor of international history Ludovic Tournès, writing for The Journal of Modern European History, highlighted the significant influence of the Rockefellers in establishing the United Nations. In the late 1950s, the Rockefeller-funded Special Studies Project began publishing its findings, culminating in the 1961 publication of the full report titled “Prospect for America: The Rockefeller Panel Reports.” 

Seeking to strengthen UN global governance, The Rockefeller Study Project recommended dividing the world “into smaller units” that would “consist of regional institutions under an international body of growing authority [the UN]” (page 26). The researchers ultimately recommended:

The most natural multination arrangements are frequently regional. [. . .] We believe that this regional approach has world-wide validity. [. . .] What is needed immediately is a determination to move in the direction they imply. Regional arrangements are no longer a matter of choice. They are imposed by the requirements of technology, science, and economics. Our course is to contribute to this process by constructive action [pages 188–190].

The idea of a global governance system, based upon a regional balance of power, had been pursued by a trans-Atlantic oligarch network—of which the Rockefellers are leading members—since the early 20th century. As part of the process of “constructive action” to establish this new world order, in 1965 the Rockefellers convened an international conference at their Villa Serbelloni mansion in Bellagio, Italy. Today called the Bellagio Center, the 1965 meeting at the Villa set up the Club of Rome policy think tank which solidified as “a core group of like-minded thinkers” in 1968. 

In September 1973, the Club of Rome proposed a global governance model that divided the world into ten regions. In their report, titled  “Regionalized and Adaptive Model of the Global World System,” they described these global governance regions as “Kingdoms.” 

The same year, David Rockefeller co-founded the Trilateral Commission policy think tank with US political scientist and policy advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. Unsurprisingly, the Trilateral Commission claims the authority to “affect [. . .] foreign policy and national security strategies,” across three global regions it calls pillars: North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. The current model of regional Kingdoms—“pillars” or “poles”—is commonly referred to as multipolarity and the consequent Multipolar World Order (MWO) is said to be in prospect.  

The Munich Security Conference (MSC) is the premier international public-private security policy conference where predominantly, but not exclusively, Western “decision-makers” meet annually to network and form international defence and security policy. The MSC 2025 report informs us that there is a “changing global distribution of power,” adding that a “multipolar world holds significant promise.” However, it also notes that the new multipolar global governance bureaucracy must not impede “joint approaches to global crises and threats.” 

The MSC determined that “depolarization [. . .] could set multipolarity on a positive track,” where “depolarization” refers to the process of nations accepting their sociopolitical and perhaps cultural differences but aligning to their respective “poles” in order to address “global crises” through collective action. To explain its “depolarization” point, on behalf of the MSC “decision-makers” it represents, the MSC report referenced the 2023 comments of then German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz who said, in order to “keep multilateralism alive in a multipolar world,” it was essential to maintain “greater participation in, and integration into, the international order.” In other words, depolarization is multipolar decentralisation leading to greater centralisation within the global “order.” 

This is the same decentralization to recentralization trick (see Part 1) favoured by the NRx technocrats. Depolarization is not transforming global governance by chance. Influential oligarch-led policy think tanks, such as the UK-based Chatham House and its sister organisation, the US Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), have been trying to create the depolarized regional balance of power global governance system for more than a century. 

The Council on Foreign Relations is among the many Western oligarch-led think tanks to have consistently promoted multipolarity. In 2023, a team of CFR analysts expressed their opinion about what would constitute the perfect “pole” in a Multipolar World Order: 

The EU [European Union] is a networked union that allows its members to act together in some ways and apart in others. The EU [. . .] has far more power over its members, which remain sovereign states, than any other regional entity. It is one of a kind. [. . .] The EU has developed a template that other regional organizations are following and customizing in various ways. [. . .] Foreign policy practitioners should hope these blocs succeed. Powerful regional unions are the necessary intermediaries between international or global institutions and state and local governments.

According to the CFR, the European Union (EU) presents us with the ideal “template” for a MWO pole. Speaking at the 2025 Munich Security Conference, H.E. Wang Yi, Director of the CPC’s Committee Foreign Affairs, stressed that “China has always seen in Europe an important pole in the multipolar world.” China is currently leading the push to create an Asian Union. The CPC and the CFR appear to be in agreement on the perfect “pole.”  

Though nation-states supposedly remain “sovereign,” the EU-pole exerts “power over its members”—constituent governments. This CFR argument is self-contradictory nonsense. The governments of nation-states cannot possibly be both “sovereign” and, at the same time, subservient to the leadership of their “pole.” It is unconscionable to imagine that the CFR analysts don’t appreciate this point. What they offer is MWO propaganda. 

The whole point of the regional “pole,” or “union,” is to act as a completely unnecessary “intermediar[y] between international or global institutions and [. . .] governments.” The CFR defines “international or global institutions” as the UN, its specialized agencies, and groups like the International Monetary Fund and the the G20 (Group of Twenty). 

We have just discussed the G20 Global smart-city Alliance. It embraces stakeholder capitalism,  where governments and their private sector partners “make decisions jointly [to] repurpose city assets for the deployment of digital infrastructure.” Given the UN commitment to global governance where “the city predominates,” the discernable nature of the real “Orbital Authority” is materializing. 

Governments that are functional oligarchies (see Part 1) are being subsumed into regional poles within a Multipolar World Order that has been actively sought by generations of globalist oligarchs. The poles will empower public-private “international organisations”—dominated by private capital (oligarchs)—to set policy for the regional pole’s member state, thereby removing any meaningful expression of national sovereignty. Simultaneously, privately financed smart-city “zones” are being carved out of nation-states as global governance moves toward “collective city decision-making across national borders.”

Curtis Yarvin’s “Orbital Authority” was a metaphor, but there is nothing metaphorical about the deliberate, oligarch-led transformation of our world. What they are constructing mirrors the “patchwork” of network states—gov-corp Technates—proposed by the NRx technocrats. The aim is the digital enslavement of humanity to the asserted authority of private capital. Far from resisting this emerging tyranny, governments are willingly hastening the process because they are functional oligarchies. 

Knowing the kind of feudalistic tyranny they portend, who would ever choose to live in a gov-corp Technate? Unfortunately, millions of the most vulnerable people on earth don’t have much choice regarding where they live and architects of the gov-corp Technates are targetting them to be among their first “customers.” 

Orbital Authority Over Refugees

In 2025, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that refugee migration in 2024 was “driven by conflict, persecution, human rights violations, and instability.” Refugees fled man-made war zones, man-made economic destruction, and man-made persecution—overwhelmingly from countries in the co-called Global South—but there is no sign of people fleeing any climate crisis, anthropogenic or otherwise. 

Of course, people have to escape natural disasters such as floods and forest fires. But there is no evidence of any upward trend in either the frequency or severity of weather related natural disasters. Again, all too often, we find that the lethal scale of, for example, catastrophic flooding, though undoubtedly caused by extreme weather events, is exacerbated by very poor planning decisions. Nevertheless, as the UNHCR reports, climate change is not a driver of mass migration. 

Yet, the UN and its partners constantly refer to refugees as largely escaping the “climate crisis.” As there are no climate refugees, the core PR message to the contrary is designed to supposedly justify and facilitate the global governance agenda— the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). That there is no evidence of any climate crisis is irrelevant. Our collective belief in the propaganda is all that matters. 

Back in 2018, shortly before the UN adopted the Global Compact on Migration, at the annual UN convened Mayoral Forum on Human Mobility, Migration and Development, civic leaders from eighty cities formed the UN’s Mayors Migration Council (MMC). The MMC is a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors that aims to make “a tangible difference in the lives of urban migrants, displaced people, and receiving communities worldwide.” It further proclaims that it “accelerates ambitious global action on migration and displacement to create a world where urban migrants, displaced people, and receiving communities can thrive.”

NRx technocrat accelerationism (see Part 1) is now enmeshed in all levels of global governance. Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors openly declares that its “mission is to accelerate philanthropy in pursuit of a just world by providing deep global expertise.” It is easy to imagine that the ubiquitous use of the term “accelerate,” or variations thereof, is just a reflection of in vogue terminology, but it is omnipresent and we would be naive to overlook its ideological significance. 

The UN outlines its purpose in its associated Global Compact: 

Our Ambition is to: Accelerate and scale the global collective impact of business by [. . .] delivering the SDGs through accountable companies and ecosystems that enable change.

To this end, the UN adds: 

The United Nations Global Compact is leading Accelerators to embed SDG-aligned practices deep into business operations and across the value chain to accelerate progress and impact for the 2030 Agenda. Available to participating companies of the UN Global Compact, the Accelerators are run in close collaboration with Global Compact Country Networks and are designed with a view to generating behavior change across a large number of companies at the local level – achieving maximum impact and scale.

The UN’s Global Compact is a supposedly “non-binding” policy agenda, first adopted by the United Nations in 2000. The Compact is not focused on intergovernmental cooperation and has virtually nothing to do with nation-states. The UN describes it as “the world’s largest corporate sustainability project.” 

Agenda 21 is also a non-binding “plan of action” that, in 1992, laid the foundations for the global sustainable development. The Agenda 21 global policy agenda has shaped the lives of nearly everyone on earth in subsequent years. The UN coordinates policy globally and calling its policy agendas “non-binding” is meaningless if the public sector and the private sector rigidly adhere to them.  

The UN is determined to create “global governance in which the city predominates.” Consequently, the MMC has been empowered by the UN to “influence policy decisions at the national and international level.” As NRx technocrat accelerationism pervades pretty much everything the UN does, the MMC says that it “accelerates global action on migration and displacement.” 

The MMC has established task forces with other city-state networks, C40 for example, to manage the migration caused by the climate crisis, irrespective of the fact that the UN concedes there are no climate refugees. In addition, as far as the MMC is concerned, international relations based on Westphalian sovereignty is a “broken system” and it has therefore created the financial pathway for investors to directly fund city-state plans for refugees. 

The MMC’s Global Cities Fund for Migrants and Refugees is set to transform the broken system by directly funding city-states. The Cities Fund offers international donors an investment “pipeline” to circumvent national governments and directly channel “international resources to city governments.” This is to enable “city governments and their local partners to implement projects of their own design.” 

The focus of the investment is to support “city governments” to manage “their migrant and displaced communities.” The investment pipeline will create a “a marketplace of city-led solutions” and the reason for all of this is to ensure the UN’s “Global Compacts for Migration” is implemented. 

The UN claims that its Global Compact on Migration (GCM) is grounded in the “values of state sovereignty.” As we have just discussed, there is scant evidence of that. Instead, the Global Compact seeks to apply a “common approach to international migration in all its dimensions.” 

Those dimensions are encapsulated in the twenty-three GCM Objectives. The first Objective is to harvest as much data as possible from refugees and economic migrants. The third is to develop systems for the sharing of that data with stakeholders. This accompanies Objective 4, which seeks to force “all migrants [to] have proof of legal identity,” by which the UN means digital ID. At the city or “municipal” level, the UN wants to use migrants to implement digital ID as a means of exclusion: 

Build upon existing practices at the local level that facilitate participation in community life, such as interaction with authorities and access to relevant services, through the issuance of registration cards to all persons living in a municipality, including migrants, that contain basic personal information.

That is to say, everyone’s “participation in community life” and everyone’s access to services will be contingent on you having a UN-approved, compatible digital ID. 

As we have repeatedlydiscussed, the UN’s own research clearly shows that there is no climate crisis-related immigration. Objective 2 is focused upon “minimising the drivers” of migration flows but identifies virtually none but the alleged migration impacts of the so-called climate crisis.

Of the twelve clauses to Objective 2, just one briefly mentions “conflict” but only to the extent of “taking into consideration relevant recommendations from State-led consultative processes, such as the Guidelines to Protect Migrants in Countries Experiencing Conflict.” Despite knowing full well that people have to flee from war, persecution, and poverty, not climate change, the UN’s GCM, supposedly designed to assist the dispossessed and the most vulnerable refugees, has practically nothing to say about tackling any of the actual underlying causes of their plight.  

Even objective 7, to “reduce vulnerabilities in migration,” says nothing about persecution, impoverishment, or conflict. Instead it insists upon providing refugees with “identification,” presumably because humanitarian assistance simply cannot be provided otherwise. Refugee children should be added to national identity systems and “stakeholders” should be fully engaged in the child’s identification process. 

The unmistakable purpose of the UN’s GCM “Objectives” is to exploit immigration to cement the UN’s global governance agenda. This is starkly highlighted by “Objective 19: Create conditions for migrants and diasporas to fully contribute to sustainable development in all countries.” 

The UN wants to “harness the benefits of migration as a source of sustainable development.” The main goal is to: 

Ensure the full and effective implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development [. . .] by fostering and facilitating the positive effects of migration for the realization of all Sustainable Development Goals

The UN’s marked lack of any genuine concern for the predicament of refugees is bad enough but, when we then consider who it chooses as its “partners” to assist with its planned migration, the reality that dawns is stomach churning. 

Refugee Gov-Corp Technates

Titus Gebel is the former Chairman of the Board of the Patri Friedman’s Seasteading Institute—a joint project between Peter Thiel and Friedman—and a partner at NeWay Capital. He is the founder of Tipolis Inc and a leading investor in and legal advisor to Próspera, having previously acted as a legal advisor for the Honduran government’s original ZEDE program (see Part 1). 

In 2018, Gebel published Free Private Cities: Making Governments Compete For You. His book outlines how private corporations—i.e. Yarvin’s sovcorps—can provide “government as a service.” He suggested that customers should sign a contract in return for the governance they receive from their sovcorp. Governance providers, in various city-states, would compete for customers (citizens) who would be free to leave, subject to contract, if they didn’t like the private government service on offer in their zone (gov-corp Technate). 

It seems Gebel essentially plagiarised the NRx technocrat’s ideas, first put forward by Curtis Yarvin and Nick Land about a decade before Gebel took credit for his supposedly “completely new” gov-corp Technate model. Clearly an NRx technocrat, Gebel established Tripolis Inc—in the tax haven of Singapore—in order to create new models of innovative governance. Via Tripolis Inc, Gebel, and his coterie of angel investor partners, hope to become the “owner[s] and operator[s]” of their own International Cities:

International Cities are privately run communities, based on clear contracts, which provide, enable and facilitate opportunity and choice. International Cities will be established at multiple locations around the world. [. . .] International Cities build on the concept of Special Administrative Regions (SARs) and are the next evolution of Special Economic Zones (SEZs). [. . .] International Cities will be thriving hubs of business and innovation.

Special Administrative Regions (SARs) were formulated by the Chinese government under Deng Xiaoping as part of its “one country, two systems” policy. Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan were legally designated SARs by the Chinese government in the early 1980s. The intention was to provide regulatory autonomy to hopefully reunified territories, though Taiwan has yet to commit to reunification. That Gebel considers the larger SARs as “the next evolution” of SEZs speaks to the territorial ambitions of those pursuing the city-state agenda. 

Gebel is also an advisor to the Swiss-based Andan Foundation led by its founder Dr Christian H. Kälin (or Kaelin). The Andan Foundations explains its purpose: 

Andan leads private sector initiatives to support families fleeing their homes due to war, internal conflict, and climate change. It identifies and develops innovative, sustainable solutions. [. . .] Andan prioritizes projects that expand economic, financial, and political opportunities for both refugee populations and the communities that welcome them. Andan facilitates and propels partnerships between the private sector and UN agencies, governments, NGOs, and academic institutions concerned with refugees and migrants. 

Andan proposes a business that capitalises on the “opportunities” presented by refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants. The Foundation adds that its “main, long-term project is the Andan Free Global City project—or “International City” as Gebel would call it—which it says has the potential to “completely upend and reform how we deal with the growing global refugee and migration crisis”:

Today, the world is spending billions of dollars each year in dead-end, protracted refugee management with camps and urban settings. [. . .] We aim at no less than completely turn around the way we look at refugees and migrants. [. . .] What we need is again a safe harbour, a new place where refugees and other migrants forced to leave their homes receive the opportunity to live. [. . .] We need free Global Cities – autonomous, self-governed subnational entities that provide a safe environment. [. . .] We are also actively engaged with several governments around the world, as well as with a few major investors who are prepared to finance the establishment of the first free Global City, which will also provide a decent return on capital from private investors.

Kälin, an advisor to the Swiss government among others, suggests reading a 2022 article by Albert Steck to really get a feel for what he, Gebel and other international NRx technocrats are proposing:

[Kälin] sees his Andan Global City not only as a humanitarian project, but also as a profitable business idea. [. . .] In Kälin’s city [refugees] would be motivated workers and founders of businesses. [. . .] [Kälin is] in talks with representatives of the U.N. and the World Economic Forum. [. . .] The biggest challenge is finding a country that will provide an uninhabited or sparsely populated territory for an autonomous city, he says. [. . .] Initially, several tens of thousands of people could live there – with the prospect that it might ultimately become a city of millions. Private financing is therefore crucial to the success of such a large project, says entrepreneur Titus Gebel. [. . .] Gebel, who was born in Germany, is also the founder of the Free Cities Foundation, which works to establish special economic zones in various countries, following the example of Shenzhen in China or the European free cities in the Middle Ages. 

Like all NRx technocrat fronts, the Andan Foundation staunchly advocates digital ID and suggests that blockchain “has the potential to create new solutions for refugee and identification systems” and that digital ID, stored on a unified ledger, should be “directly accessible to refugees and immigrants.” Once the refugee’s digital twin is operational, the refugees can serve as “motivated workers” in the Free Global City—gov-corp Technate. Presumably, should they be insufficiently motivated, their  access to money and food “could be frozen” and they could be “locked out of all doors” to essential services until they rediscover the correct motivation. 

Christian Kälin is also the Chairman of Henley & Partners, a UK based consultancy that specialises in a lucrative venture which Kälin claims to have “pioneered.” Henley & Partners touts itself as “the world’s foremost experts in investment migration and citizenship-by-investment.” 

Serving a clientele of “internationally mobile entrepreneurs and investors,” Henley & Partners (H&P) says that it helps “high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals” to obtain “bespoke residence and citizenship by investment.” Essentially, Kälin and H&P advises “ultra-high-net-worth individuals”—including oligarchs—where to invest in order to buy residency visas and citizenship and then manages the application process for them. 

The history of “citizenship-by-investment” (CBI) schemes is not very edifying. For example, Paolo Zampolli, President Trump’s global envoy for special partnerships, was evidently involved in a seemingly corrupt CBI scheme that sold Dominican Republic residency to Chinese billionaires, such as Ng Lap Seng, who were under investigation by the UN for bribing UN officials. John Ashe, the former president of the UN General Assembly, was also suspected of involvement but died in an extremely bizarre bar-bell “accident” shortly before he was due to testify in the case. 

Kälin has been dubbed the “Passport King” for his pioneering efforts in the CBI field. However, according to US-based Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), H&P has been involved in numerous corrupt CBI schemes. For instance, in the Caribbean nation of the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis between 2006 and 2013. 

The St. Kitts and Nevis Sugar Industry Diversification Foundation (SIDF) was “set up in 2006 to move the island economy away from dependence on sugar.” The SIDF turned agricultural land into development land. The purchase of territory was funded by the government and H&P’s “high-net-worth” clients seeking residency in St. Kitts and Nevis, many of whom had criminal ties or were wanted in various jurisdictions. 

Money from the SIDF fund was then directed to invest in companies that Kälin was closely associated with. H&P insisted there was no conflict of interest. The SIDF became inoperative around 2017 and, with important agricultural land lost and no sign of any return on the government’s SIDF investment, the OCCRP noted that the “ultimate losers were the people of St. Kitts and Nevis.”

Kälin was seemingly the financier behind the Strategic Communications Laboratories Group’s (SCL’s) 2010 re-election campaign for then St. Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Denzil Douglas. In 2018, an interim UK parliamentary investigatory report issued by the powerful Digital, Media, Culture and Sports Committee (DMCSC) noted: 

211. We were told, behind much of SCL Elections’ campaigning work was the hidden hand of Christian Kalin, Chairman of Henley and Partners, who arranged for investors to supply the funding to pay for campaigns, and then organised SCL to write their manifesto and oversee the whole campaign process. In exchange [. . .] Henley and Partners would gain exclusive passport rights for that country, under a citizenship-by-investment (CBI) programme.[. . .] Christian Kalin [has] been described as having a ‘Faustian pact’. With the exclusive passport rights came a government that would be conducive to Mr. Kalin and his clients. 

The British defence contractor SCL is the parent company of the notorious Cambridge Analytica (CA)that was widely accused of manipulating the 2016 US presidential elections and the UK “BREXIT” referendum on leaving the European Union (EU). The CA operation also illegitimately acquired the data of millions of Facebook users. Hence, the UK parliamentary investigation. 

CA, and thus SCL, is evidently connected to Peter Thiel’s Palantir. As CA’s suspected election manipulation, and what was tantamount to data theft, came under international scrutiny, Palantir disavowed that connection. But, when the New York Times revealed that one of its employees—Palantir business manager Alfredas Chmieliauskas—had worked with CA to form “behavioural profiles” of voting social media users, Palantir changed its statement and said Mr Chmieliauskas was not acting on Palantir’s behalf at the time, though he was a Palantir employee throughout the period. 

H&P’s CBI schemes were not limited to the Caribbean. They have reportedly been found to be wholly corrupt in Cyprus, for instance. When, in 2017, Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia started to expose H&B’s involvement in Malta’s corrupt Individual Investor Programme (IIP)—Malta’s CBI scheme—subsequent inquiry hearings revealed emails indicating that H&P instigated a Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation (SLAPP) against her. It seems H&P intended to file the lawsuit in the UK because they wanted a “sympathetic judge.” Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was also instrumental in reporting the Panama Papers, was assassinated in a car bombing in Malta in October 2017. 

More recently, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled the Maltese CBI scheme illegal. As an EU member state, a Maltese passport provided some questionable “ultra-high-income individuals” with EU citizenship. It is not without justification that the ECJ characterised CBI schemes, including those run by H&B, as making “the acquisition of nationality a mere commercial transaction.” 

Kälin, who conceded that some H&B clients were “problem[s]” who fell through H&B’s claimed “due diligence” checks, was undeterred by the ECJ ruling. He was enthused by the global expansion of CBI schemes and, in particular, the Trump administration’s plan to issue permanent residency visas to anyone who can afford the $5 million price tag. If he wants to move to the US, Kälin could certainly afford a US “gold card.” 

Fours years earlier, In 2021, numerous hedge funds faced potential ruin as a result of the GameStop short squeeze. When Reddit users noticed the mass shorting of stock in the the GameStop chain of high-street stores, they apparently spiked demand for the stock and pushed the price up by coordinating large-scale stock purchases. Thus leaving those with short positions—betting the stock price would fall—exposed to enormous losses. Through his company Arnova Capital, Christian Kälin consequently made a fortune on the GameStop stock his company held. He also accurately predicted, before any WHO announcement of a worldwide pandemic, that energy prices would soar during the pseudopandemic. Kälin’s 2000% ROI on his initial investment in Arnova Capital is truly remarkable. 

The Andan Foundation, founded by Kälin and advised by Gebel, that seeks to profit from refugee migration by establishing Free Global Cities, is a “long-standing” partner of the United Nations. The goal of the partnership is to “propel and facilitate the private sector’s involvement,” in managing international refugee migration with a view to create “public and private initiatives that create long-term solutions for refugees.” 

The appalling stench of neocolonialism exudes from every part of the UN’s global migration policy agenda. The oligarch-led UN public-private partnership is implementing a strategy that aims to exploit migrants and refugees to achieve UN objectives. There is no serious attempt to do anything to address the problems that cause mass migration. The migrant is simply a “human resource” to be identified, stamped and relocated into communities the world over in order to achieve UN policy targets. 

The UN wants to construct a global network smart-city gov-corp Technates because that too will better facilitate the rollout of its global governance; it has formed partnerships with NRx technocrats who want to use the displaced as a workforce and who view refugee “residency” in their gov-corp Technates as a “profitable business idea;” the UN is supporting and encouraging the national governments to hand over territory to oligarch investors in preparation for its New Urban Agenda, and the UN wants all lives, including those of refugees and economic migrants, to be controlled by digital technology linked to the digital ID of their digital twin. 

The networks, technological systems, and investment “pipelines” are in place to enable gov-corp Technate ultra-high-net-worth “founders” to buy citizenship, should they wish, and set up gov-corp Technates either by investing in SEZs or smart-city developments already underway. In 2024, the UNHCR estimated that there were 123.2 million displaced people seeking refuge. Clearly, NRx technocrats like Titus Gebel and Christian Kälin hope to provide said refuge for a profitable return. 

Gov-corp Technates in the United States

In 2023, on the US election campaign trail, calling it a “quantum leap,” Donald Trump proposed initially constructing ten “Freedom Cities” in the US. As reported by Bloomberg: 

The end game is audacious: High-tech company towns free from state law and most federal rules—including the Internal Revenue Code, major environmental laws like the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act; worker protections like the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Act; and the Affordable Care Act.

There are currently around 300 SEZs in the US and the potential for expansion of the Freedom City concept in the US is already marked. The Freedom City idea, though it provides the same SEZ regulatory advantages to multinational corporations, stands apart somewhat from other SEZ initiatives. The Freedom Cities will be constructed on parcels of US territory sold-off directly to private investors. 

Initially, the Trump administration tried to sell-off US territory to oligarchs through public land sale provisions included in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. Due to public and political opposition, the public land sale clauses were removed prior to the Bill passing. The NRx technocrats behind the Trump administration are, however, determined. They are now trying to use Trump’s proposed Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) for the same purpose. 

Inherent in the US SWF plan is the intention to liquidate—sell-off—US public land (territory) to raise capital. It remains to be seen if this line of attack will work where the Big Beautiful Bill assault failed. There is a powerful international network, led by US NRx technocrats, exploring every avenue to get the gov-corp Technates—Freedom Cities—built in the US.

Peter Thiel protégé, and an NRx technocrat in his own right, Sam Altman, stood close to Oracle’s Larry Ellison, SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son and President Trump when Trump announced his administration’s Stargate Project. 

According to Altman’s OpenAI: 

The Stargate Project is a new company which intends to invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States. [. . .] The initial equity funders in Stargate are SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, and MGX. SoftBank and OpenAI are the lead partners for Stargate, with SoftBank having financial responsibility and OpenAI having operational responsibility. Masayoshi Son will be the chairman. Arm, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle, and OpenAI are the key initial technology partners. [. . .] All of us look forward to continuing to build and develop AI—and in particular AGI [artificial generative intelligence]—for the benefit of all of humanity. We believe that this new step is critical on the path, and will enable creative people to figure out how to use AI to elevate humanity.

“All of us” refers to the global NRx technocrat community of which Sam Altman, Larry Ellison, and Masayoshi Son (Masayoshi Yasumoto) are members. The intention to use AI to “elevate humanity” means to meld us with technology and turn is into programmable “technoplastic beings.” 

Masayoshi Son is the head of the technology investment holding company SoftBank Group (SBG) which has capitalised handsomely on its investments in Chinese technology firms such as Alibaba. This is largely due to its control of the Chinese social media firm TikTok, ByteDance, the largest social media company in the world by revenue, is currently valued at around $330 billion. This makes SoftBank’s 4% stake in ByteDance worth roughly $13.2 billion. 

It remains to be seen if Larry Ellison’s $14 billion deal to buy out ByteDance’ stake in TikTok’s US operation will help Masayoshi Son’s to increase his ByteDance holdings. Certainly, it should provide him with a healthy dividend. Trump has spoken about “four or five world-class investors” profiting from the deal, but both he and Ellison have been coy about officially naming them.  

Project Stargate was launched to much fanfare, in keeping with the rhetoric in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, as the US was supposedly set on a course to outcompete China’s DeepSeek AI development program, which is key to the Hangzhou City-Brain project. Closer scrutiny of Stargate, however, brings the whole notion of competition into question. 

Prior to the Stargate launch, in September 2024, Blackrock, its owned subsidiary Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), Microsoft, and MGX announced their Global AI Infrastructure Investment Partnership (GAIIP) to to fuel AI innovation. This was a worldwide venture but there was a focus on supporting AI innovation in the US. The GAIIP implementing partners included NVIDIA. 

As a founding member of GAIIP, UAE-based AI investor MGX is also a “lead partner” in Stargate. MGX is owned by the sovereign wealth fund (Mubadala) of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi ruled by former UAE president Sheik Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Shortly after the January 2025 launch of Stargate, in February, Sam Altman visited Abu Dhabi to discuss finance for Stargate with MGX. This resulted in an initial, accelerated $6.6 billion Stargate start-up investment round. 

BlackRock, and notably its GIP, receive billions of dollars of private equity investment from China’s state-run investment arms such as the State Administration of Foreign Assets and the China Investment Corporation (CIC). As Trump ramped up his allegedly tough competitive stance against China, by April 2025 the Chinese financiers were pulling back on their enormous US private equity commitments. Doubtless, this was much to the chagrin of Blackrock, MGX and other GAIIP partners. 

DeepSeek AI developers in China were reliant on the US-based multinational NVIDIA’s H20 processors which are manufactured under license in Taiwan. NVIDIA is a “key technology partner” of Stargate. Having initially “banned” H20 sales to China, reportedly following some meetings with Jensen Huang—co-founder and CEO of GAIIP partner NVIDIA—the Trump administration started lifting the H20 export ban, more or less as soon as it had been imposed, in April 2025. This later became the official position as, it seems, the initial ban was a mistake. 

In May 2025, Trump was dispatched to Abu Dhabi where he signed a deal to supply US AI-chips, including NVIDIA processors, to the Abu Dhabi AI digital transformation hub. An associated agreement was made for US tech firms to collaborate on AI development in the Emirate and the wider UAE. Trump called the deal the “U.S.-U.A.E. A.I. Acceleration Partnership.” 

In what was clearly a deal sweetener, just a couple of weeks prior to the Trump-UAE deal, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy, met Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Sardinia. Sheik Tahnoon is the Abu Dhabi Emir’s brother, UAE National Security Advisor, and CEO of MGX (Mubadala). Sheik Tahnoon agreed to invest $2 billion in World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency venture owned by the Witkoff and Trump families. 

Though this looks like blatant corruption, the official fact-checkers have declared everything unimpeachable and have defined the truth for us. Any suggestions that this chain of events clearly evidences high level political corruption have all been officially labelled as “baseless rumours.”  

Fact-checking heavyweight Snopes reliably informed us: 

While the two deals happened within two weeks and there was an overlap of people who were involved in them, there was no evidence the first, between MGX and World Liberty Financial, was a direct bribe for the second deal, which involved the chips.

So, thankfully, the approved fact-checkers have answered all of our questions for us and that’s an end to the matter.

In the media-spun war of words, and that is evidently all it is, China has now reportedly banned the import of the NVIDIA RTX Pro 6000D—the successor to the H20. But China doesn’t need to import processors from the US because the UAE-China AI partnership, specifically the Abu Dhabi digital transformation hub, has a Trump administration agreement in place for the supply of the processors and it serves as a “crucial base for Chinese AI firms.” 

The purported Stargate “competition” with DeepSeek AI looks more like a “partnership.” So what else might be going on here? 

When Forbes reported the launch of Stargate on January 2025, its journalists said the “details of the venture are unclear at this early stage.” Why they made this claim is perplexing. The details were not unclear. In November 2024, Sam Altman’s OpenAI, the driving force behind Stargate, announced its “blueprint for U.S. AI infrastructure.” 

AI in America: OpenAI’s Economic Blueprint, is Stargate mapped out. This was published before the official White House Stargate announcement and there was no need for any journalist to be “unclear” about any aspect of it. 

The “Blueprint” talks about the need to merge “private-sector vision and innovation with public-sector enlightenment to unlock the new technology;” a plan for “building the infrastructure needed to produce enough energy;” investment to develop “the next generation of energy technology, including sustainable sources such as fission, fusion, and other promising technologies;” and it notes the need for “common-sense rules” to help “innovators thrive by encouraging investment [. . .] and greater freedom.” 

The NRx technocrat “Blueprint” also defines the alleged need for Freedom Cities: 

We need a foundational strategy to ensure that investment in infrastructure benefits the most people possible and maximizes access to AI. This includes policies and initiatives that encourage rather than stifle developers; support a thriving AI-ready workforce and ecosystems of labs, start-ups and larger companies; and secure America’s leadership on AI into the future, such as:

AI Economic Zones, created by local, state and the federal government together with industry, that significantly speed up the permitting processes for building AI infrastructure like new solar arrays, wind farms and nuclear reactors.

These will be what Bloomberg calls “towns free from state law and most federal rules.” Just as the plan for Freedom Cities in the US preceded Stargate, the UK’s deal with Blackrock to develop  “freeports” in the UK (see Part 1) had preceded the rollout of the NRx technocrats’ UK Stargate project. It is the same NRx technocrat network imposing the same SEZ-based independent jurisdiction model wherever you look. 

Mark Lutter, for example, serves on the board of the Frontier Foundation that was set up to promote the Freedom City initiative in the US. As we discussed in Part 1, Lutter is also the founder and Executive Director of the Charter Cities Institute which states it is proud to support the development of Freedom Cities in the US.Titus Gebel, who wants to profit from migrants and refugees, works closely with Lutter. As previously noted, Lutter served as the head economist for NeWAY Capital and Gebel is a NeWay Capital Partner. 

Nick Allen, President of the Frontier Foundation and Lutter’s colleague, is very eager to make use of Trump’s SWF grift and toldWIREDthat federal land close to cities like Boise, Idaho; Grand Junction, Colorado; and Redmond, Oregon would be great places to build gov-corp Technates. 

Speaking on behalf of the Frontier Foundation, Allen added:

If we’re able to get a legislative transfer of land from the US government to make a public-private partnership, or a trust, or even a private corporation, then it’s a lower cost of capital. [. . .] There’s so much capital and there’s so much political will, but yet there’s an inability to develop these [frontier] technologies. And the inability comes from lack of space and too many regulations.

NeWay capital established the Freedom Cities Coalition (FCC) which promotes the idea of Freedom Cities as “Cities Without Limits.” This means towns and cities where there are no regulation and oligarchs are free to do what they please. In addition to NeWay Capital, the FCC is also backed by Pronomos Capital led by NRx Technocrats Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and Joe Lonsdale. 

The FCC claims that Freedom Cities or, in Stargate terminology, “AI Economic Zones,” represent “America’s boldest solution to unleash our nation’s full potential.” They will be constructed in “zones of regulatory clarity” which will be “specially designated areas” where “entrepreneurs” can “move at the speed of human ingenuity” without having to bother with any overbearing federal laws or regulations. 

The FCC adds:

Freedom Cities are more than just economic zones. [. . .] Imagine communities where housing is abundant and affordable, [. . .] where breakthrough technologies move from lab to market at lightning speed because innovators are free to innovate. This is how we’ll overcome stagnation, outcompete China, and create a new American century. Freedom Cities give us the chance to prove once again what Americans can achieve when we’re unshackled from outdated systems and empowered to build the future.

With regard to where the Freedom Cities will be built, the FCC notes:

28% Of US land is federally owned and ready for innovative development.

If the Trump administration’s SWF plans proceed, this will open the door for NRx technocrats and other oligarchs to buy up US territory to build their gov-corp Technates. The political will certainly appears to be there. 

Trump’s long-time economic advisor Stephen Moore supports the city-state model. Moore is the former chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, which was behind Project 2025’s Promise to America. 

The Trump administration came to power promising to tackle the pernicious influence of “American elites” and was therefore eager to distance itself from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 “Promise,” which was funded by the Koch and Bradley families, among other so-called American elites. Regardless, most of Trump’s Executive Orders, issued when he came to power for the second time, were practically written by the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. 

The same group of American elites are also behind the State Policy Network (SPN) that proposed the “Compact For America” shortly before Trump’s first US election win in 2016. What Trump termed Freedom Cities in 2023, the Compact for America, whose National Spokesman was Stephen Moore, called Prosperity Districts in 2015. The terminology has changed, but the intention to create gov-corp Technates in the US has not. 

As we discussed in Part 1, just as the “authority” is formed to oversee the independent jurisdiction of a Special Economic Zone (SEZ), so the Prosperity District (PD) would be the authority that rules within the jurisdictional boundaries permitted by amenable “Prosperity States” within the US. 

Once approved, the PD would wield policing powers, it would control all “municipal services” through public-private partnerships, and set all regulations within its jurisdiction. Just as with the “authority” ruling an SEZ, the PD would expand by petitioning the willing State to expand itself: 

The formation or expansion of the PD replaces, within its boundaries, all state laws above the baseline of the state constitution, common law, criminal law and existing compacts. The PDs created within Prosperity States liberate residents, transforming states into strongholds of free markets, federalism and limited government once again. 

Safe to say, Trump did not come up with the notion of the Freedom City. It is simply the rebranding for the oligarchs’ Prosperity District idea. The gov-corp Technate has been the NRx technocrat’s favoured path to corporate “prosperity” and social control for more than a decade at this point. 

During its first term, the Trump administration tried to put Stephen Moore on the board of the Federal Reserve to ensure favourable monetary policy suited to the formation of Prosperity Districts. The Democratic wing of the Establishment reacted strongly against Moore’s possible appointment and the bid did not succeed. With their second Trump term underway, the NRx Technocrats—the Silicon Valley-based new breed of American elites—have joined forces with their more traditional oligarch partners for the same ends: to build Freedom Cities, Prosperity Districts, SEZs, gov-corp Technates, call them what you like. 

The US intelligence community is also onboard. This isn’t surprising given that NRx technocrat’s corporations, such as Peter Thiel’s Palantir and Larry Ellison’s Oracle, have deep ties with US intelligence. 

America’s Frontier Fund (AFF), is a supposedly a “nonprofit” venture capital operation with a nonprofit foundation, backed by Bilderbergers Eric Schmidt and Peter Thiel. The AFF is essentially an impact investment cut-out of the US intelligence and national security apparatus. It was founded and is currently led by Gilman Louie. He is the “former” CEO of the CIA’s investment arm In-Q-Tel (1999 – 2006) and thereafter acted as a defence, national security and intelligence advisor for the US government. Notably, Louie was at the helm of In-Q-Tel when it “accelerated” the startup called Palantir.

The AFF’s aim is to harness the “promise of frontier technology.” This is the same “frontier technology” that the UN’s “New Urban Agenda” is based upon, with a view of constructing smart city-states the world over. It is not a coincidence that it is also precisely the same “frontier technology” that the NRx technocrats behind the AFF want to use to enslave humanity. It is, after all, part of the same, global gov-corp Technate plan.  

The global agenda, moving us toward digital slavery, is impregnable and is not something any of us can vote are way out of. Our only realistic option is not to comply with the adoption of the “smart” frontier technology people like Gilman Louie, and his intelligence linked network of NRx technocrats want us to adopt. 

This entire, global, gov-corp Technate project could not be more anti-democratic. The Dark Enlightenment and the Technocracy favoured by the NRx technocrats represent the zenith of totalitarian ideology. Their oligarch partners enthusiasm to adopt the same Patchwork of city-states is equally born from the desire to control everyone and everything. 

Schmidt, Thiel, and Louie were instrumental in setting up the AFF under the previous Biden administration. It would be a mistake to imagine the global agenda to entrap us in smart city-states is a partisan issue. The squabbles we see, such as Democrat opposition to the appointment of Moore to the Fed, are just that: petty squabbles among the ranks.

In 2024, the Future Union, which seeks to “fuse private sector capitalism” with political authority, declared Gilman Louie the “top investor supporting democracy.” Louie narrowly pipped other egalitarian, democracy-loving NRx technocrat investors, like Peter Thiel, Eric Shmidt, and Marc Andreessen, to the top prize. Were the intention of their accelerationist investment strategies not so malevolent we could perhaps laugh at the irony. 

City-States Without Limits – Part 2.

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But whatever they are called, they have a defined set of common characteristics. All of these emerging city-states are centrally planned and designed to maximise the use of technology. Some are already close to becoming completed “smart cities.” Many of these new city-states, as yet undeclared, have been given independent jurisdiction with varying degrees of autonomy from the nation-states in which they reside. 

Perhaps their most striking shared trait is their universal commitment to implement global governance policy initiatives. To this end, many nascent city-states have already joined city-based global governance networks. 

Their development is being driven by a public-private partnership investment strategy that is encouraged and supported at the global governance level. Some are currently being built in so called “Special Economic Zones” (SEZs). Other announced city-state developments, such as Freedom Cities in the US, bear all the hallmarks of SEZs. The global proliferation of Special Economic Zones, most notably those with “residential spaces,” is rapidly expanding the potential locations for yet more city-state projects. There are already thousands. 

Conspicuous philosophical and political theories, and the city-state landscape forming before our eyes, redefines our concept of global governance. The notion of phasing out the purported “sovereignty” of nation-states is now firmly embedded in the strategies to develop a new kind of intergovernmental structure. One in which the city predominates. The concept of a worldwide network of privatized, corporate city-state “kingdoms” has been embraced and is viewed as the best and most expedient method both for enslaving humanity to a centralised digital surveillance and behavioural control grid, and for establishing firm global governance. 

Gov-Corp Technates

In a previous two-part investigation for Unlimited Hangout—The Dark MAGA Gov-Corp Technate Part 1 and Part 2—we explored the so-called philosophy of the Dark Enlightenment and the sociopolitical theory of Technocracy. We saw how these two concepts overlap and witnessed how they have captured the imaginations of a group of Silicon Valley oligarchs—Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, etc.,—who have effectively seized control of the Trump administration. It is recommended that you read those essays to get a perspective on some of the concepts we will expand on here. 

The Dark Enlightenment was a philosophical treatise first published by British political theorist and philosopher Nick Land in 2012. It incorporated the ideas espoused by US “thinker,” tech entrepreneur and blogger Curtis Yarvin. Publication of the Dark Enlightenment in the UK and Yarvin’s theories, published in the US, combined to lay the alleged intellectual foundations of what has become known as the Neoreactionary movement (NRx).  

In the Dark Enlightenment, Land acknowledged the influence of Peter Thiel on the growth of his own ideas. Specifically, Land referenced Thiel’s 2009 article “The Education of a Libertarian” as formative. Curtis Yarvin describes Thiel as “fully enlightened,” and is a close associate of Thiel’s. Thiel’s Founders Fund financed Yarvin’s tech startup ventures. 

In essence, the Dark Enlightenment proposes that public sector government should be replaced with a form of private sector government. Privatized, corporate realms should be ruled by the CEO “TechnoKings” of “sovereign corporations” (sovcorps) as dictatorships. The realms can then be linked to form what Yarvin termed a “Patchwork” of realms. In 2008, describing his notion of the “Patchwork,” Yarvin wrote: 

The basic idea of Patchwork is that, as the crappy governments we inherited from history are smashed, they should be replaced by a global spiderweb of tens, even hundreds, of thousands of sovereign and independent mini-countries, each governed by its own joint-stock corporation without regard to the residents’ opinions.

Yarvin was obviously floating the idea of breaking up nations-states into private fiefdoms where the people living in them have no voice, no individual sovereignty, and are powerless. The ideas of the NRx are extremely authoritarian. The NRx model of “government” is disassociated from any notion of politics as we understand it. As Peter Thiel wrote in his influential 2009 article, the objective is “to find an escape from politics in all its forms.” 

It is worth pausing here to emphasise an important point. Neither the NRx nor the technocrats—we’ll cover them shortly—present concepts that fit easily into our comprehension of existing sociopolitical systems. Their intention is to eradicate everything we associate with so-called “representative democracy” and replace it with technological social control systems unlike anything we are currently familiar with, though more of us are starting to grasp what it portends. 

For example, in order to access the realm’s currency, the “customer”—there are no citizens in an NRx technocrat run city-state—will need digital ID. Digital ID linked to digital currency will enable all the assets of every “customer” to be recorded and maintained on the realm’s unified ledger. The unified ledger will use Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to record all customers’ assets. Consequently, those who control access to the ledger effectively have control of every customer’s life. 

Imagining what life was like for oppressed peasants living in the feudal societies of Medieval Europe is probably the best way to visualise the future the darkly enlightened technocrats have in mind for us. Nothing could be further removed from libertarian principles.

The leading NRx technocrats are not the only members of, what we might call, the parasite class who wish to enslave us with digital technology. Nor are they the only oligarchs who want to transform our international polity into a network of city-states overseen by a firm global governance structure. Indeed, the NRx technocrats’ plans have succeeded to this point precisely because they gel with the objectives of the global oligarchy, of which they are a part. 

Unfortunately, because the NRx technocrats propose doing away with government and exiting all political systems, this has led some libertarians to imagine that the NRx technocrat’s model is preferable to existing sociopolitical systems. Indeed, NRx influencers like Thiel are happy to be perceived as libertarian and eager to promote the idea that they are. Presumably, they do so because what they actually advocate is much closer to fascism than to libertarianism. 

Telling people you want them to live in a corporate controlled technological dictatorship is not an easy sales pitch. Cloaking yourself in faux libertarianism and casting yourselves as the opponents of the globalist oligarchy neatly covers the deceit. 

Land posited that gov-corp would operate on the national scale to run “an efficient, attractive, vital, clean, and secure country.” Though the relationship between gov-corp and sovcorps isn’t specified by the NRx (anywhere), given that Yarvin’s notion of sovcorp realms is based upon smashing nation-states to pieces, Land’s idea of a “secure country” run by gov-corp suggests some sort of private ruling body overseeing the “Patchwork” of sovcorp realms. Gov-corp global governance if you like. 

Peter Thiel is a leading proponent of the Dark Enlightenment and an advocate for the ideas of the NRx. His fellow tech-oligarch Elon Musk, who, like Thiel, heavily backs the Trump administration, avidly promotes the implementation of Technocracy. Often described simply as a sociopolitical system controlled by relevant experts, as Musk well knows, Technocracy is much more than that. 

Technocracy is a comprehensive centralised social and behavioural control system which dictates every aspect of what genuine “technocrats,” like Musk, call “the social mechanism.” Human beings are reduced to programmable automatons or “human engines” whose actions can be controlled through the surveillance of the monetary system and the economy, and through the centralised management and allocation of all resources. 

Technocrats assume that there is no problem that technology cannot resolve. Crucially, Technocracy relies upon a redesigned monetary system that maximises the use of technology to monitor and manipulate every transaction. By doing so, the “function” of the human engine in the “social mechanism” can be programmed. All human behavior is regulated, permitted or restricted in a Technocracy. By overseeing the distribution of all resources, combined with firm conditions placed upon all economic activity, the behaviour of every business and every individual across the entire social mechanism—we would say across the whole of “society”—can supposedly be precisely engineered by the technocrats in a Technocracy. 

The original founders of the Technocracy movement in the US envisaged the replacement of all nation-states on a continental scale and the establishment of a North American Technate. A “Technate” would be run by a “Continental Board” who would select a “Continental Director” from within their ranks to rule the entire Technate as a technological dictatorship. 

Musk’s own family history is steeped in the Technocracy tradition and he has openly declared his ambition to establish Technocracy. To give an example, in an October 2024 exchange on Musk’s ‘X’ social media platform (formerly Twitter) between Musk and Guillaume Verdon, Verdon said “The Network State for Mars is being formed before our eyes.” Musk enthusiastically replied, “The Mars Technocracy,” to which Verdon gleefully responded “Count me in.” 

Verdon is the founder of the Effective Accelerationism (e/acc) philosophical wing of the NRx and a tech entrepreneur who established the AI hardware startup Extropic in 2022. Like many members of the NRx, Verdon also desires Technocracy. There are notable similarities between Dark Enlightenment philosophy—if you can call it that—and the sociopolitical and socioeconomic theories inherent in Technocracy. 

Both the NRx and the technocrats believe that technology is the panacea for every problem and that society—whatever they might choose to call it—should be governed through the use of technology. Therefore, in today’s technological age, both the NRx and the modern technocrats advocate a form of government largely administered by artificial intelligence (AI). 

The NRx and the technocrats champion oligarchy—government by a small group of powerful people. The NRx posits that “realms” should be controlled by the CEO “TechnoKings” of a sovcorp, with the CEO of gov-corp apparently ruling the patchwork of realms. Similarly, technocrats think the Technate should be commanded by the “Continental Board” led by the “Continental Director.” Both the NRx and the technocrats want to remove all semblance of democratic oversight and establish technological oligarch-led dictatorships. 

The NRx and the technocrats consider humanity worthless and expendable. For technocrats, we are “human animals” to be trained or controlled like a dog or a vehicle. For the NRx we are the “unthinking demos” whose individual sovereignty should be treated “with derision.” The NRx would like to transform us into cyborgs so that we can be programmed and they want to psychologically imprison whomever they deem “undesirable” as “bee larva” waxed in a virtual cell. Modern technocrats, such as Musk, consider us meatsacks, nothing more than “a biological bootloader for digital superintelligence.” 

Verdon, alongside Nick Land and others, is considered among the patron saints of “Techno-Optimism” by leading NRx advocate and Silicon Valley oligarch Marc Andreessen. In 2023, he published the Techno-Optimist Manifesto. In his Manifesto, Andreessen wrote: 

We believe that there is no material problem — whether created by nature or by technology — that cannot be solved with more technology. [. . .] Combine technology and markets and you get what Nick Land has termed the techno-capital machine, the engine of perpetual material creation, growth, and abundance. [. . .] We believe in accelerationism — the conscious and deliberate propulsion of technological development. [. . .] We believe Artificial Intelligence is our alchemy, our Philosopher’s Stone.

All NRx devotees, such as Andreessen, consider themselves accelerationists. They believe in the aggressive application of Joseph Schumpeter’s “Creative Destruction.” In his 1942 work Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, Schumpeter described Creative Destruction as: 

The opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, and the organizational development from the craft shop to such concerns as U.S. Steel illustrate the same process of industrial mutation—if I may use that biological term—that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism. [P. 83]

Schumpeter was describing an effect of capitalism: the tendency for technology to revolutionise and destroy old markets by replacing them with new ones. Think how the terrestrial television and radio advertising markets have been replaced by the online digital advertising market.  

Schumpeter realised that this capitalist evolution of markets has wider social implications. As the leaders of large monopolies and dominant industries exert sociopolitical influence, Creative Destruction implies more than just a revolution of commercial activity. It shifts the sociopolitical and socioeconomic order too. Again, consider the waning influence of Television and the increasing influence of social media. 

Accelerationists like Andreessen and Thiel, adopting Land’s Dark Enlightenment, see Creative Destruction not just as an effect of capitalism but as a tool to propel the evolution of capitalism, rendering capitalism itself a controllable revolutionary force. They can achieve this, they assert, by investing in whatever they consider to be a disruptive technology with the potential to change society. In so doing, they believe they can manipulate and control the development of new sociopolitical and socioeconomic systems and bring us closer to being ruled by the corporate monarchy they wish to form. 

The “we” Andreessen refers to in his Techno Optimist Manifesto is a group consisting of Silicon Valley oligarchs—of which Andreessen is one—alongside Thiel, Musk, Sam Altman, Palmer Luckey, Larry Ellison, Joe Lonsdale, and David Sacks, etc. Joining them are a gaggle of NRx acolytes and aspiring oligarchs, like Balaji Srinivasan and Guillaume Verdon. Working together to shape the policies and initiatives of the current Trump administration, this core group is applying the Dark Enlightenment and installing Technocracy in the US. But the US isn’t the only nation-state undergoing such oligarch-led “transformation.” 

Though it is a stretch to call Land and Yarvin’s ramblings “philosophy,” we could say that the Dark Enlightenment provides the philosophical underpinning for the move to a system of city-states. Technocracy outlines the social control mechanism—the operating system of the city-state if you like—that will surveil and engineer our behaviour should we find ourselves trapped in one of their corporatised city realms: gov-corp Technates. 

The NRx technocrats’ ideas overlap with the blueprint already being implemented at the intergovernmental level by their senior globalist oligarch brethren—and they are overwhelmingly, though not exclusively, men. The global oligarchy wants to install a “Multipolar World Order” (MWO) as the final bureaucratic redesign of global governance prior to instigating firm global government—sometimes referred to as the New World Order—overseeing a patchwork of city-state realms. 

This may all read like very bold claims, but we’ll explore the evidence demonstrating the fact in these two articles. 

The Orbital Authority Sham

Certainly leading NRx “thinker” Curtis Yarvin is fully onboard with a proposed system of global dictatorship ruling a patchwork of city-state realms: the ultimate gov-corp Technate. In his 2024 piece “The Orbital Authority,” Yarvin metaphorically argues, as is his want, that weaponising space will make all forms of terrestrial warfare redundant. He posits that air, sea, and land forces will be rendered “obsolete” by the “Orbital Authority” that controls space weaponry and directs warfare from orbit. 

Bear in mind that NRx technocrats like Yarvin view AI as their “philosopher’s stone”—symbolizing material and spiritual transformation. They disconnect AI from humanity and perceive it as a separate entity, as a “superintelligent” consciousness. In his article, Yarvin wrote: 

Mars, god of war, is the father of all things. Orbit is the ultimate high ground. When we conquer orbit [. . .] we have conquered the Earth. [. . .] The most important task of any weapons system is to defend itself. Not only could a 21st-century [orbital weapons system] defeat a nuclear first strike, it could defeat any attempt to defeat the system itself. It would serve as a launch denial system. It would destroy any previously unannounced launch—rendering orbit a monopoly.

Evidently Yarvin envisages some sort of independent, autonomous, monopolistic AI “Orbital Authority.” Like the “father of all things” this weaponised superintelligence dominates the “ultimate high ground” to effectively conquer the Earth. 

Yarvin’s fellow NRx technocrat Nick Land has long argued that capitalism is a simulacrum for AI, by which he means a distinct “non-human” intelligence. Land came to this conclusion as a result of his unusual interpretation of one of the basic tenets of Austrian Economics. 

Formative Austrian Economist Friedrich Hayek observed that any market economy is an “information, processing system.” Austrian economists emphasise that individual actions and decisions drive markets and therefore, to a great extent, value is subjective (methodological individualism). Thus, for Austrian Economists, prices are the result of a decentralised information exchange at the whole capitalist economy scale. 

In 2011, shortly before he published the Dark Enlightenment, this led Land to conclude: 

What appears to humanity as the history of capitalism is an invasion from the future by an artificial intelligent space that must assemble itself entirely. 

Of course, this is not what Austrian Economists like Hayek argued. In their model, the information system is formed by price signals emanating from the needs and desires of individual human beings. Though the complexity of all signals in a large market economy is beyond the analysis of any one individual or bureaucracy (economic calculation problem), there is nothing “artificial” about it. The price system is not a separate self assembling entity, as Land wants to believe, but rather the product of human interactions. It is a distinctly “organic” system, for want of a better term.  

Sharing Land’s view that AI is, or will become, an independent entity beyond human intervention, in his 2024 article, Yarvin envisioned that “the Orbital Authority dominates, owns and controls the whole planet.” It is not difficult to appreciate that for Yarvin, Land and other NRx technocrats, “Orbital Authority” is a metaphor for ascendant, AI-controlled, automated and well-armed global governance systems. 

Advocates of the Dark Enlightenment have been developing AI weapons technology for decades. Thiel’s Palantir, for example, has seen its 2025 second quarter sales jump by 48% due, in part, to the success of its Lavender, Gospel, and “Where’s Daddy” AI targeting systems. These have been deployed, with Palantir’s assistance, by the Ukrainian and Israeli militaries. 

Because NRx technocrats like Musk, Land and Yarvin imagine AI to be a “superintelligence,” they present theories about the future of humanity that assume AI will inevitably become an independent, conscious entity that we will have no choice but to obey. They are certainly committed to engineering this future if they can. 

Yarvin’s figurative “god of war”—Orbital Authority—is a typical example of the circular reasoning frequently exhibited by NRx technocrats. They imbue AI with abilities it doesn’t possess and then advocate AI as a solution to humanity’s problems based upon their unfounded insistence that AI possesses said abilities.

In truth, before we get to Self-Aware AI—which the NRx technocrats claim is inevitable—AI developers first have to overcome a whole range of tricky problems to achieve Theory of Mind AI. As Theory of Mind AI is currently purely hypothetical, the assumption that Self-Aware or Superintelligent AI is imminent is highly questionable, to say the least. 

Indeed, we might wonder how it is possible for NRx technocrats to program a computer algorithm to be conscious when, as yet, no human being can define consciousness. As highlighted in March 2024 by Professor Arthur T. Johnson: 

[A] sufficient definition of the nature of consciousness has not yet been satisfactorily established. How the brain conjures conscious awareness from the electrical activity of billions of individual nerve cells remains one of the great unanswered questions of life. And what this consciousness actually means is not easy to define. Trying to extend whatever is known about consciousness in living beings to an AGI [artificial generative intelligence] would be difficult, if not unreasonable, at this time.

Ideologically, not rationally, setting AI as their “philosopher’s stone,” the NRx technocrats seek to establish an international “patchwork” of AI-managed “neostates,” though we can accurately refer to them as gov-corp Technates. This dispersed network, they contend, will decentralise and localise authority. 

Yarvin seemingly creates a paradox between decentralised authority and the absolute centralisation of all “Orbital Authority.” Such jarring contradictions are not uncommon for the NRx technocrats. 

Yarvin’s proposed Orbital Authority will ensure the “Patchwork” will flourish because military conflict between the city-states will become impotent, if not impossible, under the Orbital Authority’s watchful eye and its ability to destroy any aggressor. So, in Yarvin’s view, it matters not who controls the Orbital Authority, only that it exists. 

If you posit, as NRx technocrats do, that Orbital Authority—global government—will not be exercised by people but by the dispassionate logic of an AI “superintelligence,” then Orbital Authority is the great saviour protecting us from our own self-destructive urges. It is a “god” allowing us to decentralise into the Patchwork. Thus, sociopolitical decentralisation is enabled by the centralisation of all power and authority beyond humanity’s control. 

The metaphorical Orbital Authority for which Yarvin advocates is a sham concept and he admits as much in his own musings. 

Yarvin asks: 

Where does the Orbital Authority come from? Who creates this force? Who are the people who operate it? [. . .] All good questions. But this is one future I would want to live in.

Yarvin likes the idea of a single, logical dictatorship ruling the Earth for no other reason than it fits with his own ambition to establish a worldwide structure of city-state realms. He essentially argues that a cohesive, overarching AI world order with the power to annihilate humanity will lead humanity to “flourish” in a network of “thousands of independent sovereign states and city-states.” 

Yarvin casually dismisses the “good questions” he asks. The question of “who creates” and thus controls the imagined Orbital Authority ruling the entire patchwork planet is, he insinuates, of secondary importance. Like all NRx technocrats, Yarvin wants us to accept the fundamental principle that dictatorship is good. 

NRx technocrat oligarchs, like Thiel and Musk, say they are opposed to any form of world government. Thiel claims he views world government to be the manifestation of the Antichrist. Nonetheless, the question of who rules is of primary importance to the global cartel of oligarchs who have, for generations, been plotting to establish themselves as unchallenged world rulers. 

If, as NRx technocrats proclaim, they wish to avert world government, it appears their efforts to establish a patchwork of city-state realms is a monumental miscalculation. So much so, that we might suspect the NRx technocrat’s protestations are a ruse. Their globalist oligarch partners have been trying to construct exactly the same city-state network for decades, precisely because it better facilitates global governance and, thereafter, the move to global government—Orbital Authority. 

In reality Thiel, Musk, Andreessen, and Sacks et al. are members of the same global oligarchy. Thiel and Palantir co-founder and CEO Alex Karp, for example, are on the steering committee of the Bilderberg Group. Even the mainstream media concedes that the Bilderberg group has the authority to concentrate “control at the top of the Atlantic alliance [NATO].” A private oligarch network controlling NATO is approaching the Orbital Authority Yarvin imagines. Like Yarvin, it seems the mainstream media is only interested in the fact that private sector international authoritarianism exists, accepting its presence without question. 

In all likelihood, Yarvin, Land, Thiel, Musk and Andreessen, etc., know that AI is not a potentially independent, artificial god—though they pretend it is and that its arrival is unavoidable. Yarvin certainly seems to infer that AI is and will always be a technological tool controlled by human beings, some of whom have very specific agendas. 

As Yarvin reluctantly admits, the people who control his conceptualised “Orbital Authority” are not irrelevant. On the contrary, this is the key question that should concern us all. 

The Decentralisation to Recentralisation Trick

NRx technocrat Balaji Srinivasan explained the decentralisation to recentralisation trick in his 2022 book The Network State: How To Start a New Country. The decentralisation of a patchwork of realms enables what he calls the recentralisation of authority. 

Srinivasan outlines how a network archipelago—synonymous with an NRx realm—could initially form as an online community. This networked community, comprising of people who perhaps own property or land (physical assets), would form “physical nodes” that could then be linked together to form “a set of digitally connected physical territories distributed around the world”—the network archipelago.  

Importantly, though the nodes on the network archipelago are linked to physical assets (property or land for example) they form a digital network—via the unified ledger recording all assets—to “seamlessly link the online and offline worlds.” Once the archipelago is established, the community would crowdfund the acquisition of more physical assets and territory, fund construction and finance expansion to form private “enclaves.” 

Srinivasan wrote: 

With the internet, we can digitally sew these disjoint[sic] enclaves together into a new kind of polity that achieves diplomatic recognition: a network state.

The network state, then, appears to be an international, dispersed or decentralised neighborhood of like-minded individuals who want to break free from the traditional state system. This is an intriguing proposition that appeals to libertarians who value decentralisation as a means of tackling the problems caused by the centralised concentration of political authority: wars and genocides, for example. 

Srinivasan says that NRx technocrats like himself aren’t communists imagining a Utopia but rather “technologists that believe in individual initiative subject to practical constraints.” Srinivasan declares that the future he and his cadre of Dark Enlightenment enthusiasts desire is “one where we materialize many startup societies, get a few diplomatically recognized as network states, and rebuild high-trust societies via a recentralized center.” 

The network state is seemingly a decentralised web of “physical territories” that are linked together by digital technology. Every asset held by every customer of the network state, no matter in which country they currently reside, is recorded on the network state’s digital ledger. Srinivasan wrote “nothing officially exists unless it’s on-chain, in the blockchain system of record for that society.” He said that in the network state—gov-corp Technate—he desires, “all value goes digital.” 

On the surface, it would seem that the network-state model offers the kind of decentralisation that could potentially emancipate people from oppressive state control. Egalitarian decentralisation appears at least possible if the network state utilises permissionless Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), such as the permissionless blockchain, as the backbone of its “startup” society. 

Srinivasan declared: 

An integrated cryptocurrency [. . .] is the digital backbone of the Network State. It manages the internal digital assets, the smart contracts, the web3 citizen logins, the birth and marriage certificates, the property registries, the public national statistics, and essentially every other bureaucratic process that a nation-state manages via pieces of paper.  

Though there is no agreed formal definition of the Web 3.0 iteration of the internet, a reasonable description is a world wide web that places “a strong emphasis on decentralized applications and probably make[s] extensive use of blockchain-based technologies.” However, in order for the potential humanitarian benefits of digital decentralisation to be realised, it is essential that the DLT backbone of Web 3.0 is based on permissionless ledger technology. 

Crucially, anonymous, open network access to open source permissionless ledgers would potentially allow people to validate transactions, exchange secure data and engage in the administrative processes necessary for a society to function without being subject to any approving authority. The “high-trust” Srinivasan mentions would be established between individuals and parties via systematic cryptographic verification of digital transactions, such as the exchange of signed contract agreements or payment made using digital currency. Thus, in theory, no third party approbation would be required for people to “trust” the decentralised system and, consequently, each other. 

A permissioned ledger presents us with a very different proposition. Access to the digital ledger is permitted or denied by controlling individuals or parties. Transactions are approved via consensus exercised by those with the appropriate level of permissions. Decentralisation is limited and only extends to the permission holders, whoever they may be. “High-trust” is not achieved systematically, it is granted by the permission holders. 

Srinivasan didn’t specify whether the network state would operate on a permissionless or a permissioned ledger. Instead, he said that the ledger will be “publicly auditable,” “tamper-proof,” “cryptographically verifiable,”, etc. This might suggest he favours a permissionless system. On the other hand, he heavily criticised what he called “Bitcoin Maximalism,” by which he meant that Bitcoins permissionless blockchain “takes many libertarian leanings to their irrational limits.” 

Given the importance of the distinction, the absence of any affirmation from Srinivasan seems like an odd and conspicuous omission. Certainly everything else Srinivasan proposed in The Network State strongly suggests his preference for an authoritarian, permissioned blockchain ledger. 

According to Srinivasan, the NRx technocrats want a “mass exodus of people from [the nation-state] to the recentralized center, to high-trust startup societies and network states.” If, as they claim, centralised authority is something they wish to avoid and decentralisation is a principle they hold to, then what is the “recentralized center” in the network state model? 

For a start, the network state will have “a clear founder to provide direction”: 

The primary goal of [. . .] the tech founder is to build — and for no one to have power over them. [. . .] Today, there are two kinds of revolutionaries: technological and political. And there are two kinds of backers of these revolutionaries: venture capitalists and philanthropists. The backers seek out the founders, the ambitious leaders of new technology companies and new political movements. And that is the market for revolutionaries. [. . .] In short, once we see that a tech founder builds a startup company to effect economic change, and a political activist builds a social movement to effect moral change, we can see how the startup societies we describe [gov-corp Technates] in this work combine aspects of both.

If “no one” has power over the founder, or founders, of the network state then they are individually sovereign. But the founder(s) also provides “direction” in the network state. Thus the founder is also the supreme sovereign of the network state. They effect economic and moral dictatorship thanks to the support they receive from the revolutionary “venture capitalists and philanthropists” that act as their backers and anyone else who agrees with the founder’s vision. Of course, venture capitalists and philanthropists don’t invest anything without expecting some sort of return on their investment (ROI). 

The network state is sold to us as a libertarian concept, but libertarianism is based upon individual sovereignty. Srinivasan outlines how sovereignty will supposedly function in the network state: 

[P]eople from other countries that want to maintain their own sovereignty will need to avail themselves of BTC/web3 for decentralized communication, transaction, and computation.

Remember, in a network state “all value goes digital” and “nothing officially exists unless it’s on-chain.” Consequently, sovereignty only exists if you own assets (digital or physical) on the network state’s ledger. Your sovereignty is directly proportional to your wealth in a network state. 

Should the “customers” of the network state not like the direction decreed by the founder they could “freely leave should they choose.” This assumes that the customer has the means to move elsewhere. If not, they don’t actually have any choice, nor any individual sovereignty, and have no option but to submit to the “directions” issued by the “founder[s].” 

In order to access the network state’s ledger you will need digital ID and Srinivasan uses the acronym ENS (Ethereum Name Service) as a proxy for digital ID. Similarly, rather than call the network state’s victims “customers,” Srinivasan calls them “users”:

[A] user has consented to be governed by a startup society [network state founder] if he has signed a social smart contract that gives a system administrator limited privileges over that user’s digital life in return for admission to the startup society. [. . .] As more physical territories are crowdfunded by a startup society, and more smart devices within those territories are owned by the society, it can exert consensual digital governance within those territories on all who opted in by signing the social smart contract. For example, if someone misbehaves within a given startup society-owned jurisdiction, after [an AI arbitrated] digital trial, their deposits could be frozen and their ENS [digital identity] locked out of all doors for a time period as a punishment.

To reiterate: nothing exists in a network state—gov-corp Technate or city-state—unless its is represented on the ledger. Therefore, your life is represented on the ledger by creating your “digital twin.” It is only your digital twin that is deemed to exist. Companies like the Israeli AU10TIX, which is a subsidiary of the Israeli intelligence-founded ICTS, provides digital ID solutions that are creating your “digital twin” life on platforms like X. 

AU10TIX explains: 

Digital ID functions as a Digital Twin of your identity. [. . .] Digital IDs continuously validate your identity using biometrics, [. . .] your Digital ID evolves with risk signals, fraud prevention insights, and changing credentials—ensuring it remains accurate and trustworthy. [. . .] A true Digital ID isn’t just tied to one institution. It’s reusable across banks, government services, airlines, and online platforms.

The seamless link between “online and offline worlds” means whatever “limits” are placed on the virtual life of your “digital twin” are placed on yours. Agreeing to hand over “limited privileges” to the “system administrators” who control the “digital life” of your “digital twin” in a network state—where your only option is to flee if possible—is voluntary slavery. 

Having your access to funds cut off and being unable to access goods or services, or use any “smart devices”—such as your fridge—if AI judges that you have “misbehave[d]” doesn’t sound very libertarian. But that’s understandable because the Srinivasan is of the view that digital slavery is just something we all need to accept: 

[T]he network state system assumes that states [. . .] will continue centralizing the power of their tech companies into one all-seeing dashboard, capable of surveilling, deplatforming, freezing, and sanctioning millions at once, or anyone at will. [. . .] The network state system assumes that we can’t fully put this genie back in the bottle, but we can constrain it.

We all need to be very clear in this point: the NRx technocrats are currently instrumental in building and deploying the AI-based systems that will “centralize the power” of their “tech companies” within nation-states. The NRx technocrats are also rolling out the state social credit technology that is increasingly “deplatforming, freezing and sanctioning” both organisations and individuals. That is to say, the NRx technocrats are constructing the digital gulag that their representatives, such as Srinivasan, are warning us against. 

Their offered solution is that we all adopt digital ID, sign a “social smart contract” and thereby consent to live our lives subject to the tyranny of the founders in gov-corp Technate city-states. We’ll still be subject to total digital surveillance and control—this is inevitable apparently—but it will be “constrained” if we opt to live in their private fiefdoms. In the time-honoured tradition of the so-called representative democracy they claim to oppose, the NRx technocrats are offering us the lesser of two evils, but it is evil nonetheless.

Bearing this dystopian alleged inevitability in mind, Srinivasan posits that life in western representative democracies is plagued by “woke capital,” permissionless blockchain use represents “anarchic decentralisation,” and subservience to the authoritarian nation-state he describes as “coercive centralisation.” The network state, he contends, offers a better way: volitional recentralization. 

He wrote: 

[T]the whole point is that the new boss [the founder] is not the same as the old boss. [. . .] Recentralization means new leaders, fresh blood. [. . .] Recentralization, done right, is a cycle back to centralization from one vantage point but a step forward from another.

For human beings, there is no “step forward” to be taken within the network state. Quite the opposite in fact. Subjecting yourself to the dictatorial rule of the network state founder is a regression back to feudalism. Srinivasan’s “volitional recentralization” is oligarchy. 

The only sense in which the network state, or city-state realm, neostate, or gov-corp Technate, Freedom City, Charter City, or Special Economic Zone—whatever nomenclature you prefer—could be said to be “decentralised” is that the “patchwork” of realms is designed to decentralise and diminish the sovereign authority asserted by national governments. 

The offer of “decentralised” authority might sound enticing to libertarians, but breaking up nation-states into corporate-controlled “enclaves” run by founding CEO despots doesn’t offer anyone a viable escape route either from corrupt government or state oppression. Yarvin’s “Patchwork” is not a network of decentralised archipelagos, it is a network of recentralized, “founder” controlled city-state fiefdoms.

If anyone chooses to live in one of these networked enclaves, they will have escaped the rule of government and opted for the rule of “venture capitalists and philanthropists” and their designated “founders.” That is to say, they will find themselves living under the direct rule of oligarchs absent any means of redress. 

Unfortunately, there is no “choice” on offer. As we shall see in Part 2, there is instead a “plan” to initially force the dispossessed and the least powerful to live in gov-corp Technates. Privately “owned” city-states are set to be the “human settlements” entrapping billions of people. 

Oligarch Revolutionaries?

According to Marc Andreessen’s “Techno-Optimist Manifesto,” the NRx identifies a number of ideas as their “enemy.” These include “statism, authoritarianism, collectivism, central planning, socialism, [. . .] bureaucracy, [. . .] corruption, regulatory capture, monopolies, [and] cartels.” Andreessen also claims the NRx technocrats oppose “social engineering.” 

Clearly, then, the NRx technocrats say they are antagonistic to the centralised bureaucratic state that socially engineers its population and is corrupted by wealth. This apparent opposition is shared by many, if not all libertarians. Regrettably, for libertarians lulled into endorsing the network state, NRx technocrats don’t genuinely harbour any such antagonisms. 

Andreeseen’s Manifesto presents us with numerous paradoxes. Despite identifying ideas like authoritarianism and central planning as their “enemy,” the network state, or gov-corp Technate, is centrally planned and administered, and avowedly authoritarian. Gov-corp Technates are designed to be jurisdictional monopolies that link people’s digital ID to their use of digital currency enabling the “founder[s]”—and other with the necessary permissions—to punish whoever is subjectively judged to have “misbehave[d].” Such a system is obviously intended to maximise the reach and impact of social engineering. 

In a similar vein to Srinivasan’s reluctance to disclose the permission status of the network state’s ledger, Andreessen’s list of enemies is highly suspicious. NRx technocrats may say they are opposed to all these enemy-ideas, but the gov-corp Technates they want to impose are largely based upon those very same concepts. Deception appears to be a consistent NRx technocrat tactic. 

The casting of venture capitalists and philanthropists as “revolutionaries” is both part of NRx technocrat ideology and treachery in equal measure. NRx technocrats automatically consider venture capitalists and philanthropists “revolutionaries” if they are accelerationists. So Peter Thiel—a Bilderberg group Silicon Valley venture capitalist and philanthropic accelerationist oligarch—is a revolutionary, according to NRx technocrat “thinking.” 

If we consider the etymology of the word “revolutionary” to mean one who seeks the “overthrow of an established political or social system,” then NRx technocrat oligarchs like Thiel, Musk, Andreessen, and Sacks could be considered revolutionaries. They seemingly wish to overthrow every established political or social system. 

With one notable exception: oligarchy. 

Despite what most people believe, be it a constitutional federal republic, a constitutional monarchy or a unitary constitutional republic, the democratic nation-state they live in is not what they think it is. From the standpoint of political science, the US, for example, is actually a “functional oligarchy.” 

Referencing the extensive policy research of political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page, Professors Archon Fung and Lawrence Lessig reported: 

[Gilens and Page studied] 1,800 policy proposals over 30 years, tracking how they made their way through the political system and whose interests were served by the outcomes. For small-d democrats, the results were devastating. Political outcomes overwhelmingly favored very wealthy people, corporations, and business groups. The influence of ordinary citizens, meanwhile, was at a “non-significant, near-zero level.” America, they concluded, was not a democracy at all, but a functional oligarchy.

Nearly every other economically advanced nation operates the same sociopolitical model: functional oligarchy. That is not to say that all functional oligarchies are the same. 

An oligarch is simply someone who has converted their immense wealth into political authority. In the West, despite the published political science demonstrating that Western democracies are functional oligarchies, the manner in which the oligarchy controls the polity is denied or obfuscated. The situation elsewhere, in China for instance, is somewhat different. 

In China, having vast wealth is seen as a legitimate pathway to political influence. The National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s highest organ of state power, has more than 100 billionaires and is almost certainly the wealthiest legislative body on earth. Reporting this fact in 2018, the New York Times put a typically Western spin on their report: 

In a country where the Communist Party makes all the big decisions, Chinese lawmakers hold very little political power. But they have plenty of money. [. . .]  According to the Hurun Report, a research organization in Shanghai that tracks the wealthy in China, the net worth of the 153 members of China’s Parliament and its advisory body that it deems “super rich” amounts to $650 billion. 

Though it is true that the Communist Party of China (CPC)—often called the CCP in the West—has a grip on power, that does not mean it is all powerful, contrary to how it is often portrayed. Innovation is driven by private sector finance and partnerships in China just as it is nearly everywhere else. Consequently, China is no more immune from oligarch influence than other nations. 

What the NYT didn’t mention is that 97 of the top 100 richest oligarchs were, at the time, members of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). The internal CPPCC “national committee” is a powerful advisory body within China’s “consultative democracy” model. 

Xi Jinping rose to power thanks due, in no small measure, to the support he received from the Chinese oligarch faction—of which he is one—called the Princelings. Since taking supreme power, Xi Jinping premiership has been marked by his own political power grab and a resultant power struggle between China’s oligarch factions. 

Acknowledging this reality is not to suggest that China’s functional oligarchy is worse than any other. The practical difference between China’s functional oligarchy and functional oligarchies elsewhere is that China’s is more overt and is, to all intents and purposes, formally institutionalised as the public sector. In the West, conversely, we are supposed to believe that the public sector governments we elect are in charge and a buttress against private sector oligarch control. Our propaganda consistently promotes this myth.

The NRx technocrat “revolutionary” has no intention to “overthrow [the] established political or social system.” Their envisaged patchwork of gov-corp Technates enhances the established political system of functional oligarchy. Once we grasp that an international patchwork of gov-corp Technates, under the “Orbital Authority” of all powerful global governance structure, is what the global oligarchy desires, the seeming contradictions presented by Land, Yarvin, Andreessen, Srinivasan and others are decipherable.  

Oligarch’s Private Jurisdictions  

It is within the context of the functional oligarchy-state system that we can start to make sense of what would otherwise seem inexplicable. The influential NRx technocrat’s Balaji Srinivasan supposedly opposes statism. Yet, he simultaneously anticipates diplomatic recognition for his city-state projects from the nation-states they infest. 

Governments often wage wars if anyone tries to seize any part of their claimed national territory. Why would any national government passively allow its territory to be ceded to private individuals to set up their own fiefdoms—with their own jurisdictions—beyond state regulation and control? 

It would be easy to dismiss Srinivasan’s diplomatic recognition objective as ludicrous were it not for the fact that governments across the world serve as functional oligarchies and are currently ceding territory and jurisdiction to private investors. The proliferation of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) attests to the fact. 

In October 2022, the Institute for Decentralized Governance (IDG) published a research paper analysing the legal framework for establishing SEZs in more than eighty countries. The IDG noted that there is “a similar pattern” to all “zoning” frameworks. The creation of a “new authority”—referred to in the paper as just “the authority”—is an essential first step, or so we are told.

The Governing Board of the authority is usually a public private partnership between government officials, a representative of the nation’s central bank, and the private sector investors who are the “revolutionary” venture capitalists and philanthropists. Once established, however, the SEZ authority is registered as “a body corporate with its own common seal, which is empowered to enter into contracts in its own name and which can sue and be sued.” The Governing Board, usually in consultation with the government, will appoint the CEO of the SEZ authority. 

If this sounds familiar, it is because this is also the model for the network state—or the gov-corp Technate. The only difference is that, in an SEZ, the sovereign corporation (sovcorp) is a public-private partnership whereas, in the NRx technocrat model, the sovcorp of a realm is an entirely private corporation. But this amounts to little more than semantics because governments, as functional oligarchies, are effectively controlled by the private sector already.  

The SEZ authority determines the “special legal regime” that operates in the SEZ. Typically this will include sweeping corporate tax exemptions and other economic incentives, such as no ownership restrictions, exclusion from national monopolies and merger regulations, and lax—often extremely lax—labour laws. 

The authority—a CEO-run corporation—then licenses the developer and the operator of the SEZ. The role of the developer is to “design, construct, and extend the zones. This can include leasing, renting or selling land or facilities.” The operator may be the same as the developer or a separate body. The operators “run, manage, administer, maintain and promote the zones.” 

In the public model of the SEZ, the developer and the operator are appointed public sector entities. In the public-private partnership model, they might be public limited companies, while in the private SEZ, the developer and operator are private companies, potentially one private company. 

Subsequent expansion of the SEZ territory, also “usually” follows “a similar pattern”:

[T]he proposal to declare a particular territory a zone area comes from the authority, which forwards it to the government. The government then officially declares the area as a zone area and establishes a new zone.

When the SEZ has a public-private partnership or completely private design, this essentially means territorial expansion of the SEZ is a private corporate initiative. Thus, in NRx technocrat terms, the privately owned patchwork of realms can be constructed by exploiting SEZs. 

In 2019, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) noted that there were 5,400 SEZs already established around the world. UNCTAD described the purpose of an SEZ regime: 

[W]ithin a defined perimeter, [SEZs] provide a regulatory regime for businesses and investors distinct from what normally applies in the broader national or subnational economy where they are established. [. . .] SEZs, as territories with regimes that depart from national rules, are necessarily a public initiative. The development, ownership and management of individual zones, however, can be public, private or a public-private partnership (PPP). Private developers are often engaged to minimize initial public outlays and to access international expertise in zone design, construction and marketing. Zone management and oversight can involve various government levels (local, regional, national), investors and businesses operating in the zone, and numerous other stakeholders, such as financiers, industry associations and representatives from local communities or other interest groups.

Most SEZs are basic Free Trade Zones (FTZs) where businesses merely enjoy lower tariffs and, for example, subsidised warehousing costs. The globalist think tank the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) notes that the SEZs called “freeports” are “the largest type of economic zones, combining work and residential spaces.” Freeports are among the SEZs most suited to the development of potential new gov-corp Technate city-states. 

In 2023, the UK government reported: 

Freeports [. . .] are designated areas within countries that offer a free trade environment with a minimum level of regulation. The number of freeports and FTZs around the world have increased rapidly in recent years: today there are approximately 3,000 in total, located in 135 countries. [. . .] There are currently 12 UK freeports. 

As noted by the IDG, SEZs operate on a stakeholder capitalism model. SEZ “development, ownership and management” are predominantly controlled by the private sector, either directly or through public-private partnerships. In such partnerships the public and private sector stakeholders are united by partnership agreements. Stakeholder agreements favour oligarch interests because the private sector serves its leading shareholders and investors—oligarchs—and the public sector, represented by governments, is a functional oligarchy. 

In November 2024, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced his government’s “partnership” with BlackRock to “deliver growth.” Keir Starmer appears to be a current serving member of the globalist think tank the Trilateral Commission and Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, is a leading Trilateralist. 

Fink was recently named as the new interim co-chair of the World Economic Forum (WEF) alongside the heir to the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche and Club of Rome stalwart André Hoffmann. In 2023, Starmer infamously said that he would rather debate policy with the WEF than the UK Parliament because the WEF provides him an opportunity to “engage with people who you can see working with in the future.” A little over a year later, Starmer embarked on his official working relationship with Fink who openly states his commitment to stakeholder capitalism:

[T]he need for a platform [the WEF] that brings together business, government, and civil society [stakeholder capitalism] has never been greater. [. . .] The Forum has an opportunity to help drive international collaboration [to] promote open markets and national priorities side by side, while advancing the interests [of] stakeholders globally. We look forward to helping shape a more resilient and prosperous future, and to reinventing and strengthening the Forum as an indispensable institution for public-private cooperation [stakeholder capitalism]. 

BlackRock represents the world wealthiest investors (oligarchs). The Trilateral Commission—which Fink definitely represents and Starmer evidently represents—is an oligarch-led globalist policy think tank as, in effect, is the WEF. 

The UK government’s “partnership” with BlackRock epitomises how the functional oligarchies we call governments operate. The purpose of the partnership is to achieve the objectives of the only true “stakeholders,” namely the oligarchs. The government’s role is merely to create the “enabling environment”—the policy framework and public investment that enriches and empowers the private sector. Improving the working lives or economic prospects of the British people has absolutely nothing to do with the UK-BlackRock partnership. 

Part of the UK government (public) – BlackRock (private) partnership agreement is that BlackRock will take an eighty percent stake in developing three of the twelve privately owned freeport SEZs in the UK. They are currently owned by CK Hutchison which is effectively controlled by Chinese oligarch Li Ka-shing. The UK Government supports BlackRock’s investment strategy because it claims SEZs deliver economic growth which ensures “long-term, durable prosperity.” 

There is no reason to think SEZs provide “durable prosperity” for any community. According to a 2023 report by the UK Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS): 

The Office for Budget Responsibility [OBR] expects the Freeports to generate little additional [economic] activity.[. . .] The government has, to date, not published a full assessment of the effects it expects Freeports to have, which makes it difficult to scrutinise and evaluate these competing claims.

Two years later and there is still nothing, anywhere, that demonstrates any consistent, identifiable socioeconomic SEZ dividends. Though it is much easier to understand why the private sector would relish the SEZ opportunity. 

By May 2025, the UK government, under Starmer, had directed nearly £20 billion ($27 billion) of UK taxpayer money into SEZ freeport development, generating just 5,600 jobs. It seems each job has cost the UK taxpayer about £3.6 million ($4.8 million). Nor is it clear if these are new jobs or simply relocated jobs. At the same time, the UK Labour government has embarked on a series of funding cuts, targetting the most vulnerable, as part of a wider, if politically denied, austerity package that further impoverishes working families in the UK.   

None of this matters to BlackRock’s or CK Hutchison’s oligarch investors. They are happy to take UK tax payer subsidies to develop their interests inside the independent jurisdictions of SEZs. 

To understand why global investors are so enthusiastic about SEZs, consider United Arab Emirates’ SEZs. They provide the private corporate sector a number of clear advantages. 

Foreigners can wholly own UAE SEZ-based businesses without the need for the UAE sponsor that would otherwise be necessary; there are no capital requirements placed on SEZ-founded companies; the SEZ leadership sets its own financial and corporate rules and regulations outside of the jurisdiction of the UAE government; there is no need for a UAE SEZ company to have any offices in either the UAE or the SEZ; ownership and control can be exercised entirely from overseas territories—the Cayman Islands tax haven for example; and UAE SEZs allow “zoned” companies to avoid paying UAE import and export duties, UAE value added tax and UAE corporation tax. 

It is very hard to see what the UAE SEZ-based corporations contributes to the UAE economy. The foreign SEZ-based corporations take advantage of extensive UAE deregulation but don’t have to deliver much, if anything, in return. The same pattern is observable nearly everywhere. Across the thousands of SEZs, in more than 135 countries across the globe, independent jurisdictions are being carved out of nation-states by their governments for no discernable socioeconomic reason. 

As ever, there are always alleged exceptions. The Rwandan Kigali Special Economic Zone (KSEZ), for instance, has reportedly generated 13,000 jobs and attracted $2.3 billion of inward private sector investment. That said, it isn’t at all clear if the KSEZ has contributed to or benefited from Rwanda’s national economic development. Since the horrific 1994 genocide of the Tutsi, economic and political recovery has been marked in Rwanda. The KSEZ is certainly part of the wider Rwandan recovery, but the recovery itself has largely been the result of increased agricultural productivity, improved tourism, and a growing national service sector. 

Probably the best known and most economically successful SEZ is Shenzhen in China’s Guangdong province. Established in 1980, Shenzhen was among China’s first SEZs. Often called China’s Silicon Valley, Shenzhen is a digital technology hub and its economic growth has indeed been remarkable. In 1980, Shenzhen was a fishing community of around 30,000 people with a GDP (adjusted for today) valued at $377 million. In 2025, it is home to more than 17.5 million people and has an estimated GDP of $513 billion. 

Shenzhen is China’s third largest “mega-city,” its population size is eclipsed only by Shanghai and Beijing. As an SEZ, Shenzhen operates its own jurisdiction under license from the national government. 

The Shenzhen government is “empowered to enact regulations on [its] own.” Like nearly all SEZs, Shenzhen was set up to attract foreign direct investment (FDI). It has been granted jurisdictional independence from the central government to create an independent court system that focuses on corporate and property law, and dispute resolution for international investors. 

Perhaps some might be surprised that a supposedly authoritarian and “communist” national government would give a territory within its borders such a high degree of autonomy for the benefit of foreign capitalists. But this is standard for thousands of SEZ jurisdictions globally. In Saudi Arabia, for example, the NEOM SEZ is where the NEOM “green mega-city of the future” is being constructed. Hardly known for its libertarian legal system, the Saudi government has nonetheless enabled the NEOM SEZ to set its “own tax, labor laws, and an autonomous judicial system, distinct from the rest of Saudi Arabia.”

The startup city of Itana, in the Nigerian “Lekki Free Zone,” offers an independent jurisdiction that is designed to allow “tech startups, financial service companies, [and] business service providers,” to operate in any currency and run their businesses online, from anywhere on the globe, without having to abide by the Nigerian government’s regulations or many of its laws. Professor Omolade Adunbi, director of the African Studies Center at the University of Michigan, pointed out that “the moment you are inside the zone, you are outside of the Nigerian state.” 

To date, many SEZs have become islands of corruption and criminality. In 2022, a team of social scientists from Northumbria and Sheffield universities in the UK found that the three types of crimes most prevalent to SEZs were illicit trade, the illegal hiding of wealth and assets, and environmental crimes. At their worst, SEZs are little more then free zones for international crime. 

The UK researchers highlighted the exploitation of the so-called “Golden Triangle” SEZ:

[T]he Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (GT SEZ) situated in Laos’ Bokeo Province is run by Kings Romans, a Hong Kong registered casino group [owned by suspected Chinese gangster Zhao Wei]. With the support of the Laos government, Kings Romans control a business empire of casinos, shopping malls, hotels, massage parlours and museums stretching across 3,000 hectares. Reports suggest the enclave has become a ‘lawless playground’ where illicit trade in drugs, humans and wildlife flourishes. [. . .] This type of minimally regulated economic development is also emerging in the vast corridors connecting countries and regions associated with China’s Belt and Road Initiative. For example, the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) includes plans for the establishment of SEZs in Pakistan intended to drive future economic growth despite the historical failure of previous export-oriented economic zoning strategies in the country, which have so far failed to create meaningful employment, exports or ties to the domestic economy.

The academics also highlighted how SEZs often start as relatively small scale projects but tend toward territorial expansion:

Founded in 1980, Shenzhen SEZ was a key part of China’s economic reform. Echoing Las Vegas’ boosterist experiment of an ‘architecture without architects,’ the zone was initially designed to form a bridge with Hong Kong comprised of four districts in the city, but now encompasses the city in its entirety. In cases such as this, where a deregulated liminal space transforms into a SEZ that later grows into a whole city, a ‘hybrid zone/city’ emerges. Bach (2011: 184) terms such places the ‘Ex-City’, which also includes the integration of multiple smaller zones into the cityscape, a kind of urbanism that moves increasingly away from the sense of a public space and administration to one in which corporations and other non-state actors become increasingly important.

The concept of the “hybrid zone/city,” epitomised by Shenzhen, is important to bear in mind as we proceed, as is Institute for Decentralized Governance’s finding that SEZs expand when the corporate SEZ “authority” makes an expansion “proposal.” 

The Ideological City-State 

The Managing Director of the Institute for Decentralized Governance (IDG), which produced the SEZ report referenced above, is Nathalie Mezza-Garcia. She studied “new, alternative and local forms of governance” and “the creation of blockchain based special jurisdictions” at Warwick University where Nick Land first developed his ideas about accelerationism and the Dark Enlightenment. Patri Friedman is an advisor to the IDG. Patri is the grandson of renowned economist Milton Friedman, who Marc Andreessen considers another patron saint of Techno-Optimism.

The IDG recommendations for future SEZ development aren’t surprising. The IDG notes “there is no magic formula for creating an area of prosperity within a country’s territory.” This notion of the SEZ as an area of “prosperity” is a highly questionable assumption, not a demonstrable SEZ effect. The IDG observes:

[T]he natural demand for private governance services (which already exists today) [will] increase considerably over the next few years and the effort to adjust to this is already happening. Bearing in mind that the path to private governance zones is very desirable. [. . .] The [SEZ legal] framework has the function of protecting the investments and interests of the stakeholders, both for the pioneers in the project and for all parties that are interested in the region in the long term. [. . .] [T]he business model can prove to be superior to established state governance.

Again we are faced with a raft of assumptions. Where is the “natural demand for private governance services”? Why are private governance zones “very desirable”? That said, we can probably appreciate that replacing “state governance” with a “business model” is desirable for oligarch “stakeholders,” especially NRx technocrats, though the corresponding public demand is notably absent. 

As most SEZ projects have failed to deliver their touted economic gains, Thibault Serlet, writing for the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) in 2022, observed that many SEZs are “economic development projects that have received massive amounts of government spending, but amount to nothing.” In keeping with the findings of the UK-based OBR and IFS, Serlet highlights how SEZs frequently extract resources from the host nation but provide little or no socioeconomic returns.  

Serlet reported the research of the Adrianople Group, which shows that sixty three percent of the thousands of SEZs around the world are either privately financed or financed by public-private partnerships. As we have already discussed, both public-private partnership financing and, obviously, direct private financing is provided for projects that meet the aims and objectives of the leading international investors. Modern SEZs are predominantly oligarch-led initiatives. 

Thibault Serlet is the Director of Research at the Adrianople Group. He advises Pronomos Capital, as does NRx technocrat and author of The Network State, Balaji Srinivasan. Pronomos Capital is a venture capitalist fund financed by NRx technocrats Peter Thiel and Mark Andreessen among others. It is a business intelligence firm that specialises in the analysis of SEZs and startup cities.  

Thibault Serlet’s wife, Katerina Serlet, is the CEO of the Adrianople Group and a Partner and co-founder of Pronomos Capital. The Serlets are part of the NRx technocrat circles that are pushing for more “hybrid zone/city” developments.  

In his piece, Thibault Serlet acknowledged the problems of corruption found in SEZs in the Golden Triangle, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ukraine, India, and China, etc. He laid the blame for this squarely at the feet of the governments involved. Of course, this is the kind of corruption we might expect to find in any functional oligarchy where the public sector is, by definition, corrupted by the private sector oligarchy, including its criminal elements. 

But, despite reporting the corruption, Thibault Serlet completely overlooked who corrupts whom, and wrote: 

Mitigating corruption in SEZs is fairly simple: all countries need to do is fully privatize the zones, remove the government money, and let market forces make or break their zone programs. [. . .] In order to both improve the economies of their home countries and advance freedom, SEZs only need to do three things:

1. Be entirely privately funded and managed

2. Be located on land that is purchased on the market rather than seized through eminent domain or privatization of informally owned land

3. Be allowed to fail if market conditions do not favor the development of certain zones

Serlet’s argument, similar to the IDG’s eulogising of “private governance,” is not the product of any practical considerations but rather of NRx technocrat ideology. Instead of tackling private sector manipulation of the public sector, Serlet argues that SEZs will be less corrupt if they are handed over in their entirety to the private sector—NRx technocrats and other oligarchs. The oligarchs will simply buy whatever chunks of national territory they like the look of. 

Private sector financial power consuming the “physical assets” of nation-states is precisely what Srinivasan suggests in The Network State. If the constituent “founders” of a network state are a community of multi-billionaire oligarchs, then their ability to “crowdfund” their “startup society” will quickly overpower the financial resources of the host nation-state.

In a bizarre sense, Thibault Serlet’s view that gov-corp Technate city-states won’t be corrupt is correct. SEZ gov-corp Technates won’t have any public officials to bribe or otherwise coerce. Instead, oligarchs will have their own jurisdictions and rule them as the unchallenged CEO “Kings” of their own private “enclaves.” Thus arriving at the logical end point of unimpeded corruption.

The Adrianople Group provides maps of current global SEZ developments called the Open Zone Map. There are many different types of SEZs categorised by the Adrianople Group. They have decided that the “SEZ” provides opportunities for one industrial sector whereas “Diversified Zones” provide incentives for “a wide variety of industries.” Thus the Adrianople Group suggests a spectrum of SEZs. 

At one end of the spectrum, we have the “Export Processing Zone,” which is “a small zone which exclusively has customs and duties incentives,” and at the other the “Charter City,” which is “a large zone with deep incentives, both a commercial and residential district, and its own school.” 

The Charter City Institute (CCI) says that it is “a nonprofit dedicated to building the ecosystem for charter cities—new cities granted a special jurisdiction to create a new governance system.” The “ecosystem” consists of the “legal, regulatory, and planning frameworks needed for rapid urban growth.” In order to achieve this, the CCI avers it can influence “the global agenda through practical and academic research, engagement, and partnerships” and by “advising and convening key stakeholders like governments, new city developers, and multilateral institutions.”

The Charter City concept was first conceived as a purely public sector initiative by former World Bank Chief Economist Paul Romer. He was the originator of the epigram “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” This was later widely attributed to the Obama White House’ Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel who paraphrased Romer, saying “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Romer is dubious about the NRx technocrat’s private sector ambitions and accurately describes them as “wannabe monarchs [who] want to be masters of their own domain.”

While the CCI is less than transparent about its funding, Jaan Tallinn is a known individual donor. Tallinn, the developer of Skype, was an accelerationist investor—alongside Peter Thiel and Elon Musk—in the UK-based AI startup DeepMind. Google (Alphabet inc.) purchased DeepMind in 2014. The initial focus of the DeepMind research that Tallin, Thiel and Musk invested in was neural networking—AI simulations of the human brain. It seems Google was enticed when DeepMind developed the concept of the Neural Turing Machine (NTM). 

The CCI was established by Dr Mark Lutter who remains its Executive Director. Named after the Free City in the TV show Game of Thrones, Lutter also runs an international SEZ consultancy firm called Braavos. Explaining the Braavos objective, the company states: 

Braavos Cities is a special economic zone and new city advisory company. We work with governments, special economic zone authorities, and private developers to structure win-win deals. We specialize in large scale urban developments with delegated governance authority to attract investment. [. . .] Mark [Lutter] built a network of stakeholders in special economic zones and new city developments. 

Lutter was the former head economist for NeWAY Capital founded by Erick Brimen and Trey Goff. NeWay Capital’s Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) is Gabriel Delgado who also serves as a NeWay advisory board member. Delgado’s role is “to bring world class investors and occupiers into all NeWay development projects.” 

Fortunately for NeWay and the startup city projects it finances, Delgado is a fellow of the Aspen Institute, a powerful US-based globalist think tank that describes itself as a “convenor of changemakers building a better world.” The Aspen institute is backed by a global public-private partnership that includes the US government, the UN, nearly every major US bank, numerous philanthropic foundations, such as Bloomberg Philanthropies, and a wide range of multinational corporations, such as BlackRock. Safe to say, Delgado’s ability to “bring world class investors” to NeWay Capital is exceptional. 

NeWay Capital and Pronomos Capital are among the few venture capitalists funds dedicated to charter city investments. Pronomos notes that charter cities currently attract investment from a “patchwork of investors,” typically composed of a “a hodge-podge of angel invest[ors].” Such “angel investors” are wealthy individuals who invest in startup ventures in exchange for equity (shares) in the startup. An “angel investor” is an “accelerationist” in NRx technocrat parlance. 

As noted by Startupmag: 

[T]he angel investor gets to become a part-owner of the business. It’s a popular option because it lets the investor and startup avoid haggling over the company’s value when it’s still finding its feet.

If the startup is a city that people live in, owning it is an enticing prospect for any oligarch. To this end, Pronomos explains “[c]harter city investors are individuals and groups that provide the capital necessary to build a charter city.” The kind of opportunities the NRx technocrats like Thiel and Andreessen are ultimately targetting include “many master-planned city projects such as Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Economic City, Egypt’s New Administrative Capital, and Indonesia’s new capital in the East Kalimantan province.” 

In order to secure “regulatory independence” for your startup charter cities, Pronomos stresses the need to build relationships with policymakers. Even for oligarchs, building a city is an extremely expensive endeavour. Therefore, Pronomos advises the angel/accelerationist investment “must be used to finance [. . .] legislation.” Once the correct legislation is bought and paid for, “future fundraising and expansion” can work towards construction and ownership of “the entire city.”

Pronomos Capital’s oligarch investors have reason for optimism. Adrianople Group also provides the New Cities Map, which the CCI commissioned and offers to show the “hundreds of master planned cities have been built in the 20th and 21st centuries, and many more [that] are being planned for the future.” 

That said, Pronomos also observes that funding your own city-state project is a high risk venture. Legal problems and population resistance inevitably occurs, but such issues can be overcome if you are wealthy enough to buy the necessary authority. 

To explain: Patri Friedman, advisor to the Institute for Decentralized Governance (IDG) and co-founder of Pronomos Capital, is a close associate of Peter Thiel. Together they set up The Seasteading Institute (TSI) in 2008. The purpose of TSI was to colonise the oceans, but Friedman and Thiel shifted their focus back to the land with the Future Cities Development (FCD) in 2011. The intention was to build a “free city” in Honduras. However, the Honduran Supreme Court ruled that proposed private fiefdoms were unconstitutional and this led Freidman to supposedly wind down FCD operations in 2012. 

Coincidentally, four of the five Supreme Court judges that ruled against the “free city” project were subsequently ousted by the Honduran congress. The government then created three SEZs called Zones for Employment and Economic Development (ZEDE) in 2013. Thiel, Andreessen, Friedman and other Pronomos “angel investors” were thus able to establish the territory for their startup charter city of Próspera near the village of Crawfish Rock on the island of Roatán in 2017. 

Calling Próspera “a beacon of freedom and prosperity,” the company CEO is Erick A. Brimen, who co-founded NeWay capital. Construction began in 2021 and this led the NGO called the North American Congress in Latin America (NACLA) to report: 

[R]esidents learned that their municipality was ground zero for a new enclave model that has allowed a group of investors from the Washington DC-based firm NeWay Capital to establish an independent governance system as an experiment with privatized jurisdictions. [. . .] The legal framework of the ZEDE caught the attention of libertarian and free-market venture capitalists who sought opportunities to create a global market of private governments. 

This NACLA report was not entirely accurate. The ZEDE had not “caught the attention” of venture capitalists. The same venture capitalists had been trying to establish the ZEDEs in Honduras since 2011. It was true, however, that the NRx technocrats were trying “to create a global market of private governments.” 

The “new enclave model” went down like a lead balloon with the people of Honduras. In the four years since construction began, Crawfish Rock has seen nothing of any benefit to the local community from the project. Venessa Cárdenas, a Crawfish Rock resident and community spokeswoman, explained that the community was not consulted, village land was simply expropriated, the environmental damage has been significant, and local natural resources, including the water supply, have been “enclaved” by multinational corporations without any consideration of the effect on the people of Crawfish Rock.  

Widely perceived in Honduras as little more than corporate colonialism, following years of consistent public objections and protests against “selling off the national territory in pieces,” in September 2024, Honduras’ new Supreme Court judges ruled the ZEDEs and Próspera unconstitutional. 

Unfortunately for the people of Honduras, the “freedom and prosperity” loving NRx technocrats turned to the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID)—and employed the legal firepower of the UK multinational Deloitte—to ensure that the decisions of the elected Honduran government, its Supreme Court and the people of Honduras amounted to nothing. 

Using the ICSID, the NRx technocrats threatened to sue the Honduran government for nearly $11 billion and it had no practical option but to capitulate. Deloitte victoriously exclaimed: 

[A] legal stability agreement was subscribed, guaranteeing investments made under the ZEDE regime for up to 50 years [. . .] Therefore, it can be noted that the purpose of the legal stability agreements is to maintain the validity of the Organic Law of the ZEDE in the event of any derogation that may be implemented, thus protecting the investments made under the ZEDE regime.

As we have already discussed, there is nothing remotely libertarian about the “private government” aspirations of the NRx technocrats. The “prosperity” they seek only extends to them and their oligarch partners. If the people try to get in their way, they are more than willing to crush their economies and don’t care what impact impoverishment will have on their lives.

As we progress through the 21st century, as unbelievable as it seems, NRx technocrats like Thiel and Musk are seriously pursuing the goal of creating a patchwork of oligarch-controlled jurisdictions. Governments around the world have been onboard with the concept for decades. What’s more, at the intergovernmental level, an international network of hybrid zone/city-states is the preferred model for more effective global governance. 

New gov-corp Technate city-states will need populations to exploit. Refugees are in the crosshairs of the NRx technocrats and their oligarch partners. A invidious nexus between private capital and those who control immigration is now apparent. Their nauseating plan is to profit from the most vulnerable. 

That, and more, is what we shall discuss in Part 2. 

City-States Without Limits – Part 1.

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One Nation Under Blackmail by Whitney Webb.

TFTC #665.

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One Nation Under Blackmail by Whitney Webb.

The Peter McCormack Show.

Amid the fall-out from the administration’s about-face, the Trump administration has sought to mitigate the failure to “release the files” by publishing interviews with Ghislaine Maxwell (who has been desperately seeking a pardon or commuted sentence) and by issuing subpoenas to Bill and Hillary Clinton, a clear effort to divert “transparency” in the case into something more politically favorable to Republicans. 

However, as posited in Unlimited Hangout’s series “First Friends,” Trump’s effort to alter the narrative around the Epstein case may be aimed at shielding, not only potentially himself, but people in his close social circle, including at least one figure currently serving in his administration. That figure, Paolo Zampolli –– the administration’s current Special Envoy for Global Partnerships –– is the subject of this investigation. 

In Part I of this series, we met one of Trump’s closest friends from Italy: Flavio Briatore, a P2 lodge and Italian mafia-linked businessman with ties to prominent Victoria’s Secret Angels, at least one of whom he introduced to Epstein. In this second installment, the connections of Zampolli, another Italian close to both Trump and Briatore, are the focus. Zampolli has been in the news recently, not for the backdoor wheeling-and-dealing of his new, official U.S. government post, but because Trump and his wife Melania claim to have been first introduced by Zampolli amid assertions to the contrary that claim it had been Epstein.

As this investigation will show, Zampolli is deeply corrupt. From his beginnings as a protégé for the controversial modeling mogul John Casablancas, a man known for his appetite for what he called “child women,” Zampolli grew his modeling empire with money from Silvio Berlusconi, the corrupt Italian Prime Minister (and close friend of Flavio Briatore) who was forced to resign for his sexual escapades with minors while in office. Zampolli would later follow Casablanca’s example and marry his wife when she was 19, having met her not long after she had flown as an under-age teen on Epstein’s “Lolita Express.” 

After leaving the world of modeling to work for Donald Trump in the early 2000s, Zampolli would become closely affiliated with the Clintons as well as the United Nations, where he worked on their climate change initiatives and on the development of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. In particular, Zampolli was part of the team that developed SDG 14 “Life Under Water” alongside Stuart Beck, a figure closely tied to CIA regime change operations in Palau, as well as none other than Ghislaine Maxwell and her TerraMar project. 

Yet, that is not all Zampolli would accomplish at the UN, as he would figure prominently in a major UN financing scandal and also boasted close ties to suspect citizenship-by-investment schemes that would later see one of his close colleagues arrested and another dead under exceedingly bizarre circumstances. Those colleagues had been taking bribes from an organized crime and CCP-linked Chinese billionaire who was once at the center of the scandal that directly intersects with most of Jeffrey Epstein’s seventeen visits to the Clinton White House.

Once Trump would take office as president, Zampolli attempted to re-brand so he could become a close ally of the president, despite continuing to promote overtly globalist UN policies that ostensibly run counter to Trump’s “populist” campaigns in 2016, 2020 and 2024. Zampolli would see some minor appointments in Trump’s first term, though he would instead mainly play roles in both a major UN scandal and in the Harvey Weinstein scandal during that time. More recently, a less impeded Zampolli was appointed to a special envoy position, one where he –– behind the scenes –– makes the kind of backdoor deals that have marked his entire career in the name of ginning up Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and forging trade deals, especially in his native country of Italy. As an example of the reach of his behind-the-scenes influence, Zampolli was originally the mind that came up with the idea of “resolving” the Israel-Palestine conflict by turning the Gaza Strip into a “Riviera” resort, years before such a plan was uttered by his current boss Donald Trump or Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

The story of Paolo Zampolli is ultimately an indictment of how political corruption, typified by the Epstein case and other scandals, is so often bipartisan despite media attempts to paint only one party as sleaze, depending on a person’s preferred echo chamber. If the American people were to realize that the both public faces of the power structure of their country is corrupt, the Trump administration’s failure to produce files on the Epstein case would quickly make much more sense. 

Zampolli’s Italian Beginnings and Early Connections

Paolo Zampolli was born in Milan to an elite family that had become even wealthier due to the success of the Italian toy company Harbert, which licensed American toys (i.e. Star Wars figures and Easy Bake ovens) in Italy. After his father died in a skiing accident when Zampolli was 18, he left college early to take over the company. However, he quickly decided Milan was “too small” for him and his ambitions. In pursuit of something bigger, he decided to sell his family’s company to the Italian mogul and politician Silvio Berlusconi.  

As noted in Part I of this series, Berlusconi was a member of the notorious freemasonic lodge P2, which was at the heart of the European nexus that united organized crime as well as U.S. and allied intelligence agencies with powerful politicians and business leaders, many of whom were fascist sympathizers. Berlusconi’s own mysterious rise was reportedly enabled directly by P2, as his early trajectory to becoming a billionaire and later Italy’s Prime Minister reportedly began with an infusion of capital from mysterious sources (masked by a maze of holding companies) shortly after he joined the lodge. Berlusconi’s political career would later be marred by scandal after he was convicted of hiring an “underage prostitute” and hosting “bunga bunga” parties where he had orgies with young women and teen girls. The acts that were a focus of that case occurred while Berlusconi was Prime Minister.

Zampolli remained an admirer of Berlusconi from the late 1980s through his death in 2023. Zampolli also cultivated ties to one of the late Prime Minister’s closest pals, Flavio Briatore, which persist to the present. The ties of Briatore to organized crime as well as P2, the Epstein/Maxwell network and Donald Trump were the focus of Part I of this series.

After Berlusconi bought his company, Zampolli became involved in the modeling industry. However, it’s not exactly clear how he first got his start in model management. Zampolli himself has hinted that it began with his childhood fascination with John Casablancas, the controversial founder of Elite Model Management. Zampolli has claimed to have actually spent vacations with Casablancas when he was a child vacationing at his family’s home in Ibiza, Spain. “I had John Casablancas spending the summer [with] me when I was a kid,” Zampolli once told Vanity Fair in 2001. The Vanity Fair article also notes that Zampolli later accompanied Casablancas on scouting trips to Eastern Europe, though the dates aren’t provided. Casablancas corroborated his early ties to Zampolli, as he was once quoted as saying “I’ve known Paolo from before the beginning.”

By 1994, Zampolli had become the lead organizer of the Look of the Year contest in Ibiza. According to Zampolli himself, he was chosen to organize the contest in 1994 because he “brought to the table Club Med and Italian TV!” Club Med, i.e. Club Méditerranée, was acquired in the 1960s by a group led by Baron Edmond de Rothschild after he “visited a Club Med in Israel and liked it. Baron Edmond not only paid Club Med’s debts, but acquired a 34 percent stake in the growing tour operator.” Joining the French Rothschild interests in that group was the Gunzberg family, which – at that point – had intermarried with the organized crime-adjacent Bronfman family of Seagrams fame. The notorious frontman of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) Ghaith Pharaon was also a shareholder in Club Med and used his shares in it to secure lines of credit from BCCI, which was tied to intelligence services, drug cartels and organized crime from its founding up until its collapse in 1991. Jeffrey Epstein, who also entered the world of modeling in the 1990s and was a reported friend of Zampolli’s, was tied to BCCI in the 1980s as were some of Epstein’s 80s-era clients, such as weapons dealer and intelligence asset Adnan Khashoggi. It is unclear how Zampolli became connected with Club Med, but his ties to Italian TV were likely related to Silvio Berlusconi, whose assets included numerous Italian television channels and who has been referred to as “the father of Italian broadcasting.” This would suggest that Zampolli’s ties to Berlusconi persisted after the sale of his family company.

The annual Look of the Year contest that Zampolli organized was put on by Casablanca’s Elite Model Management. However, the top Elite executive that managed the competitions during the late 1980s and 1990s was the then-head of the European branch of Elite Models, Gerald Marie. Marie’s modeling agency Paris Planning had merged with Casablanca’s agency in 1986. Marie has since been accused of a litany of sexual assaults and rapes during the 1980s and 1990s by several well-known and lesser known models, accusations which have been deemed credible by Marie’s wife at the time. Some of Marie’s accusers have alleged that they were “trafficked” by Marie to “wealthy men across Europe for purposes wholly unrelated to modeling.” One of Marie’s accusers, Jill Dodd, has claimed that she and others “were just young, and being taken advantage of, and groomed and sold by our agents.” Dodd said that, after being raped by Marie, the agency set her up and pressured her into a relationship with the aforementioned Adnan Khashoggi. Dodd says she later discovered that Marie’s modeling agency at the time (Paris Planning) had been paid $50,000 by Khashoggi to arrange their meeting. Marie was later reportedly involved with MC2, the modeling agency created by Jean Luc Brunel and funded by Jeffrey Epstein that became a major focus of investigations into Epstein’s sex trafficking.

News coverage of the Zampolli-organized 1994 Look of the Year contest noted that underage girls from around the world were asked to attend and were flown out to the contest without their parents, despite “being so young.” Male “chaperones” were then assigned to the teens, with one such “chaperone” named Pat Lanzillo remarking that he was reminded of how young these “beautiful” teens were when some called their parents crying. The report also notes how the teens were taken to a “wild” nightclub on the island for their “night off.”

Elite’s Look of Year contests, including those hosted alongside Donald Trump at the then Trump-owned Plaza Hotel in 1991 and 1992, have come under scrutiny after former contestants have alleged that they were groomed, assaulted and raped by powerful men in the industry like Gerald Marie. Notably, Elite’s Casablancas met his third wife at a 1993 Elite Model competition, Brazilian model Aline Wermelinger –– then a school-girl –– who married Casablancas at 17. Casablancas was controversial for accusations that he exploited and abused many of his young and often underage models and for frankly expressing his sexual preference for teenagers, whom he referred to as “child women.”

While running the 1994 Elite competition in Ibiza, the New York Times reported that Zampolli was reportedly urged by Casablancas to move to New York to work in the modeling business there. Zampolli moved to New York City not long after, arriving in 1995, and rented an apartment in Union Square. He soon met Donald Trump, “whose grandiosity he admired” and who, like Zampolli, “was a fixture on the city’s nightclub circuit.” In discussing his earliest meeting with Trump, Zampolli once said “We both have a common interest. We both like beautiful things.”  

Though it is unclear exactly how Zampolli first met Trump or who introduced them, it was likely through John Casablancas or another figure at Elite. Casablancas and Trump had been publicly affiliated since the early 1990s. In addition, Casablancas was known to host parties at the notorious nightclub Studio 54, whose co-owner Ian Schrager, was the son of an associate of mobster Meyer Lansky, and whose lawyer was also Trump’s lawyer and mentor Roy Cohn. Cohn was involved in a sex blackmail ring at the Plaza Hotel, which Trump later bought after Cohn’s death. He was also a close associate of New York organized crime interests and served as a lawyer for infamous mob bosses like Tony Salerno. Trump, during the 1980s, was a regular at Elite’s Studio 54 events. During this period, Trump has been alleged to have frequently partied with two men in particular: Tom Barrack, a long-time Trump associate and founder of Colony Capital who now serves as U.S. ambassador to Turkey, and Jeffrey Epstein, the now-notorious sex trafficker with ties to covert arms trafficking networks and financial criminality during this period. Four former Elite models have said that Casablancas’ agency required them to attend private dinners with Trump in the late 1980s and early 1990s, though importantly none of them accused Trump of wrongdoing. It does, however, corroborate that Elite Model Management as a company pushed its models to engage in social activities wholly unrelated to modeling with powerful people.

In 1991, Trump and Casablancas struck a business deal that saw Trump’s Plaza Hotel host the Look of the Year competition. Trump’s daughter Ivanka, would later model for Elite beginning at age 15. Elite has since been criticized for sexualizing a then-teen Ivanka. Trump and Casablancas were reportedly good friends, though Trump, after becoming a politician, has claimed to have hardly known Casablancas, who had — by that point — become infamous. Trump has espoused similar rhetoric about another one-time friend who also later became infamous – Jeffrey Epstein.

Even though Casablancas had been the apparent impetus for Zampolli’s move to New York, Zampolli didn’t work at Elite Models once he was in the U.S. Instead, he became co-president of Metropolitan Models after purchasing the agency soon after making the move. Metropolitan Models’ most famous model was Claudia Schiffer who met and became engaged to the magician David Copperfield while with the agency. Copperfield, a friend of Zampolli’s, was also close to Jeffrey Epstein. Evidence shows the two were in close contact in the early 2000s and Copperfield has also been named by at least two Epstein victims who say they were present for Epstein’s meetings with Copperfield. Copperfield has also, in no relation to the Epstein case, been accused of sexual misconduct by at least a dozen women, three of whom said they were drugged by the well-known magician. Copperfield was later a member of a four-person dinner party that included Donald Trump, Melania Trump and Zampolli during which Trump offered Zampolli a job at the Trump Organization.

That meeting took place at Zampolli’s favorite New York restaurant Cipriani’s, where Zampolli reportedly dines twice a day every day when in the city. Zampolli is a long-time close personal friend of Cipriani’s owner Giuseppe Cipriani. The New York restaurant was opened by Cipriani’s father in 1985 after the success of the family’s restaurant and hotel businesses in Italy. The Cipriani family has been accused of mob affiliations, with Giuseppe allegedly paying organized crime figures a handsome sum to make the family’s issues with labor unions “go away.” Giuseppe denied the charges. 

However, shortly thereafter it was reported that the Vice President of Cipriani, Dennis Pappas, had previously done prison time related to his past role as the “finance man” for the Colombo crime family –– a fact that would have been known to the Cipriani family at the time of his hire. Pappas was indicted in 2006 for fraud while serving as a top Cipriani executive, prompting the company to distance themselves and claim that his title as company Vice President was largely “ceremonial.” That same year, the Cipriani’s became business partners of Steve Witkoff, the New York real estate developer who now serves as Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East. A year later, in 2007, Giuseppe and his father, Arrigo Cipriani, pled guilty to tax evasion as well as filing false tax returns.  

After a temporary exile following his guilty plea and the revelation of Pappas’ mob ties, Giuseppe Cipriani returned to New York with the goal of creating a new “private member’s lounge” away “from the prying eyes of the press.” One report describes this time as follows:

Finally allowed to return to NYC, the Ciprianis insisted on being away from the cameras where possible and Giuseppe’s celebrity friends could not agree more. Leonardo di Caprio was an immediate fan, spending an enormous amount of time at Socialista [the name of the private member’s lounge] and being joined by a famously never-ending rotation of Victoria[’s] Secret Models and fellow actors.

One wonders why Cipriani’s new bar would feature so many models associated with one particular brand. However, one clue may be found in the entry for Cipriani in Jeffrey Epstein’s black book. Epstein, at the time, was closely affiliated with Victoria’s Secret and its models via his extremely close and long-time personal and professional relationship with the brand’s owner, Leslie Wexner. Cipriani is also, notably, a friend of Flavio Briatore, the subject of Part I of this series, who introduced the supermodel Naomi Campbell (then a fixture at Victoria’s Secret fashion shows) to Epstein in the early 2000s. Epstein’s former butler Alfredo Rodriguez had circled Briatore’s name in the black book, fingering him and others as accessories and accomplices to Epstein’s sex crimes.

Cipriani was also good friends with another infamous sex criminal, Harvey Weinstein. Not only did the two friends invest in each other’s businesses, but Weinstein reportedly used Cipriani’s restaurant and his private member’s lounge Socialista as his “hunting grounds,” per reports. Cipriani allegedly facilitated Weinstein’s predatory behavior at these locations. For instance, one accuser claimed that her friend was prevented from going to find her by Cipriani’s security after Weinstein had quickly whisked her off to an upstairs suite. Those suites were reportedly used by Weinstein as his personal “sex pads” with Cipriani’s permission. Cipriani was questioned for his ties to Weinstein but was never charged. Several of the lawsuits against Weinstein for sexual assault and rape claimed that the events in question had occurred at Cipriani’s. 

Zampolli himself also has an unusual tie to the Weinstein scandal. In 2017, Zampolli contacted women he knew had been assaulted by Weinstein, urging them to contact lawyer Benjamin Brafman (and other lawyers at his firm Brafman & Associates) and file a lawsuit against Weinstein. In an audio recording provided by one of the women to the New York Times, Zampolli claims to have had a “falling-out” with Weinstein and that he wanted to “bury” him, urging the woman to file suit against Weinstein. “You gonna be represented by the biggest lawyer that existed in United States history. There are all these girls, and they’re getting together and they’re being represented by Benjamin Brafman,” Zampolli said in the recording. Some of the women then went to Brafman’s firm where they presented evidence and were asked about their traumatic encounters with Weinstein. However, it turned out Brafman had actually been hired as Harvey Weinstein’s defense lawyer, not as a lawyer for victims, a move that was publicly announced just weeks later. Zampolli called the recording of his conversation urging a victim to contact Brafman as “fake news.”

The Modeling Mogul

Zampolli’s time at Metropolitan Models was cut short in 1997 after he sued his partner Thomas Zeumer, alleging that “corporate funds were missing.” Zampolli sued to dissolve his partnership with Zeumer, but the case was later dismissed. Zampolli then bought American Models, which he turned into ID Models.

In the 2011 Italian language book Gli Italiani di New York, Zampolli is quoted as follows about his approach to the modeling business:

The models have to travel the world, they are not sedentary – he says, sipping champagne with his gaze always on his blackberry – we had an office in Brazil where we found them and then moved them continuously from Miami to Berlin, from Paris to Milan, always keeping about seventy of them in New York. For years, the business [i.e. ID models] has produced money and become well known in the world of VIPs – from Bill Clinton to the rulers of the Gulf up to Shimon Peres to Donald Trump […].  

It is unclear how the “continuous” movement of young Brazilian women and girls throughout and between Europe and the U.S. would lead to the business becoming well known to “VIPs,” with those VIPs having little to do with the modeling industry as they are major politicians. However, it seems to align with some of the activities in which the agency of his mentor, John Casablancas, had engaged. It also raises the possibility that, as we shall see, Zampolli’s modeling agency may have been more than just that.

First of all, the VIPs Zampolli names all have ties to the Epstein/Maxwell network. Former U.S. president Bill Clinton has been extensively linked to Epstein and was known to travel alongside teens on Epstein’s jet. Trump, close to Zampolli and friendly with his apparent mentor Casablancas as well as having once been close to Epstein, has also been accused of inappropriate behavior towards women and models. Trump, after divorcing Marla Maples, dated a women that had previously accompanied Jeffrey Epstein to the Clinton White House under dubious circumstances named Celina Midelfart. Trump later left Midelfart for one of Zampolli’s models, Melania Knauss, now Melania Trump (more on that later). 

As noted in Part I of this series, Epstein’s butler Alfredo Rodriguez had circled Trump’s name in the now infamous black book, alleging that he was involved in Epstein’s sex crimes in some capacity. Shimon Peres, the former Prime Minister of Israel, was close to Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, Robert Maxwell, and maintained close ties until his death to her sister, Isabel Maxwell. Peres is also the person who introduced Ehud Barak to Epstein, according to Barak (though other evidence suggests that Barak and Epstein may have met much earlier). Barak, like Flavio Briatore and Trump, is a circled name in Epstein’s black book and other evidence has suggested he was linked to Epstein’s illicit activity.

In addition, Zampolli’s claim that his agency finds its models in Brazil is worth examining. Elsewhere, Zampolli has suggested that many of the models he recruited from Brazil were teens, which is unsurprising given his emulation of John Casablancas. In one article where Zampolli was asked about his most famous former model, current First Lady Melania Trump, he stated that “She was mature, she was 24 years old, not like those 14 year old models from the middle of Brazil.” There is also the fact that Zampolli’s wife Amanda Ungaro –– a Brazilian model who he married when she was 19 –– appears on the Epstein flight logs in the company of Jean Luc Brunel when she was a minor.  

In the late 1990s, Zampolli became friendly with Jean Luc Brunel, who rented an apartment at Trump Tower in Manhattan. According to fashion photographer Clayton Nelson, he recalled an incident at a restaurant where he claims to have seen Brunel, Zampolli and Trump “insistently following a model.” Clayton told French media that he had “asked Brunel: ‘Do we have a fucking problem here?’, says the photographer. ‘Zere is no problem’, replied the Frenchman.” One newspaper article from 1997 notes that Zampolli and Brunel were known to swim in similar circles at the time, having been invited to a showcase for new models by the agency Model Team. The article shows Model Team’s John Merriman posing with Brunel. It also notes that Zampolli had his birthday party that year in Paris at a massive apartment on L’Avenue Foch, the street where Epstein later bought an 8 room apartment in 2002 that would later feature prominently in sex trafficking probes against him and Brunel in France. 

Brunel, another circled name in Epstein’s black book, is a well-known alleged accomplice of Epstein’s trafficking operation who, like Epstein, “committed suicide” while awaiting trial in prison in 2022. Brunel had been arrested in 2020 and was accused of rape, trafficking and “pimping out” aspiring models to Epstein. The same year Brunel died in person, the man who had facilitated Epstein’s visits to the Clinton White House with various women, Mark Middleton, was also found dead, but his death was labeled a suicide despite the fact that the condition in which his body was found made suicide extremely unlikely (more on that later).

According to one lawsuit filed against Epstein in 2018, Brunel and his Epstein-funded modeling agency MC2 was known to “recruit girls as young as 13 from Europe, Ecuador and Brazil.” Brunel, on a flight accompanying Epstein from New York to Paris, brought one underage Brazilian teen with him named Amanda Ungaro. The flight coincided with Epstein’s purchase of his luxurious French apartment later linked to trafficking. Ungaro, who was born in 1986, was underage at the time, either 16 or 17 years old. 

A few years later, Ungaro married Paolo Zampolli, though they claim to have been dating  for some time before their marriage. In 2001, one year before Ungaro flew on Epstein’s plane, Zampolli was quoted by Vanity Fair as courting a “young model” who lived in Brazil, anonymously sending her Easter eggs and teddy bears to Brazil before they had even “gotten together.” It’s unclear if the young Brazilian model alluded to here is Ungaro, who would have been 15 or 16 at the time. Presumably, Zampolli and Ungaro were introduced by Brunel, but this is hard to know as all information about Ungaro’s early life and modeling career prior to her marriage to Zampolli –– e.g. how she met Zampolli, what agencies she first modeled for, etc. –– is incredibly difficult to ascertain from publicly available sources. The earliest online pictures of her modeling and socializing are from 2005, when she was 19 (the age she married Zampolli).

In addition to these connections, there is also the fact that Adriana Ross, one of Epstein’s alleged accomplices who is still protected under the terms of the so-called “sweetheart deal” from Epstein’s 2007 prosecution was formerly a model of both Casablancas’ Elite Models and Zampolli’s ID models before she joined Epstein’s entourage, according to Epstein case documents. Ross stated that her husband, who she met shortly after Elite brought her to the U.S. from Poland, “had the contact” that put her in touch with ID Models. In a deposition, Ross pleaded the fifth when asked about her career history between ID Models and Epstein. Ross was named an unindicted “possible co-conspirator” in Epstein’s 2008 plea deal due to evidence that she procured teens for Epstein, helped destroy and hide evidence prior to a police raid of his Palm Beach home and determined how and when victims would meet with Epstein. Another former model for Elite, Nicole Junkermann, also cultivated close ties to Epstein during the early 2000s, flying on his plane to the UK where he met with two U.S. Senators under mysterious circumstances.

Zampolli himself is also alleged to have had a relationship with Epstein prior to his becoming infamous, albeit according to controversial author Michael Wolff. However, following Epstein’s infamy, Zampolli made it clear to the New York Times that he had long known of Epstein, claiming that “Epstein’s recruiters were so rampant in Manhattan that they became known in the modeling and nightclub world as ‘Jeffrey’s girls.’” The extent of the relationship between Zampolli and Epstein is unknown, though Zampolli clearly swam in similar circles in both the late 1990s and early 2000s.  

For instance, in addition to his ties to Trump, Briatore and other Epstein pals of the period, Zampolli was close to figures that took infamous flights on Epstein’s plane, like billionaire Ron Burkle, former president Bill Clinton and long-time Clinton adviser Doug Band. Per Zampolli, he first met Hillary Clinton at Trump’s wedding to Melania after being introduced by her long-time aide Huma Abedin, whom he claimed to know “from events in New York.” He claimed to have met Bill Clinton “many, many, many” times before Trump’s wedding, apparently alluding to his earlier quote of his modeling company becoming well known among “VIPs” including Clinton. However, in 2016 –– when Hillary Clinton and Trump were both running for president –– Zampolli told the New York Times that Clinton “was not coming to parties with me and the models.” Zampolli affectionately calls Doug Band “Dougie.” In a 2009 interview, Zampolli praised Bill Clinton as a “genius” and stated he also had much admiration for Hillary.

Zampolli was also close to Ron Burkle in the early 2000s, the billionaire owner of several U.S. supermarket chains who hired Bill Clinton at his firm Yucaipa Companies shortly after Clinton left office. The pair then flew together with Clinton on Epstein’s plane to Africa, a trip which focused on Clinton jump-starting Africa-focused initiatives of the Clinton Foundation. Burkle was also closely linked to the rapper Diddy and to the late pop singer Michael Jackson. Burkle, who also lent private planes to Bill Clinton, allegedly considered buying Casablancas’ Elite Models in 2002, with reporting on the matter implying that Burkle planned to put Clinton in charge of it. (Notably, two years later, in 2004, Zampolli as well as Jeffrey Epstein unsuccessfully bid to purchase Elite.) Beginning with this 2002 story about an alleged Burkle attempt to purchase Elite, Burkle contacted his friend Zampolli to help manage what he viewed as bad press. Zampolli arranged a meeting between the article’s author and Burkle. The meeting ended “amicably” with an associate of Burkle’s who joined the meeting paying the journalist $5,700 for shirts from his fledgling clothing company. Zampolli offered his services to Burkle more than once, including after a news item was published in 2006 alleging that an unnamed “babe-loving billionaire” was checking the ages of the “young models he invites on his private jet.” Burkle believed the billionaire in question was him.

Meeting Melania

Perhaps Zampolli’s most well-known tie to the modeling world is through his connection to Melania Knauss, now Melania Trump, Donald Trump’s third wife and current First Lady of the United States. Zampolli is known to have been responsible for bringing Melania to the United States to work as a model, later securing her a visa. Zampolli claims to have discovered Melania at a modeling agency in 1995 and Melania has also stated she first met Zampolli that year. She subsequently obtained a H1-B visa for “skilled” workers in October 1996 with Zampolli’s help. However, some reports have cited documents that Melania had done paid modeling work in the U.S. that had been arranged by Zampolli’s agency before she had actually acquired the H1-B visa that allowed her to legally work. At the time, Zampolli was still at Metropolitan Models, as he did not create ID Models until 1997. He has defended her visa application after scrutiny and accusations that the two ran an escort service in the 1990s. That claim prompted Melania to successfully sue the source of that claim, the UK’s Daily Mail, for defamation.

Zampolli is most often cited as the person who introduced Melania to Donald Trump in 1998 at a party he was hosting at the Kit Kat Club (no relation to Ghislaine Maxwell’s UK-based group of the same name), as both the Trumps and Zampolli have publicly made this claim. However, Jeffrey Epstein is also alleged to have claimed that he first introduced the pair.  

It’s hard to know which claim holds more credibility, particularly in an era where powerful people have gone to great lengths to obfuscate their ties to or distance themselves from Epstein. However, it is worth noting that it is highly likely that Epstein introduced Trump to his girlfriend prior to Melania, Celina Midelfart, a Norwegian heiress. Trump is said to have brought Midelfart as his date to the Zampolli-hosted event where he says he met Melania. Prior to dating Trump, Midelfart had accompanied Epstein to the Clinton White House and was also later photographed with Epstein at a 1995 event at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago at age 22. Evidence presented at Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial revealed that Midelfart had been one of Epstein’s girlfriends in the 1990s, with her relationship overlapping with other Epstein girlfriends of that era – Francis Jardine (who Epstein also took to the White House) and Maxwell herself. After dating Epstein, Midelfart began dating Trump. In addition, it seems that Melania may have had more interactions with Epstein than those confirmed by a handful of now well-known photographs. For instance, Melania had her contact information listed in his black book, though it appears under the entry for her now husband Donald Trump. Notably, the circled black book entry for Trump only lists one email address, which was Melania’s then-personal email (melaniakmelania@aol.com). Three numbers for Melania (misspelled Milania) are also listed.

Teaming up with Trump

After failing to obtain the Casablancas-founded Elite Model Management in 2004, Zampolli was hired by his friend of roughly ten years, Donald Trump. However, the possibility of working with Trump had come up a year prior, in November 2003, when Trump and Zampolli flew on a private plane together from Palm Beach to New York. A week later, per The Observer, the possibility of a job was again floated during a dinner at Cipriani’s that was attended by Trump, Melania Trump, Zampolli, and the aforementioned magician, David Copperfield. Zampolli remembered:

“[W]e had dinner together after the Victoria’s Secret show with David Copperfield. And we talked about it over dinner, and I said, ‘Yes, I want to do it.’ Then, three months later, I started to get the classes, the license, the school at NYU where I took the test [to be a realtor].”  

In a separate interview, Zampolli stated that Trump had told him the following at the dinner:  

“If you lose your supermodel, you go out of business. But if I lose my superintendent, I have a thousand looking for that job the next day. Paolo, you are too good for the fashion industry. You should come work with me.”

Zampolli got the official “You’re hired” from the star of the reality TV series The Apprentice in late 2004, following his failed bid for Elite. He began working as Director of International Development for the Trump Organization. In that role, he was tasked with selling luxury condos in United States, chiefly New York City, as well as more “exotic projects” like Villa Trump in Brazil. He focused on “tak[ing] care of the big, big money people” and made a habit of entertaining prospective buyers in his luxury Maybach sports car.  

Trump, when asked about the hire of Zampolli in 2005, stated that: “I’ve known Paolo for a long time. He’s got a great imagination. And in real estate, if you don’t have an imagination, it’s not going to work.” Casablancas, Zampolli’s former mentor, was also interviewed for the same 2005 article in The Observer and argued that Paolo was “going to have to project a more serious image about himself,” moving away from the image he had cultivated as a playboy model mogul in gossip columns to one more befitting a serious, aspiring Manhattan business tycoon.   

Zampolli found working for Trump more difficult than he had anticipated. He told The Observer that “to get a girl from the middle of Brazil that doesn’t speak English [and] put her on the cover of Vogue is very different than building skyscrapers in Manhattan.” Zampolli also stated that he found Trump to be a “tough boss” according to The New York Times.   

Zampolli eventually left the Trump Organization in 2006 to start his own real estate firm, the Paramount Group, which soon made headlines for “using former models as brokers to sell luxury apartments.” He combined this with his past strategies at the Trump Organization, dazzling clients with luxury car, speedboat and helicopter rides around New York City. Zampolli has claimed that his company Paramount is “a division in brokerage” with Prudential Douglas Elliman (now known as Douglas Elliman since 2012). At the time Zampolli teamed up with Douglas Elliman, it was owned by Howard Lorber, who – like Zampolli – is a close friend of Trump. Lorber bought the firm from Andrew Farkas, another Trump friend, in the early 2000s. Douglas Elliman later sued Zampolli for several million dollars in 2015 for “hoarding” profits and refusing to give the firm their share.  

Zampolli explained his approach to real estate in 2007 to CNBC, stating that models are very “driven” and that these “gorgeous ladies, they meet the most rich and powerful people of the world, and some of them, they keep this connection.”

One model turned broker working for Zampolli told the BBC in 2007 that both professions require “incredible networking skills” and that “if you combine the two industries, you’re left with the same rolodex.” Then, she adds, “you just go through your rolodex and sell houses.” The interview also noted that his Paramount Group sits right next door to his ID models agency.

When CNBC asked prospective buyer Raymond Dowd if being shown a property by a former top model made a difference, he stated that: “Absolutely. Involving supermodels in the process really ensures that there is a commitment to the highest quality of clientele and of living.”  The model broker showing Dowd around a property in the interview is Angela Everheart, the former Sports Illustrated model and actress.Everheart had previously been represented by Zampolli’s ID Models in the 1990s and later became known as one of the women who accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual indecency.

In a separate interview with the BBC, Everheart stated: “I know a lot of very wealthy people and I know people all over the world and that people are constantly looking for places to live. If I can network my friends into buildings such as the Cipriani building […] It’s a great way for me to make extra money.” The building to which Everheart referred is the apartment complex that was a joint venture between Giuseppe Cipriani and current envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff.

Other reports and interviews allude to Zampolli having had some notable successes in New York real estate, despite issues caused by the 2008 economic crisis. Zampolli, in one interview, attributed his success in real estate due to his sales “rel[ying] a lot on the clients of the Saudi royal family.” He specifically mentioned descendants of the founder and former king of Saudi Arabia, Ibn Saud, who ruled from 1932 to 1953. As noted previously, Zampolli had stated that his movement of models around the world had gained the attention of notable VIPS – among them Bill Clinton, Shimon Peres and Donald Trump, but also “rulers of the Gulf.” As Zampolli and some of his models sought to fuse their work in the modeling industry with New York real estate, it seems likely that the sharing of rolodexes also extended to some of the most powerful figures in Saudi Arabia and perhaps other Gulf kingdoms. 

This was confirmed by a Brazilian report on Zampolli and his wife Amanda Ungaro, which stated that Zampolli sold a $35 million dollar home to Qatari royals while also serving in a “diplomatic” post at the United Nations. Notably, that purchase was part of the Qatari emir’s “shopping spree” of Manhattan real estate, which also saw him purchase 22 71st Street East –– a property essentially across the street from Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse.

An Unlikely Diplomat

Some time between 2006 and 2007, Zampolli formally left the modeling and real estate industries to work with the United Nations. In a 2009 interview with Diario de Ibiza, Zampolli explained his reasoning as “decid[ing] to change things up and do business with projects that I identify more with.” He added that:

“I have always liked new challenges and I’ve been from the world of supermodels to the world of being a real estate broker and selling luxury homes until three years ago when I started working at the United Nations and I discovered a new world. I was interested in the Kyoto Protocol, energy saving and renewable energy.”

From September 2007 through November 2008, Zampolli worked at the Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Organization (IREO) –– a United Nations intergovernmental organization (IGO) –– which, according to its website, aimed to “foster the collaboration of Governments, NGOs, IGOs, Academia, and the Private Sector” in order to “educate the citizenries of the world on the dire need to change its current patterns of energy production and consumption.” According to Zampolli’s website, while at IREO, which works in association with the UN’s Economic and Social Council, he served as its Executive Director in addition to being a “Special Advisor on Climate Change Issues.” He further described himself as an “Expert” in “Kyoto Protocol / Carbon Credits / Energy Savings.”  

According to reporting from Inner City Press, in 2008, Zampolli sponsored a charity event at the United Nations, with $450 entrance fees benefiting the IREO. The former modeling titan was described at the event as being characteristically “surrounded by models,” and the event itself boasted the presence of the aforementioned Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum, former fianceés of Flavio Briatore, as attendees. Also attending was the UN’s General Assembly then-President Srgjan Kerim, alongside “fifty to sixty ambassadors,” according to Zampolli. 

Additionally, Grenada’s UN Ambassador, Angus Friday, was in attendance, with the article making note that only a week prior he had personally “squired Naomi Campbell through the [UN] building.” Friday joined the World Bank in 2009 before continuing work as Grenada’s Ambassador to the United States, including being named the Chairman of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) for the UN, and joined The Waitt Institute as the Blue Economy Director in 2020, run by Ghislaine Maxwell’s former boyfriend Ted Waitt and of relevance to Zampolli’s work with TerraMar, to be discussed in the next section. Friday became Grenada’s ambassador to the United States in 2014, around the same time that Zampolli’s wife Amanda Ungaro became one of Grenada’s UN representatives.

Ungaro was not the only member of the Zampolli family with a lengthy relationship with governments of Caribbean nations –– including Grenada specifically. Zampolli, for instance, was named Minister-Counsellor to the Permanent Mission of the Commonwealth of Dominica in 2011, appointed as Ambassador under the Tourism Ministry of Grenada in 2012, and appointed the United Nation Ambassador and Ambassador For Oceans and Seas for the Commonwealth of Dominica in October 2013. As recently noted, Amanda Ungaro was later appointed as a UN Ambassador to Grenada in 2014. Zampolli and Ungaro later created several projects aimed at lobbying the UN on “sustainable development” and other issues, such as UN Kids and the World Empowerment Retirement International Organization.

Around the time of the 2008 IREO fundraiser mentioned above, Zampolli launched Green Inc. in order to “[Build] a Greener World Through Alternative Energy & Solutions.” The website also claimed that Green Inc. is a “strategic partner” of the United Nations Association in Brazil. Zampolli additionally acted as a special advisory to Brazil’s UN organization, Anubra. Zampolli’s Haute Living author profile claims Green Inc. was founded in 2009 in order to sell “green products to heads of states and municipalities.” Despite the posturing of altruistic motives, Zampolli later explained in an interview with Diario de Ibiza that Green Inc. is “not a charity business,” and that “it’s good business.” The same interview describes the company’s customers as “heads of state, governors, and mayors,” and that Green Inc. had “entered into an agreement with [the multinational electronics conglomerate] Phillips to supply the company.” 

Zampolli also stated he was working closely with Barack Obama on renewables, but claimed his administration had not gone far enough in pushing certain products that could offset climate change, such as hybrid cars and ethanol. Alongside Obama and Trump, Zampolli also boasted close ties to the “genius” Clintons. His close contacts with former and future U.S. presidents is perhaps best summed up by his own admission that “the natural path [of success] is to follow the trail of power.” He furthered, that “the secret to advancing your career and your business is to meet increasingly important people.”  

In 2012, Zampolli was pictured and noted as being a delegation member of the Clinton Climate Change Initiative, which is directly affiliated with The Clinton Foundation, according to the foundation’s website. Also among this delegation sat attorney Jan Hartke, who eventually became the Global Director for Clean Energy at the Clinton Climate Initiative. Previously, between 1975 through 1990, Hartke acted as the Chief Public Defender, State Treasurer, and Director of the Governor’s Washington, DC Office for New Mexico. Much of Hartke’s service for New Mexico overlapped with the multiple gubernatorial stints of Governor Bruce King, with the Sante Fe New Mexican noting in April 1980 that the two shared a “special kind of relationship.” In 1993, King sold Epstein the land for the now-infamous Zorro Ranch, with the vast majority of the land surrounding the ranch still owned by members of the King family, aside from a plot of land that was bought by fashion icon and one of Epstein’s Black Book contacts, Tom Ford, in 2001.  

In 1992, Harkte had also founded and acted as President for the Earth Council Alliance (ECA), alongside Dr. David Jhirad –– a Vice President and Special Adviser on Energy and Climate Change to The Rockefeller Foundation; a Vice President for Science and Research at the World Resources Institute; and an advisor to the alleged CIA-cut out USAID. Jhirad was replaced as ECA Chairman by 2025 Nobel Prize nominee Lelei Lelaulu, who among other UN stints, was part of “the small group hand-picked to reform the United Nations in the 1990s” as acting Secretary of the Task Force to Re-orient UN Public Information Activities. Lelaulu additionally served on the Board of Directors of the Peter Thiel-founded Seasteading Institute, and notably was a founding Team Member of Blue Guardians ––  a partnership “with DigitalGlobe, SIDS DOCK, Clinton Climate Initiative, the World Bank, The Nature Conservancy,” in addition to Waitt Foundation and Google Ocean, among others.  

The Waitt Foundation was founded by Ted Waitt, who dated Ghislaine Maxwell for nearly 7 years between 2003 and 2010, and was reportedly responsible for connecting Maxwell with ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt at an event held by the Clintons –– likely a Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) event. As described by the CGI, Blue Guardians was formed in 2015 as a response to “the lack of affordable, high-quality geospatial and climate data” needed by SIDS [Small Island Developing States] to “plan, finance, and manage urgently needed mitigation and adaptation programs.” In the context of the need for “geospatial and climate data,” Maxwell’s subsequent romantic partner after Waitt, Scott Borgerson (whom she would later marry), was the founder and CEO of the Eric Schmidt-funded, maritime data specialist company CargoMetrics (For more information about CargoMetrics and its relevance, see Unlimited Hangout’s investigation “The Chain of Issuance”). Blue Guardians is notable in the context of Zampolli’s Sustainable Oceans Alliance (SOA) in that it served as a near-identical blueprint for one of his founding SOA partners –– the now-infamous TerraMar Project, started by Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell (to be explained in detail below). Other Blue Guardian organizations, such as the Clinton philanthropies and Google Ocean, also boasted ties to TerraMar.

It is also important to remind readers that Epstein himself had numerous connections to The Clinton Foundation, including a statement from his lawyers claiming “Mr. Epstein was part of the original group that conceived The Clinton Global Initiative” in a July 2007 letter, according to reporting from Fox News. Maxwell has since claimed that she was also “very central” to the “startup” of the CGI. It was also reported that Epstein donated $25,000 directly to the foundation, as revealed by a whistle-blower via The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, within the “documented $81 million” routed from “HSBC Swiss accounts to The Clinton Foundation,” including “various accounts totaling $3.5 million” held personally by Epstein. 

As noted in Part I of this series, the “HSBC Swiss accounts” were born out of the scandal-ridden banking interests of Edmond Safra, who appears in Epstein’s black book and was a close friend of Ghislaine Maxwell’s father Robert Maxwell. Part I also noted that Flavio Briatore, a close friend of Zampolli’s and Trump’s who also boasted important ties to Epstein, held accounts at the same bank, overlapping with the time of his involvement in Formula1 race-fixing. When HSBC took over Safra’s banking institutions, it also inherited some of Safra’s “wealthy international clients,” which appears to have included Epstein.

There has been surprisingly little interest in pursuing HSBC for its Epstein ties, with J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank having been more publicly linked to Epstein via court cases that were later settled out of court. However, HSBC has a history of being shielded from prosecution, particularly after it took over Safra’s banking institutions. For instance, HSBC’s direct involvement in money laundering for drug cartels was not prosecuted by then-head of the Bank of England Mark Carney, who later became a leading architect of UN “green” finance and is now Prime Minister of Canada (and who also was known to have socialized with Ghislaine Maxwell while he was leading the Bank of England). 

In addition to Epstein’s funding of the Clinton Foundation and his alleged role in helping create CGI, Clinton has admitted to flying on Epstein’s private jet four times in 2002 and 2003 while doing work for The Clinton Foundation. His wife Hillary twice hired Ghislaine Maxwell’s nephew, Alexander Djerassi –– first during her 2008 campaign, and secondly at the State Department during her tenure as Secretary of State in the Obama administration. Djerassi, according to his bio from his stint as an associate at the Carnegie Endowment, served as a “U.S. representative to the Friends of Libya conferences, Friends of the Syrian People conferences, U.S.-GCC Strategic Coordination Forum, and several UN General Assemblies.” Notably, Djerassi joined Carnegie shortly after Bill Burns, who later served as Biden’s CIA Director, became the organization’s president. Burns, who was involved with the UN while at Carnegie, had met with Epstein shortly before he joined the organization. Carnegie’s chair at the time was Penny Pritzker, a member of the Chicago-based family with historic ties to organized crime and the CIA-linked Castle bank. Some of its members were very close to Epstein (this is discussed more in detail in the next section of this piece).

It is worth noting that Epstein himself appeared to have had some important intersections with the United Nations. For instance, the Wall Street Journal reported that, during the week of the United Nations General Assembly, “a steady stream of dignitaries could be seen arriving at Mr. Epstein’s townhouse” in New York. It is unclear why so many officials sought to meet with Epstein, though one possibility lies in Epstein’s claims to have managed sovereign wealth funds for oil-rich nations in the Middle East. 

In addition, Epstein cultivated close ties to the International Peace Institute (IPI), which collaborates closely with the United Nations and was created in 1970 with direct UN-backing and funding from the Forbes family, particularly Ruth Forbes Young. Young was the mother of Michael Paine, who — along with his wife Ruth — are major persons of interest in the conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy in 1963. Epstein funded the IPI to the tune of $650,000 from 2011 to 2019 and also gave the IPI’s then-chairman, Terje Rød-Larsen, a personal loan of $130,000 in 2013. Rød-Larsen later stepped down when Epstein’s donations to IPI and to Rød-Larsen were made public.

Furthermore, Leon Black, a close associate of Epstein both financially and personally, and his private equity firm Apollo Global Management were involved with managing the UN Joint Staff Pension Fund. However, the Fund later put Apollo on a “blacklist” after the extent of Black’s ties to Epstein were reported in 2021. Apollo remained on the list even after an internal report at Apollo sought to exonerate Black of wrong-doing tied to Epstein. That internal Apollo report was notably authored by three Apollo board members, including Alvin “Buzzy” Krongard, a former executive director of the CIA who is also, incidentally, a key suspect in the now memory-holed 9/11 insider trading scandal.

Epstein’s brother Mark Epstein also served as vice-chairman of the board of another non-profit with close ties to the UN, the Humpty Dumpty Institute. Also on the board of Humpty Dumpty, still today, is Amir Dossal, who — as we shall see — worked closely with both Zampolli and Ghislaine Maxwell on efforts intimately involving Maxwell’s TerraMar project.

Citizenship for Sale

In addition to the ties detailed above that show Zampolli’s work at the UN intersected with the Clinton philanthropies, there is more to discuss regarding Zampolli and other aspects of the Epstein-Clinton relationship. As mentioned in the previous section, Paolo Zampolli was appointed Minister-Counsellor to the Permanent Mission of the Commonwealth of Dominica in 2011. Zampolli first became connected to Dominica’s government via his ties to real estate. He did so by securing the construction of a luxury resort in the island nation, which boasted an economic passport program whereby foreigners could obtain citizenship in the country by purchasing properties at the complex.

That resort was built by Range Developments, who have also built luxury hotels in Grenada and St. Kitts –– island nations to which Zampolli and his wife Amanda Ungaro, as previously noted, have significant connections. As stated previously, Ungaro worked for Grenada’s permanent mission to the UN while Zampolli has claimed to have represented St. Kitts in addition to Dominica and Grenada. 

Range has also built luxury hotels with similar economic passport schemes for the Hyatt Hotel Group, which is run by Tom Pritzker, a long-time and close friend of Jeffrey Epstein who was subpoenaed as part of the USVI-J.P. Morgan case, is in the black book, and has been accused of sexual misconduct by prominent victims. As noted in One Nation Under Blackmail, the Pritzker family have longstanding ties to organized crime and were also closely associated with the mob-linked offshore Caribbean bank, Castle Bank, the management of which was dominated by two figures in particular: Burton Kanter, a lawyer for the Pritzkers, and CIA-OSS veteran Paul Helliwell.

Zampolli later sued Range Developments claiming he had not been provided his promised 5% of the profits of the “800 family passports” affiliated with the Dominica resort whose construction he helped facilitate. Range Developments claimed that Zampolli could not be paid until after the project was fully completed and accounts closed. Notably, in the lawsuit, Zampolli claimed that top figures at Range Developments “are known to sell passports to Iran, Yemen, and Sudan to circumvent U.S. Treasury sanctions and United Nations Security Council sanctions.” One wonders if Zampolli would have been so concerned about this aspect of the passport sales if he had been paid.

Zampolli seemed to squeal on a poorly kept secret –– something was shady about Dominica’s economic passport scheme in general. Indeed, several suspect figures aside from Zampolli were given diplomatic positions by Dominican Prime Minister Skerrit Roosevelt either before or after buying citizenship in the country. The outlet PassBlue noted that this “passport plan [had first] started with a Dominica ambassador to China, David King Hsiu, according to Wikileaks.” Other sources note that Hsiu is a Chinese national who was apparently given the post of being ambassador to China after pitching the government of Dominica on using luxury real estate projects to sell passports to Chinese citizens specifically. As noted above, this same model would also later lead to Zampolli being given a post by Dominica. PassBlue added that: 

The plan [as devised by Hsiu] was ostensibly devised to bring investments into tourism for Dominica. But the dealings, in which Chinese families could buy a passport for $100,000 each, reportedly benefited only top players in the arrangements. 

Perhaps the most jarring part of the PassBlue article reads as follows:

In 2015, in a much-publicized case that is still reverberating, a Chinese billionaire, Ng Lap Seng, was arrested by the FBI in relation to a UN bribery investigation involving payoffs to John Ashe, who was a former president of the UN General Assembly as well as the UN ambassador for Antigua and Barbuda. Ashe was accused of using his Assembly post to buy influence in the UN to enable a real estate development in Macau by Ng Lap Seng. [Prime Minister Roosevelt] Skerrit of Dominica was photographed with Ng shortly before his arrest. [Reminder: Skerrit’s government had appointed Zampolli to represent Dominica at the UN in 2011 and again in 2013]

Ashe died a pauper in 2016 in a freak accident at home, after being indicted by the US government and living under house arrest in Westchester County, New York. Ng Lap Seng is to face trial this month, as will an adviser to him, who is in plea talks. Francis Lorenzo, a Dominican Republic ambassador to the UN accused in the fraud case, pleaded guilty last year.

Lorenzo, despite being one of the UN officials that Seng had bribed and who carried out favors for him while representing Dominica, ended up serving no prison time due to his testimony at Seng’s trial. As documented tirelessly by Inner City Press (apparently the only news outlet willing to tackle the story at the time), the verdict for Lorenzo was just the tip of the iceberg for what amounted to a massive cover-up of UN corruption that shielded the corrupt UN officials involved, allegedly including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, while instead only going after the bribers (see here, here, here and here).

Lorenzo and Zampolli were very close, serving together as UN representatives for Dominica, and also on a personal level, with Lorenzo leading the singing of “Happy Birthday” to Zampolli at his birthday party in 2012. At that event, Zampolli was pictured posing with Lorenzo and the other figure Seng had bribed, John Ashe. However, as noted above, Ashe, unlike Lorenzo, suffered an unfortunate fate due to a “freak accident.” The official cause of death for Ashe was that he had died due to “a weightlifting accident when a barbell he was lifting from a bench dropped on his neck.” To further quote from an Associated Press report: 

“Dr. Kunjlata Ashar, Westchester County’s medical examiner, said the cause of death — traumatic asphyxia — was determined during an autopsy, though she did not perform the procedure herself and did not have additional details. It was deemed an accident based on a combination of information from the autopsy and an investigation by the Dobbs Ferry Police Department, officials said. The police department said in a statement that the death appears accidental, but provided little information otherwise.”

Ashe’s unfortunate “accident” and association with Ng Lap Seng are particularly relevant to this story as Ng Lap Seng was also closely affiliated with Mark Middleton, who also died under exceedingly odd circumstances. Both Seng and Middleton were key figures in the broader “Chinagate” scandal that was intimately related to Jeffrey Epstein’s 17 visits to the Clinton White House in the 1990s.

Ng Lap Seng is a real estate developer from Macau whose improbable rag-to-riches story was later explained by U.S. Congressional investigators as the result of his becoming a “front for municipal and provincial authorities in the People’s Republic of China.” He eventually became a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, an advisory board for the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP. His real estate holdings in Macau, like the Fortuna hotel, were known as “massage-table dance-karaoke” spots where important Chinese officials, Chinese military figures and Triad gangsters mingled. As noted in One Nation Under Blackmail, Fortuna in particular appears to have had trafficked women work their “massage tables” and may have blackmailed prominent politicians who frequented it.

Seng later teamed up with a businessman based in Little Rock, Arkansas named Charlie Trie in a failed venture that saw them team up with Rose Law firm’s C. Joseph Giroir. Rose, incidentally, was the law firm where Hillary Clinton and figures close to her and husband, like Vince Foster and Webster Hubbell, also worked. Trie, during the Clinton administration, would establish a presence in Washington that he and Seng later used to court Clinton White House figures like Mark Middleton. The evidence shows that Trie acted as a front for Seng in these operations. 

Middleton, who was then serving as a special assistant to President Clinton, would later emerge as a central figure in the scandal that involved Seng, Trie and others that is now remembered as “Chinagate.” While that scandal is best known for the corrupt dealings between Trie and his associates and the Democratic National Committee, the reality is that it was part of a much larger scandal involving the covert trafficking of Chinese arms into the U.S. in exchange for the illicit transfer of sensitive U.S. military technology to the Chinese military. 

While Middleton was embroiled with figures like Trie and Seng and the broader nexus of Chinagate, he was also regularly meeting with Jeffrey Epstein at the White House. Middleton accounts for the vast majority of Epstein’s 17 visits to the Clinton White House, which began in 1993 and continued through January 1995. Middleton left his post at the White House in February 1995. Middleton also flew on Epstein’s private jet in May 1994. During this time, Epstein had complete control over Leslie Wexner’s affairs via power of attorney and had helped Wexner’s business interests take de facto control of the CIA-linked airline Southern Air Transport, which began making regular flights between Columbus, OH and Hong Kong. Southern Air Transport had a history of transporting drugs and weapons for the CIA and Iran-Contra network and Epstein had previously been closely affiliated with both prominent weapons dealers (i.e. Douglas Leese and Adnan Khashoggi) and the Iran-Contra network.

A few months after UK media reported on the extent of Epstein’s meetings with Middleton at the Clinton White house, Middleton was found dead of an alleged “suicide.” Police claimed that he had both hung himself with an extension cord and shot himself in the chest. An Arkansas judge rapidly sealed images and other evidence from the crime scene to prevent the spread of “conspiracy theories.”

Ultimately, the ties of Dominica’s economic passport scheme to figures like Ng Lap Seng and the broader network behind “Chinagate”, as well as the fact that two figures caught up in scandals with Seng (Ashe and Middleton) died under very suspicious circumstances, suggest that the scheme was used by irreputable figures for the purpose of purchasing citizenship that would enable them to engage in offshore, criminal activity. 

Zampolli, TerraMar and the SDGs

Aside from his ties to Dominica, the former model mogul would go on to hold numerous positions in association with the UN, including affiliate organizations. For instance, as noted earlier, Zampolli was a special advisor to Brazil’s Anubra and also had ties to the UN Foundation, which is heavily funded by CNN founder and billionaire Ted Turner as well as the Gates Foundation. Zampolli authored a 2010 piece for Haute Living describing a private ceremony he attended that was hosted by the United Nations Foundation to “congratulate Amir Dossal on his ‘graduation’ from the United Nations as executive director at the UN Office for Partnerships.” Dossal had first joined the UN in 1985. Billionaire Ted Turner –– controversial for his views on population control and globalism –– presented Dossal with a check at the ceremony and took time to take a selfie with Zampolli. Other notable guests at the party included Max and Stefania Girombelli of the Cipriani Group, Christiana Falcone of the World Economic Forum, president of the UN Foundation Senator Tim Wirth, and Anne Marie Miller of Zampolli’s Green Inc. Also present was supermodel Petra Nemcova, a former Victoria’s Secret model who started her modeling career with Next Models, an agency co-founded by Jean Luc Brunel in 1989 and which Brunel was intimately involved with until 1996.

The event’s honoree, Amir Dossal, has other connections and ties to Zampolli that are worth noting. Just before leaving the UN, Dossal had formed the Global Partnerships Forum, described by Zampolli as a “non-profit platform to build innovative public-private partnerships to address various global challenges.” Dossal’s Global Partnerships Forum was a founding member of the Sustainable Oceans Alliance (SOA), a partnership created in 2013 between Paolo Zampolli, listed as the “Special Representative for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Business of Grenada,” Dossal’s Global Partnerships Forum, the UN Ambassador of Palau Stuart Beck, and Ghislaine Maxwell’s TerraMar Project. Dossal, Beck and the aforementioned Scott Borgerson, were all board members of TerraMar. Dossal and Zampolli appeared to be quite close in this era, as Dossal was chosen to give a speech to party-goers praising Zampolli at his birthday party in 2014.

The TerraMar Project was officially launched a year before the SOA in September 2012 at the Blue Ocean Film Festival & Conservation Conference in Monterey, CA. It was the culmination of two years of planning by Maxwell. Notably, during these “two years,” Ghislaine’s sister, Isabel Maxwell, was listed as the President of the Blue World Alliance –– an organization co-founded by Isabel’s then-husband, Al Seckel, and described as “a non-profit organization seeking tractable solutions to environmental problems concerning oceans.” Seckel was a co-founder of the Mindshift conference with Epstein –– the host of conferences which featured Zampolli’s good friend Brock Pierce, among others –– before his suspicious death after falling off a cliff in France in 2015. While not much is known about Blue World Alliance, it is highly possible the concept first started with Isabel Maxwell before it was reborn as her younger “socialite” sister’s TerraMar Project.  

Ghislaine’s non-profit organization offered digital citizenship for the oceans in order to uphold and protect the high seas. Its website stated that its “number one goal is to change attitudes and governance as it relates to the world’s largest ecosystem.” The organization made note of the UN’s Law of the Sea Convention, which “declares that the international seabed and its mineral resources are the common heritage of mankind and requires activities in the international seabed to be carried out ‘for the benefit of mankind’.” While not much is ultimately known about the success of the project, the triangulation of the UN’s influence on ocean governance, the rights of use for the resources of the seas, and the implications of issuing passports and citizenry for international waters all culminated in an organization that was run by UN stalwarts, political influencers, a convicted human trafficker, and technologic data brokers. Under this context, Zampolli’s close ties to such a project through the Sustainable Oceans Alliance makes sense given his previous lines of work at the UN, the modeling industry, his ties to heads of state, and his overlaps with the extended Epstein network.  

On that note, TerraMar boasted connections to Epstein that went beyond Maxwell herself. For instance, Dana Burns –– an assistant to Maxwell in New York who was a founding member of the Board of Directors for the TerraMar Project –– appeared on the logs for two Epstein flights when 19 years old. According to testimony from Epstein’s butler, Janusz Banasiak –– whose wife and stepdaughter worked for Ivana Trump –– Burns also worked briefly for Epstein’s Florida Science Foundation, and The Daily Beast further connected her to “a Manhattan building where Epstein was known to house models.”

Stuart Beck, a TerraMar board member, co-chair of the Sustainable Oceans Alliance, and UN Ambassador of Palau, was a close colleague of Zampolli’s at the UN. Beck was the former President of Granite Broadcasting –– a New York television company founded by 17-year Goldman Sachs veteran W. Don Cornwell, who acted as Director of Blue Meridian Partners and later served on the boards of Pfizer, AIG and Big Brothers Big Sisters NYC, among others. Beck accompanied Maxwell to the UN on at least two occasions, including a very telling discussion in June 2013 on behalf of TerraMar and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):

“There are going to be 193 votes at the General Assembly in 2015 to decide what are the Sustainable Development Goals. So our ultimate objective has got to be those 193. This is not a ‘slam dunk’, there are a lot of countries, it seems, who are not in favour of an Oceans SDG, they have their own priorities, they’re landlocked, they’re more concerned with MDG type issues for example. So those are the ultimate objects of our campaign. We need those votes.” – Stuart Beck June 25, 2013 at the United Nations  

The quest for more votes on world-changing regulation as it relates to the UN’s power over the high seas had been the initial impetus for Beck’s role at the UN on behalf of Palau. An article by the Tampa Bay Times published in July 2005 quotes Beck articulating his push for the country to take their seat at the United Nations: 

“I said to them, ‘Look, you don’t produce anything, you don’t manufacture anything, nobody’s after your labor pool, you don’t have anything that anyone wants, the U.S. already has defense and basing rights, so the only thing of value you have is your U.N. Vote’.”  

Historically, the relationship between the UN, the U.S. and Palau is intertwined, starting in 1947 with the UN “assign[ing] the United States administering authority over the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (Trust Territory), which included what is now the Republic of Palau (Palau).” Notably, Palau has a rather unique immigration deal with the United States, having signed a Compact of Free Association (COFA) in 1982. The agreement went into effect in October 1994 and allows Palauan citizens easy entrance to the United States, an indefinite length of stay, the right to live, study and work, and even access to a social security number. Part of this COFA included an agreement that “the United States has full authority and responsibility for defense and security matters in and relating to Palau.” 

According to the CIA’s world factbook, this defense arrangement led to an amendment to the Palau constitution, originally signed in 1981, which “stated that Palau was a nuclear-free country.” Following “a constitutional amendment and eighth referendum in 1993,” the COFA was formally ratified in 1994. In December 1994, only two months after this Compact went into effect, Palau became a member state of the United Nations. Beck, a lawyer, had helped Palau draft the COFA, and was granted honorary citizenship for his contributions. 

Unfortunately for the citizens of Palau, the story for how this amendment came to be is hardly as innocent as the CIA’s website makes it out to be. For starters, the reason for apprehension regarding nuclear arms on the tiny island comes downstream from the U.S. Department of Defense having used the neighboring Marshall Islands as a nuclear test site from 1946 through 1958, leading to concerns about fallout and irradiation. A super-majority of Palauans thus passed a nuclear-free constitution, directly contradicting the DoD’s “plans to relocate US forward bases from the Philippines to Micronesia” and the Pentagon’s policies to “neither confirm nor deny that its crafts are nuclear-powered or armed.” A rather telling excerpt from an article on Pacific.Scoop, based on work by Ed Rampell, outlines how the White House and the CIA directly created the environment for regime change in order to secure Palau as a military outpost:

“The conflict came to a head while George Herbert Walker Bush, veteran of WWII’s Palau campaign, was CIA Director and in the Executive Branch. According to Bob Woodward in The Washington Post, CIA chief George Herbert Walker Bush presided over illegal bugging of Micronesian political status negotiations in the 1970s, ordered by Henry Kissinger, carried out by Bush ally Brent Scowcroft, and aimed at ‘exerting covert influence on key elements of the Micronesian independence movement.’ 

While Vice-President George Herbert Walker Bush had his longtime crony Fred Zeder, an ex-Pacific fighter pilot and Texas businessman, appointed the President’s personal representative for Micronesian status negotiations in 1982. Zeder had been admitted to the Young Presidents’ Organisation in 1960 at the University of Michigan, where his roommate was Prescott S. Bush Jr., the brother of George Bush Senior…

Zeder allegedly played a role in bankrupting tiny Palau by supporting IPSECO – an apparent covert action disguised as a power plant, with generators and a fuel farm far too big for Palau’s 15,000 people (but large enough to provide power/fuel for future possible US military bases). The only way the emerging nation could pay off its enormous power debt was by approving a treaty called the Compact of Free Association. The accord would nullify Palau’s anti-nuclear constitution – in exchange for US aid…

On June 30, 1985, [Palauan] President Haruo Remeliik was assassinated, which reopened the then-deadlocked treaty negotiations. Shortly after the liquidation, then-Vice-President Bush personally flew to Saipan[, Palau], where the Trust Territory administration was headquartered, to reopen stalled negotiations, and struck a new deal.”

On this trip, in October 1985, then-VP Bush traveled to Palau to brief a delegation of Micronesian officials on the COFA:

“We stand on the threshold of a new era. Soon, very soon we hope, the United States Congress will have completed its mandated program of review of the Compact of Free Association and will pass it with all of the commitments and essential elements intact. As soon as that is accomplished, we will go to the United Nations to secure termination of the trusteeship. When the Trust Territory is dissolved, our mission of replacing trusteeship with self-government will have been accomplished.”

Despite Bush’s speech, antinuclear activists were able to strike down the treaty in court, keeping Palau’s status as the world’s first nuclear-free nation. Shortly after, in 1987, terrorists “firebombed and shot Pacific pacifists,” and “besieged Palau’s congress.” A U.S. Congressional General Accounting Office investigation “found a $2 million US-derived slush fund” had “financed political violence” in Palau during this period. In August 1988, Palau’s second president Lazarus Salii was found dead in his home after failing to pass the COFA –– allegedly only a day before he was to announce his bid for reelection. Eventually, with two presidents killed and two million dollars spent to stir violence, the Palauan constitution was amended, the COFA went into effect, and the U.S. was free to place its nuclear arms on the tiny island. 

The assassination of Palau’s first President, Haruo Remeliik, initially led to the successful guilty prosecution of three men: Melwert Tmetuchl, Anghenio Sabino, and Leslie Tewid. The latter, Leslie Tewid, had just returned from the United States, having recently graduated from New York University. While Tewid was pursuing his undergraduate degree, he had lived with Stuart Beck in Manhattan. Tewid’s alibi during his defense was that while he had “spent much of the night at a bar about an eight-minute drive from the President’s home” where he was assassinated, “around midnight” he and two friends had driven “to a water tank, where the friends used heroin before returning to the bar.” While one of his accompanying friend’s had verified the trip to prosecutors, “the other died in an accident before the trial.” Tewid had taken a polygraph test during the trial and was “found deceptive about the assassination.”

Despite all of this, Beck and fellow Manhattan lawyer David Richenthal, on behalf of the ACLU, called for an appeal and, in July 1987, an “appeals court ordered acquittals for three young men.” A year and a month later, in August 1988, the aforementioned Palauan President Salii was shot and killed in his home. Despite police initially believing that “a gunman entered the home and killed him,” his death was eventually ruled a suicide. The same evening Salii was found dead, Vice President Thomas Remengesau Sr. was sworn in as Acting President. Remengesau Sr.’s son, Thomas Remengesau Jr., was later elected president of Palau four times –– first in 2000, and again in 2004, before two more elections in 2012 and 2016. At the start of his second term, Remengesau Jr. first appointed Beck the Ambassador and Permanent Representative for Palau at the UN.

Ambassador Beck and Remengesau Jr. took a diplomatic trip to Israel in June 2006, in which Remengesau was quoted entering Israeli President Moshe Katsav’s office stating: “There are two Jewish ambassadors to the United Nations, yours and ours.” An article by The Jerusalem Post covered the trip, making note that “the country that most consistently votes with and for Israel is Palau,” with Beck reiterating that “Palau had the best and most consistent record of any country in voting for Israel.” The article furthered that members of Remengesau’s delegation had “been trying to get Micronesia, the Solomon Islands, Nauru and other Pacific island states to join a pro-Israel coalition,” dubbed the “Great Powers of the Pacific in Support of Israel.”  

Palau and Ambassador Beck’s affinity for Israel as it relates to the UN may offer further clarity on their relationship with TerraMar’s founder, Maxwell, due to her family’s ties to the state of Israel, including her father Robert Maxwell’s and sister Isabel Maxwell’s longstanding relationship with Israeli intelligence and government officials, respectively. 

In addition to the aforementioned visit in 2013, Beck again accompanied Ghislaine Maxwell to the UN in February 2014 at an event hosted by the Zampolli co-founded Sustainable Oceans Alliance, and the governments of Italy and Palau. Amir Dossal, who sat on the board at the Humpty Dumpty Institute alongside Jeffrey Epstein’s brother Mark, brought Maxwell to the stage on behalf of TerraMar with a telling introduction:

“I am now going to invite the person who has been the inspiration behind the Sustainable Oceans Alliance who really has something called TerraMar Project. She controls the oceans around the world. If you look up the website, you have the option to buy a part of the ocean through her… And therefore I invite my dear friend Ghislaine Maxwell to tell us how we can own the oceans.” [emphasis added] – Amir Dossal at the UN, February 4, 2014

While TerraMar hardly had the rights to actually sell parcels of the ocean, her project did seem to operate a primordial NFT-esque purchasing program. This makes sense given how TerraMar board member Steve Haft, who helped bring together the Sustainable Ocean Alliance, has an intimate relationship with ConsenSys –– an Ethereum development company founded by Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin. Haft was also an advising member of Amir Dossal’s Global Partnerships Forum, and has worked alongside the UN on climate and blockchain-related projects. Importantly, Dossal had founded the Blockchain Commission for Sustainable Development at the UN. Zampolli’s connections to the blockchain community are to be discussed later on in this article. 

As for the citizenship angle, there are unusual overlaps with SOA’s other members and citizenship by investment schemes with dubious reputations, such as those involving Zampolli and Dominica. This may warrant a re-examination of Maxwell’s statements in a 2016 deposition where, when asked if she was “a citizen of any other land [besides the US]?”, she responded “TerraMar,” instead of mentioning her British and French citizenships. In the same deposition, Maxwell also confirmed that Epstein had given “some money to TerraMar,” estimating it to be around $50,000. The pay-to-play aspects of TerraMar citizenships are in line with Palau’s unique immigration relationship to the United States, in addition to Palauan experiments with their Digital Residency Program –– a blockchain-based residency and ID system which allows cryptocurrency holders to purchase residency.  

Interestingly, Jeffrey Beattie –– who appears to be the father of a former Trump speech writer and current Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy at the State Department who grew up in Palau, Darren Jeffrey Beattie –– was an Attorney General of Palau who was accused of abusing his position to “solicit a U.S. visa for a personal acquaintance of his” in 2009. According to reporting from Marianas Variety, Special Prosecutor Michael P. Copeland received a complaint that Beattie “did use a letter head from the AG’s Office to make a request to the United States government” to grant a U.S. visa to a female Chinese national whom Beattie noted “had been helpful in a few of the republic’s investigations into human trafficking in Palau.” Beattie alleged that if she was “required to go back to her country, her life would be in danger.” A second allegation against Beattie held that “he and the [Chinese] lady used his power as AG to extort and blackmail businesses in Palau,” including “threats to close down karaoke bars and massage parlors if they did not pay her ‘protection money’.” The behavior of this Chinese national is reminiscent to that of the aforementioned Macau real-estate developer Ng Lap Seng. Ultimately, no charges or actions were made against Beattie, apparently because Palau’s AG at the time didn’t want to spend money sending “an investigator to China to find witnesses.” 

As for how Beattie’s AG position relates to TerraMar’s ocean citizenship play, a 2004 profile from Colorado College –– Beattie’s alma matter –– stated that “a delegation came to Palau claiming to be from a new nation called the United Kingdom of Atlantis. They wanted to meet with the president to discuss establishing diplomatic relations. I agreed to meet with them, but when I checked the longitude and latitude of their country, it was just ocean.” While easy to dismiss as a throw-away quip, within the context of human trafficking, passport laundering, and the country’s unique immigration compact with the U.S., Palau could easily have been used as a gateway for foreign nationals to cover their own citizenry and enter the U.S. with ease –– the first iteration of today’s cryptocurrency for “citizenry” via Palau’s Digital Residency Program. 

After Epstein’s death in 2019, Zampolli claimed to be unaware of Maxwell’s connections to the Sustainable Oceans Alliance, but that he did recall Ambassador Beck bringing her to the UN “twice to discuss her oceans advocacy.” In an interview with The Daily Beast, Zampolli elaborated: 

“She came to the United Nations twice to meet with me. She had a very creative idea about the oceans. She wanted to create awareness and give free passports to the ocean. Oceans are so big. Her idea wasn’t aligned with the charter of the U.N… She was very active and knowledgeable about the oceans. I learnt after the meetings the Clinton foundation was funding her. She did not give us money. It was not a United Nations idea. It was a virtual passport. It’s like getting a piece of ice from an eskimo. It would be like getting a passport for an ice cube.”

While Zampolli sought to distance himself from TerraMar and Ghislaine after she and Epstein became infamous, interviews given elsewhere by Zampolli reveal that he worked closely on the team, with “fantastic, terrific colleagues” that created Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14. However, the public faces of the very team that developed SDG 14 were Stuart Beck and Ghislaine Maxwell herself, both of whom were members of the Sustainable Ocean Alliance with Zampolli. Zampolli acknowledged working closely with Beck to develop SDG 14 in a 2020 interview, but left out Ghislaine, even though he had long-running associations with figures who had been close to Ghislaine and Epstein.

WATO Scandal at the UN

Zampolli’s deep involvement with SDG14 would bring him to the forefront of a major UN scandal. Remarkably, Zampolli managed to avoid any repercussions at all for his involvement, despite the fact that the available evidence directly contradicts his claims about the case. 

The scandal first broke in 2022, when a UN official then at the UN Office of Project Services (UNOPS) was revealed to have suspiciously steered $58 million of UNOPS funds to a British businessman merely after meeting him at a party. Who brokered the introduction between the two men? Paolo Zampolli.

Zampolli first introduced the UNOPS officials central to the scandal, Grete Faremo of Norway and Vitaly Vanshelboim of Ukraine, to the British businessman, David Kendrick, and his daughter Daisy in 2015. At the time of the party, Zampolli “was making introductions for Mr. Kendrick, the British businessman, who was selling a system for building fast, cheap, sturdy homes in the developing world.” “Could that bring me money? Yes, of course. That’s called real estate,” Zampolli later told the New York Times about his apparent motives in making the introduction between UNOPS officials and the Kendricks. After the party, Zampolli said that “David came to me and said, ‘Paolo, these UNOPS people are very interested. They can invest.”

A year later, in 2016, Zampolli and UNOPS co-hosted an event that bore the branding of “We Are The Oceans” or WATO, Zampolli’s UN-backed “conservation group” that Zampolli once described as “the NATO of the Oceans.” Photos show Faremo and Vanshelboim –– then the top two figures at UNOPS –– along with Zampolli, who addressed guests. Among them was Petra Nemcova, the super-model who started off her career at Jean Luc Brunel’s modeling agency and who seemed to be a fixture at Zampolli-hosted UN events. Another guest was Daisy Kendrick. According to photos from the party, the purpose of the event was to formally announce UNOPS’ new “seed capital facility.”

That seed capital facility was described in a 2016 UNOPS document as “aimed at utilizing a portion of UNOPS operational reserves to make targeted contributions to early-stage investment projects in UNOPS mandated areas, with a view to leveraging high-impact transformational initiatives in countries with a United Nations field presence, in collaboration with like-minded donors and investors and fully in line with the strategic priorities of the respective Governments and the United Nations coherence agenda.” The New York Times claimed that the idea for this facility had been developed by Faremo prior to the 2015 meeting where Zampolli brokered her introduction to the Kendricks, and that the purpose of that meeting had been to “find someone to lend to.”

A year after the joint WATO-UNOPS event, in 2017, UNOPS announced a formal alliance with a WATO now led by Daisy Kendrick. The branding of Kendrick’s WATO, founded in 2016, was exactly the same as Zampolli’s WATO. Furthermore, the announcement of the UNOPS-WATO partnership involving Kendrick was made at an event hosted by the aforementioned Sustainable Oceans Alliance (SOA), whose members were Palau’s Stuart Beck, Ghislaine Maxwell’s TerraMar, Amir Dossal’s Global Partnership Forum and Paolo Zampolli. 

Kendrick’s WATO received $3 million from UNOPS as part of this 2017 partnership, producing a song called “We are the Oceans” and a video game. Similar to TerraMar in some ways, the goal of Kendrick’s WATO was to target youth and “create awareness [about SDG14] through music”, resulting in partnerships with singer Joss Stone and Vans Warped Tour, followed by another effort to “create awareness” through a mobile game called “The Big Catch.” UNOPS’ Grete Faremo also performed the song to a largely empty UN conference hall that same year.

Notably, the mission statement of Zampolli’s WATO appears to align with exactly what Kendrick’s WATO was doing. His WATO’s website states it exists “to leverage the art [sic] and unlock humanity to accelerate the drive to implement the SDG’s. We are connecting different artists globally and harness their collective power for humanity to save the oceans.” Shortly after the Stone partnership, for reasons unknown, it appears that Kendrick began rebranding her WATO under the name Ocean Generation, perhaps to distance it from Zampolli’s group.

A year later, in 2018, the UNOPS seed capital facility –– first announced 2 years prior at a Zampolli-hosted event –– began making its first loans. Over the next two years, it made three loans valued at a total of $58.8 million for projects in different countries. However, all of the beneficiaries were companies controlled by or deeply connected to David Kendrick. The projects, which included building homes and wind farms in impoverished communities, never happened and it appears that Kendrick had used the funds his companies received to pay off other loans. All of the $58.8 million were lost. It later emerged that the agency’s second-in-command, Vitaly Vanshelboim, began receiving secret payments and expensive gifts from Kendrick in 2017, a year before the loans were made and the same year that UNOPS decided to give Daisy Kendrick’s WATO $3 million.

Zampolli has denied any role in the scandal beyond merely brokering the introduction between Faremo, Vanshelboim and the Kendricks in 2015. He claimed to have been “used” by the Kendricks when it came to the WATO name and there was never any connection between the two WATOs. This is despite the fact that the branding and goals of Kendrick’s WATO were the same as his WATO group and that another Zampolli-linked group had presided over the announcement of the partnership between UNOPS and Kendrick’s WATO. 

Zampolli also claims to have not been paid a “finder’s fee” for the introduction of the Kendricks to UNOPS officials, even though he claimed that his goal in brokering the introduction was money and that David Kendrick had excitedly told him the introduction was due to result in UNOPS investments in his companies. In other cases, which were already discussed in this article, Zampolli is known to sue when he doesn’t get his cut and he does not spend his time making introductions for wealthy businessmen just for fun. Thus, the denials of being paid to introduce David Kendrick to UN officials seems aimed at warding off scrutiny from the media only after the scandal began to surface.

There is also the fact that, a year after Zampolli made the introduction, Zampolli’s WATO co-hosted the event where UNOPS announced its seed capital facility, which would later only expressly benefit the Kendricks and at which Daisy Kendrick was present (an event conveniently left out of the New York Times reporting that also published Zampolli’s denials without pushback). It further appears that Zampolli’s wife, Amanda Ungaro, may have had something to do with connecting the Kendricks and Zampolli as well as motivating Daisy Kendrick to create her WATO non-profit. Kendrick has said that her decision to create WATO was made in 2015, after “an internship at the United Nations in New York working for the Permanent Mission of Grenada.” At the time, Amanda Ungaro was one of the representatives for the Permanent Mission of Grenada at the UN. Overall, it seems quite clear that Zampolli was a key part of the Kendrick’s efforts and did much more than merely broker their introduction to the UNOPS officials they would later corrupt.

Zampolli Goes to Washington

When Trump launched his 2016 presidential campaign, Zampolli had a chance to gain access to a whole new tier of power players outside of the UN. After Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton (also a friend of Zampolli’s), Zampolli was one of the most high-profile Italians invited to the ritziest of inaugural parties and balls. Zampolli even co-organized an inauguration party for Trump with the magazine Forbes, utilizing his “diplomatic capacity” to do so, per reports. The guest of honor was Sylvester Stallone, who was previously engaged to one of Zampolli’s former models and model brokers, Angela Everheart. The subject of Part I of this series, Flavio Briatore, who was described by Italian media as “the Italian friend closest to Donald Trump,” was also heavily involved in the inaugural festivities, telling Corriere Della Sera that “the most interesting meetings take place before the start of the big celebrations.”   

After the inauguration, Zampolli spent multiple New Year’s Eves with the president and his wife while also frequently visiting the White House and Mar-a-Lago. During this time, Zampolli began re-branding as a “counter-terror” expert and an expert in Artificial Intelligence, creating an organization called World Artificial Intelligence Organization (WAIO). According to its website, WAIO is dedicated to “ensur[ing] that AI is deployed for SDGs implementation.” His forays into “counter-terror” and defense tech may have been aided by the U.S. government. In 2019, Zampolli told Serbian media outlet Telegraf that “I met briefly [Serbian Interior] Minister Stefanovic when he came to visit the CIA, the FBI, and the New York Police Department for counter-terrorism, and I promised him that I would come and visit Serbia to have an official meeting on these topics.” Zampolli’s statement suggests that someone at one of those organizations sent the Serbian government minister to Zampolli to discuss counter-terrorism and defense tech. This would foreshadow Zampolli’s later focus when appointed Special Envoy for Global Partnerships under the second Trump administration.

In October 2020, Zampolli decided to move from New York City to D.C. to ostensibly be closer to his former boss. However, Zampolli blended in poorly with D.C. elites, who found his tastes “garish” and the guests he would entertain “questionable.” Politico noted that these “questionable” figures were “lobbyists for disreputable industries and diplomats for countries with lackluster human rights records.” It was also reported that his artwork was deemed offensive, including: “a photograph of Tony Blair scribbling on the Chilcot Report, a painting of Barack Obama smoking, a photograph of George W. Bush struggling with a Rubik’s Cube and multiple massive images of Trump.”

The following year, in 2021, Zampolli saw himself appointed to the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition as well as to the board of trustees of the Kennedy Center. That same year, he also hosted a “We are the Oceans” event at the Kennedy Center, which was attended by diplomats as well as Brock Pierce, the co-founder of Tether, Jeffrey Epstein’s former cryptocurrency guru and affiliate of the DEN pedophile network. Pierce and Zampolli met prior to the event and have been closely associated ever since.

Pierce initially found fame as a Disney child star before he joined Marc Collins-Rector and Chad Shackley in co-founding the Digital Entertainment Network, or DEN. The focus of a previous investigation by Unlimited Hangout, The Chain of Issuance, Pierce left the failed DEN to form his own company, the Internet Gaming Entertainment (IGE), which kick-started the virtual goods economy, eventually culminating in the founding of the world’s largest stablecoin issuer, Tether. DEN, an early pioneer in digital video streaming which acted as a front for an extensive pedophilia ring in southern California, failed famously after Collins-Rector was “indicted for transporting minors across state lines for sex,” forcing the founders to flee to Spain. In May 2002, Interpol arrested Collins-Rector, Shackley and Pierce after “finding weapons and thousands of child-porn images in their house,” with Spanish law enforcement furthering that “enormous amounts of child porn” were found in the house and that “the FBI has been investigating the trio since late 1999.” It was during this time in Spain, before the arrest, that Pierce founded IGE.

“I started a company called IGE and so I built a supply chain of 400,000 people in China that were playing video games professionally to mine digital currency in games like World of Warcraft and so I was the main market maker for all of the virtual worlds globally, rolled up Korea and most of the major territories, and in that process I raised a bunch of money from Goldman Sachs. My right hand was a guy by the name of Steve Bannon who then became CEO.” – Brock Pierce at BlockShow Asia 2017

Pierce was eventually forced out as CEO of IGE by Steve Bannon, who has considerable ties to both Epstein and Trump. Bannon filmed Epstein for an estimated 15 hours for a supposed documentary film that has never materialized and is said to have coached Epstein on how to respond to his reputational and legal woes. Bannon viewed Epstein as an intelligence asset as he was “intrigued by Epstein’s role as middleman for intelligence services in the United States and abroad.” Bannon was a key figure in Trump’s rise to the presidency, and held the position of Chief Strategist during the first 7 months of his first administration. 

Pierce is most famous today for founding Tether, but he was also instrumental in the success of Blockchain Capital, Block.one’s EOS, Roundtable Media –– the media company associated with BTC Inc and the Bitcoin Conference  –– in addition to his prudent roles as a United Nations OIJ Senior Advisor and a member of the Clinton Global Initiative. In 2011, Pierce appeared at Al Seckel’s and Epstein’s Mindshift Conference held on Epstein’s Little St. James Island, with a representative of Pierce claiming that “the few communications that Mr. Pierce had with Epstein related to cryptocurrency.” Pierce had previously ran a gaming firm for Clearstone Ventures, a spin off of Idealab Capital Partners –– the first institutional investor in PayPal –– which was managed by Bill Elkus. In the 1990s, Elkus was listed as a trustee of the J. Epstein Foundation alongside Jeffrey Epstein’s brother Mark, and was also business manager to the Epstein-affiliated Deepak Chopra. 

In April 2021, Zampolli threw a party for Pierce at his mansion in Washington, D.C. in which Pierce infamously taught the party-goers how NFTs work by setting fire to an expensive painting hanging on Zampolli’s wall. According to reporting from Page Six, a guest described Pierce talking about recently acquiring an NFT made by The Rolling Stone’s front-man Mick Jagger. The guest stated that “Paolo [had] said he was an old school art collector and still didn’t understand the concept of NFT’s,” leading Pierce to say, “Let me show you how its done.” Pierce scanned the walls of Zampolli’s mansion before landing on a  painting made by Domingo Zapata, a friend of Zampolli, whom agreed to allow the pair of friends to destroy his painting to create an NFT. Zampollo and Pierce placed the painting in a champagne bucket and set it on fire. Pierce took the video of the pyrotechnics and turned it into an NFT in order to auction it off at the aforementioned June 2021 fundraiser for “We are the Oceans” held at the Kennedy Center, where Zampolli is a board member. Zampolli and Pierce would continue to work on cryptocurrency events and projects relating to Trump’s presidency, as described further below.

A month later in July 2021, Zampolli forwarded a series of text messages to “a dozen lobbyists, business owners and other power players in D.C” that included “screengrabs of exchanges between himself and a woman, in which he described his sexual encounters with her in graphic detail.” Zampolli described the woman as a “working girl,” i.e. prostitute. However, Zampolli later said that he did not pay her for sex and several sources claimed that the woman was not, in fact, a prostitute.  “Please stay away from my family, you are a pro, all [sic] city knows you are a working girl, since day one you said I had to pay you,” Zampolli had written in one of the messages. The woman later stated that the relationship had been consensual, but that Zampolli had “dishonest about the nature of his relationship with the mother of his son and no longer wanted to be involved or associated with him.” She claims that Zampolli threatened her and then proceeded to slander her in the texts he forwarded around D.C. Zampolli described the situation very differently, stating that he felt “blackmailed” and that the woman “wanted to hurt my family.” Shortly after sending the messages around town, Zampolli moved back to New York.

Zampolli’s New Role

However, Zampolli would again make a political comeback with Trump’s return to the White House after winning the 2024 presidential election. He again participated in several prominent inaugural events (discussed later) and apparently reuniting with another close friend of Trump, Flavio Briatore. Soon after returning to the White House, Trump appointed Zampolli to be U.S. special envoy to Italy in February. “The other day, the president, in front of ten people, suddenly pointed at me and asked me to be a special envoy,” Zampolli told the Italian newspaper Il Gironale. He later added that Trump “is always very busy and quick. He says a few words and solves problems.”

Once in that role, Zampolli began meeting with top politicians in Italy like Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her deputy Prime Minster Matteo Salvini. Salvini and Meloni are long-time political associates of Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian billionaire and former Prime Minister who was caught up in the “bunga bunga party” scandal involving teen girls. As noted earlier, Berlusconi, the P2 lodge member with alleged mafia links, had long-standing ties to Zampolli beginning with Zampolli selling his family toy company to Berlusconi to finance his entry into the world of model management. Meloni had previously served under Berlusconi as his Minister for Youth Policies from 2008 to 2011.  

In his meetings with Italy, Zampolli and top Italian officials like Salvini publicly claimed in English to focus on “reinforc[ing] the economic and commercial ties between the two countries.” However, In an interview on Italian TV, Zampolli made it clear his main focus was on “defense industry ties between Italy and the United States.” One of his proposed policies, pitched to top Italian officials without Trump’s approval at the time, was to have the U.S. enter the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), whose current members are the UK, Italy and Japan. The main contractors for that program are currently BAE Systems (UK), Leonardo (Italy) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (Japan).  

Zampolli was one of the earliest figures in the new administration to push Italy’s Meloni to advocate 5% of Italian GDP to defense spending. The push came before the NATO-wide agreement to have member countries contribute 5% to defense spending, to which Meloni – among others – agreed. That agreement came after a push from Trump and some of his top officials. Zampolli also called for Italian company Leonardo (part of the GCAP) to become “a European leader in supplies for the American Iron Dome,” i.e. the Golden Dome, stating that such systems are necessary “to counter the risk of attacks with much more advanced launchers than those launched by Iran against the Jewish State.”

By this point, however, Zampolli was no longer just special envoy to Italy. On March 11, he was promoted to the post of Special Envoy for Global Partnerships. Since then, he’s been an important yet quiet fixture at major events, like the GCC-USA Summit in Saudi Arabia, which was attended by top Trump officials as well as major figures from Wall Street and Silicon Valley. That summit resulted in a major, $600 billion investment commitment. As noted previously, Zampolli has long boasted of his ties to members of the Saudi royal family. Furthermore, other GCC nation ruling families have ties to Zampolli, such as those of Qatar, as Zampolli has represented them in New York real estate deals in the past. Oddly, American media avoided naming Zampolli at all as being part of Trump’s entourage, despite him supposedly being a member of Trump’s “inner circle.” However, images from the forum show Zampolli in the front row of the summit with top U.S. officials and Gulf officials and other media reports from outside of the U.S. described Zampolli as being “at the forefront” of the forum.

In an interview with Corriere Della Sella, Zampolli claimed that the GCC countries had become “the main interlocutors of the United States” and that the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MbS, was a “true friend” and “role model” due to his “determination to transform Saudi Arabia based on the 2030 agenda,” i.e. the sustainable development goals that Zampolli helped influence. Zampolli also stated that he had met MbS when he was 24 years old, long before he was Crown Prince, “at the home of his cousin Nawaf bin Sultan al Saud, my old friend, who lived in one of the Trump Towers in New York.” MbS, after coming to power in 2017, developed close ties to other figures in Trump’s circle, such as Jared Kushner, as well as former close friends of Trump’s, like Jeffrey Epstein.

Since the summit, Zampolli has quietly continued to meet, both officially and unofficially, with other top officials from several other governments such as the Prime Minster of Montenegro, the President of the Dominican Republic, and Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister of the UK, as well as the UN-Secretary General Antonio Guterres, and former heads of NATO.

In addition to behind-the-scenes business deals and efforts to gin up foreign investment in the U.S., Zampolli is also aiding Trump by “reshaping the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,” better known as the Kennedy Center. Zampolli has served on the board since Trump’s first term but was one of the few to remain during Trump’s second term, when the president fired all Biden appointees of the “historically bipartisan” institution. Zampolli has pitched to open Kennedy Center franchises in Gulf nations like Saudi Arabia, to “launch art into space with the help of Elon Musk” and to “open a marina on the Potomac and a Cipriani restaurant.”

Furthermore, it seems that some of Trump’s most controversial foreign policy ideas may have first originated with his long-time friend. In 2016, Zampolli had told journalist Mattia Ferraresi of his idea of converting Gaza “into a “Mediterrean Riviera” with high-rises and shopping malls.” “Let’s make it like Dubai, but with no golden faucets,” Zampolli was quoted as saying. More recently, in February, Trump (and before him his son-in-law Jared Kushner) promoted the very controversial policy of forcibly relocating the 2.3 million Palestinians in the war-torn Gaza strip to other states, demolishing buildings in the strip that haven’t already been destroyed by the Israeli military and building a US-backed “Riviera” in their place. When Ferraresi contacted Zampolli after Trump’s “Riviera” plan, he said “You see, maybe I am no completely dumb after all” and was “obviously delighted about the Mar-a-Gaza project,” per Ferraresi. Zampolli denied, however, being directly involved in the new policy. Yet, given Zampolli’s history of distancing himself from things only after they become highly controversial (such as the UN-WATO incident mentioned earlier in this piece), it is difficult to take his denial at face value.

While Zampolli’s official role in the government is focused on foreign policy and foreign investment, he also appears to have played some sort of role in the administration’s effort to court the crypto community. These efforts, unsurprisingly, have all occurred alongside Zampolli’s associate of several years, Brock Pierce. For instance, Zampolli, Pierce and Pierce’s DNA Holdings were the hosts of the inaugural “Blockchain Ball” event at the Kennedy Center. The ball was sponsored by Charles Hoskinson’s IOHK (Hoskinson is a co-founder of both Ethereum and Cardano) and the Near Foundation, which is chaired by Diogo Mónica. Mónica also co-founded Anchorage Digital, the only crypto bank to be chartered by the OCC, which occurred during Trump’s first administration. Since the recent passage of crypto regulation, others have applied for charters, but Anchorage was able to entrench itself due to its early regulatory advantage. 

In addition, both Zampolli and Pierce were simultaneously involved with the $PATRIOT token project, an apparent crypto grift. That token was the brainchild of Dustin Stockton, now referred to as the “godfather of political finance” for his role in popularizing political meme coins. Stockton was previously the “lead organizer” for January 6th who, despite his leading role, decided not to show up to the Capitol that day and was not charged in relation to the event. Instead, he subsequently denounced Trump and the “riot,” promising to “name names.” Stockton also helped the create the ill-fated “We Build the Wall” non-profit, which later led to criminal charges with others intimately involved in the project, including Steve Bannon who has been closely affiliated with Stockton for years. Again, Stockton was not charged (his RV, however, was raided by law enforcement). Bannon is likely how Stockton first met Brock Pierce, as the two are former business partners. Bannon and Pierce also share mutual ties to Jeffrey Epstein, whose ties to Pierce in particular were built around his interest in cryptocurrency.

The ostensible goal of the $PATRIOT token was to build a two-story-high monument to Donald Trump’s now iconic reaction after the Butler, PA assassination attempt. That statue was due to be paraded around the country before being installed in Miami at the Trump Doral. Despite being completed in January, the token’s website claims it has yet to be “unveiled,” despite being completed several months ago. However, Stockton has since claimed that the group paid a 6-figure sum as part of “a purchase agreement for the Intellectual property that governs the merchandising and reproduction of the $PATRIOT Statue.” The website claims it worked through “liaisons to the President” as part of the project, with one of those liaisons being Paolo Zampolli, who posted images of him presenting Trump with a replica of the $PATRIOT statue. Another is the pastor Mark Burns who, in a recent clip posted to the token’s Twitter page on August 8th, mentioned Brock Pierce’s early and continuing presence in the project. he also mentioned the involvement of Yaakov Flitchkin, a “partner” of Brock Pierce whose organization, the Alliance for Global Cooperation, has closely linked itself to the United Nations and acts as a de facto UN lobbying group for the Chabad Lubavitch movement. Burns, Pierce and Flitchkin sat together during the inauguration and attended other inaugural events together aside from the $PATRIOT token’s award ceremony. At the inauguration, the trio were joined by Mayor of New York Eric Adams, who previously courted controversy for riding on Pierce’s private jet. 

In January, during inauguration festivities, Stockton hosted the Patriot Awards that were directly affiliated with the token project. Stockton credited Brock Pierce for much of the project, claiming that Pierce “helped put all of this together” and has “done so much behind the scenes that I couldn’t even begin to describe.” The $PATRIOT token Twitter page also credited Paolo Zampolli as having been a “huge help” in putting together the event, which was hosted at the National Press Club. Awardees included Pierce, who gave a shout-out to Zampolli in his speech, as well as Steve Bannon and a top journalist at Breitbart, which Bannon once ran and which also previously employed Stockton.

Stockton promoted the token as being “America’s token” and its success as being “inevitable.” He continued to do so as its value tanked, promising those who had purchased the tokens that it would soon be “making moves” in several tweets. At the height of its popularity in January, the token had a market cap of $77.7 million that has since collapsed to $3.4 million.

$PATRIOT was just one of several political meme coins that Stockton was involved with that targeted Trump’s base during and right after the election. For instance, Stockton also created the $MAHA token that Stockton promoted as being related to the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. Stockton promoted the $MAHA token throughout 2024 and implied that the imminent “domination” of “top influencers” in MAHA would pump the token’s value. Not long after, Stockton began co-hosting a Club MAHA podcast with Kyle Kemper, Justin Trudeau’s half-brother, and social media personality turned streamer Ian Carroll. (Note: Carroll does not appear to have ever been affiliated with the token, but Stockton appears to have used the access to a larger MAHA audience to promote this failed token).

Consigliere Zampolli

Paolo Zampolli’s appointment to a new government position seemingly made just for him should be the subject of increased scrutiny, not just due to Zampolli’s affiliations to the broader network of Epstein, Brunel and Maxwell, but also due to the decades of covert and corrupt wheeling-and-dealing that has marked his career in real estate, in “diplomacy” and now in U.S. foreign and trade policy. It is truly remarkable that, despite all that this investigation has documented, Zampolli has never been investigated or charged for criminal activity. He appears oddly protected from scrutiny. 

This is true also for the press, especially considering so many outlets would presumably jump at the chance to un-earth the deep corruption of the man that Trump and Melania say introduced them, especially when confronted with the assertion that it had been Jeffrey Epstein.

Paolo Zampolli is truly an ambassador for one thing — brazen corruption in the global power structure. The fact that he would be given a special role involving foreign trade and partnerships in the current administration by Trump is mind-boggling — at least if you take Trump’s political rhetoric at face value. This is especially true considering that, among other things, Zampolli was given this role after servicing corrupt, predatory and globalist ambitions targeting the world’s oceans, facilitating fraud, and aiding citizenship-by-investment scams used by corrupt Chinese, Iranian and others to, as Zampolli himself said, circumvent U.S. sanctions. It is also a testament to the protection and cronyism enjoyed by some of the “First Friends” that enjoy not only close ties to the current U.S. president, but the broader Epstein/Maxwell network.

As we will see in the final, and arguably most damning, installment of this series, another figure close to Trump that has also become quietly yet intimately intertwined with New York mayoral politics appears to similarly enjoy protection from legal scrutiny when it comes to his extensive dealings with Jeffrey Epstein.

First Friends: How the First Couple’s Consigliere Went From Modeling Mogul to Special Envoy.

Links Discussed:

• TrumpED 2025: School Choice Corporatization, Social Impact Finance, and the Dismantling of the Department of Education
• From Project 2025 to the PayPal Presidency: School Choice Fin-Tech for a Blockchain Social Credit Economy
• The Precision Eugenics Initiative (Part 2): The Precision Transhumanism Initiative
• Executive Order 14277—Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth | The American Presidency Project
• American Federation of Teachers Sells Out to Rockefellers, Trilateralists, and Big Tech
• This Biden Proposal Could Make the US a “Digital Dictatorship”
• Repersoning Whitney Webb – The Corbett Report
• From UNESCO Study 11 to UNESCO 2050: Project BEST and the Forty-Year Plan to Reimagine Education for the Fourth Industrial Revolution
• From UNESCO Study 11 to FutureLearn: OU, Project CYCLOPS, & the 40-Year Plan to Globalize 4IR EdTech – YouTube

Follow John: Unlimited Hangout, @ProfessorTaoist | X, School World Order.com, TrineDay

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Chapters:

00:02:33 – School Choice
00:10:12 – Libertarians, Neoconservatives and Trump’s Education Policy
00:18:13 – Wearables
00:20:16 – Rebuilding Trust
00:25:06 – Trump pledge to make the US the World Capital of Crypto and AI
00:32:37 – Digital ID
00:46:22 – Milei
00:57:55 – Trump crackdown on Woke Idealogy
01:02:46 – AI and Predictive Policing
01:04:39 – AI in Schools
01:25:57 – Closing

See Podverse.fm for clickable chapters, transcript and clips.

The PayPal Presidency Part IV: Teaching Technocracy with John Klyczek.

As the Trump administration has spent its first few months in The White House constructing the physical and digital infrastructure required for a pre-crime, technocratic police state, little attention has been paid to the ways in which the institutions ostensibly dedicated to “public health” are helping build out this digital control grid. As Unlimited Hangout has been reporting for many years now, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, a prominent subgroup of the surveillance state has emerged at the intersection of Big Tech, Big Pharma and the military industrial complex — one that is laying the groundwork to implement the final frontier of mass surveillance: the bio-surveillance apparatus. 

During his first term, Trump implemented the notorious Operation Warp Speed, the Pentagon-ran COVID-19 response plan which issued emergency deregulatory measures and massive funding for the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Now, his second administration has successfully managed to become associated with COVID-era dissidence. This was primarily accomplished through Trump successfully securing the endorsements of figures who were skeptical of the official line on COVID-19, most prominently comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan and longtime environmental litigator and founder of Children’s Health Defense, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Since taking office, however, the second Trump administration has consistently contradicted this unofficial commitment to the spirit of COVID-era dissent and public health institutional overhaul. Just last week, the President touted Operation Warp Speed as one of the “most incredible things ever done in this country.” The week before, he announced an initiative to enable the vast sharing of individuals’ health data across a myriad of “health systems and apps,” in partnership with Pentagon-contracting Big Tech companies. More quietly, however, Trump nominated a seasoned official of the biosecurity apparatus named Susan Monarez to be the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Monarez, whose background is perfectly in line with this technocratic approach to healthcare that the administration has embarked on, was “handpicked” by Kennedy after the previous nominee, Dave Weldon, withdrew his nomination in March. Monarez had been acting director of the CDC for several months and was confirmed at the end of July with little fanfare.

Susan Monarez is a biosecurity veteran who has a long history embedded in what could be described as a gray zone of public governance — one where national security merges with healthcare. These connections and her life’s work suggest that Monarez is a useful tool, knowingly or not, of the biosecurity/surveillance apparatus, a group which has helped expand the sprawling American mass surveillance system under the auspices of wellness, mental health and innovation.

While a lack of a detailed digital footprint makes this exact history difficult to track down precisely, it is likely that her entry into the world of militarized science began at Stanford University when she was carrying out her work as a postdoctoral researcher. The Chair of her department notably boasted deep ties to some of the leading figures in the genetic science boom of the latter half of the 20th century — figures whose research was entangled with the eugenics movement of that era and the increasing securitization of science that occurred in the midst of the Cold War.

From Stanford, Monarez was catapulted into prestigious positions within DHS, HHS, as well as the White House itself. Notably, the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa emerged during Monarez’s tenure in the Executive Branch, and she played an important role in the government response. That outbreak may have marked one of the first times that the US commissioned the pre-crime, mass surveillance company Palantir with conducting biosurveillance during a public health epidemic. It most certainly established a significant step towards the total transformation of the US public health system into a militarized extension of the surveillance state.

Monarez’s time working in agencies such as the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (HSARPA) made Monarez a perfect candidate for the position she maintained until she was most recently nominated to be the director of the CDC: the Deputy Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). From its conception, the HHS-housed ARPA-H was meant to serve as a “health” version of the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Monarez’s appointment to the CDC, however, indicates further melding of America’s public health institutions with the national security state. While it has been more or less given that most heads of public health agencies in recent years must be supportive of technocratic biotechnology measures, Monarez has presided over significant initiatives and programs that have deepened the militarization of healthcare. She has also been appointed to be the Director of the CDC within the context of the ever-increasing integration of the pre-crime company Palantir, which privatized much of the George Bush-era Total Information Awareness mass surveillance project –– including its “Bio-surveillance” component — into government.

Furthermore, her time as the Deputy Director of ARPA-H may foreshadow the kind of initiatives she will head at the CDC; namely, the blatant digitization of health and acceleration of invasive biotechnology aimed at fracturing the complexity of human biology into observable, consumable and exploitable data points.

As this article will make clear, Monarez’s tenure in government is likely a direct product of the decades-long militarization of academia. Her stints at BARDA, the National Security Council, HSARPA, DHS and most recently ARPA-H are illustrative of the broader technocratic, surveillance-obsessed transformation of public health that has accelerated since the COVID-19 pandemic. That trend appears poised to persist under the second administration of Donald Trump.

To get a closer look at how Monarez may have entered this world, it is worth first investigating the connections that the Chair of her department at Stanford, Mark M. Davis,¹ has to some of the industries and ideologues that, over time, have merged to form the biosurveillance state: eugenicists and the oligarchic technocrats who dominate Big Tech. Davis’s connections capture the biosecurity-focused academic environment where the future CDC director began her professional career as well as the spooky world of military-linked science she subsequently entered.

Stanford University — Where Academia and Defense Meet

Nearly five decades before Monarez attended Stanford’s biology and immunology program, the US military establishment was in a frenzy with its officials trying to figure out how they should respond to the Soviet Union’s successful launch of its small satellite named Sputnik into outer space.

Despite its beach-ball size, Sputnik injected paranoia into the United States, for as Yasha Levine details in his book Surveillance Valley, “[Sputnik] was thrust into orbit by hitching a ride atop the world’s first intercontinental ballistic missile. This was both a demonstration and a threat. If the Soviet Union could put a satellite into space, it could also deliver a nuclear warhead to just about any spot in the United States.”

The American response to this “threat” launched the Space Race, and along with it the creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, which later became DARPA) — the agency that pioneered the now prominent military technological development method of funding universities, private research facilities and defense contractors to develop tech for the U.S. Armed Forces. Stanford — Monarez’s alma mater — was among the most prominent universities that was tapped by ARPA to increase the surveillance power and military might of the US empire, tying at least some of the university’s most consequential research to the interests of the national security state. This relationship has persisted into the present day.

Mark M. Davis — the Chair of Monarez’s department during her time at Stanford, and thus the person that likely hired Monarez’s other professors — is a figure whose connections demonstrate the sprawling dark side of big-moneyed militarized science succinctly, and whose background may provide insight into how Monarez landed herself in the underbelly of the US public health system.

Mark M. Davis and Leroy Hood

Mark M. Davis’ parents divorced when he was quite young. His mother was an architect, but fluctuated between being a stay-at-home mom and working. His father was in the Navy during WWII, and went on to become an executive at the Pentagon-contracting International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) for decades after his service.

During his teen years, Davis was a slightly above average student at a below average high school. He coasted his way through this chapter of his life by relying on his natural wits and expansive literary knowledge, often as a means of avoidingthe studious rigor that would shape his later academic career.

It was in high school, however, that his mom gifted him a copy of The Double Helix by legendary geneticist James D. Watson. The autobiographical account of Watson’s discovery of the structure of DNA left a notable impression on a young Davis, though he may have not realized it at the time. Davis later went on to study DNA in 1973 during his time pursuing his bachelor’s degree at John Hopkins University. There, he joined the lab of Michael Beer. Beer was a pioneer of sorts in this terrain as at the time he was attempting to sequence DNA—a mission that had yet to be accomplished.

Indeed, it appears that it was the untreated nature of this subject that allured Davis into the field, for as he put it: “[Beer] made me realize, as he explained…that this was really a central issue that hadn’t all been sorted out by [James D.] Watson and [Francis H.C.] Crick — which would have [hypothetically] made it history and therefore not my concern. But [in actuality,] there really was a lot there that was unknown and could have a lot of significance.”

This eventually led Davis to the lab of Leroy Hood at Caltech. While Beer was a figure at the forefront of DNA research, Hood revolutionized the field in momentous ways that are still felt today. Most notably, he was responsible for the creation of the automated DNA sequencer, which “showed that sequencing data could be collected directly to a computer …[and] developed programs to automatically interpret the data to produce an actual sequence.” In the years leading up to Hood’s automated DNA sequencer, Davis co-authored multiple studies with Hood — including one with The Double Helix author James D. Watson.

This computerized, technological invention of Hood’s made the once tenuous and laborious process of sequencing DNA a more feasible endeavor — which ultimately made it possible to launch The Human Genome Project (HGP), the NIH-funded effort that sought to map the entire human genome.

The Human Genome Project nearly achieved this goal, mapping 92% of the human genome, and went on to heavily influence and expand the field of biotechnology and predictive medicine — a fitting contribution, given Hood’s Caltech lab was the first one to “combine biology and engineering, using biological knowledge to determine which technologies should be developed in order to solve specific biological problems.” In fact, a protein sequencer Hood had developed earlier in his career led to the founding of a company called Applied Molecular Genetics and the creation of its blockbuster drug erythropoietin, which just so happened to be “the first biotech product to reach $1 billion in sales.”

These achievements, correctly or not, are looked back on with reverence and awe by mainstream accounts — but viewing this era of science through rose-tinted glasses disables any onlooker from seeing the darker ideology that quietly rose with, and arguably propelled upward, the study of genetics and biotechnology that was growing at this time.

The initial call for The Human Genome Project was first published in 1986, the same year that Hood’s automated DNA sequencer was invented, by a German-born geneticist named Walter Bodmer. A major contributor to the study of population genetics, Bodmer was elected as a Fellow of the Eugenics Society, rebranded later as the Galton Institute and even more recently rebranded as the Adelphi Genetics Forum as of 1961 (p. 971). The organization was founded with the aim of promoting the study and research of eugenics — a racist pseudo-science based in the study of how to best arrange human reproduction to increase the rate of “desirable” traits within a population. That same year, Bodmer conducted his postdoctoral research in the lab of Joshua Lederberg at Stanford University (p. 3). Lederberg, who inspired biodefense pioneer Robert Kadlec, was also the former president of Rockefeller University and served as a key consultant to the Pentagon on issues of biological weapons, among other things.

Bodmer’s connections to the field of eugenics and national security notably do not exist within a vacuum. As The Human Genome Project and Hood’s and Davis’s later associations exemplify, the meeting of eugenics and genetic science is actually indicative of a symbiotic relationship between the two fields that has persisted into the present day. As Eugenics Society member David Galton noted in his book, Eugenics: The Future of Human Life in the 21st Century, that The Human Genome Project, among other technologies, enabled advancements such as the ability of parents to artificially select which genes their child receives in order to create “designer babies,” and notes that The Human Genome Project, among other advancements, have “enormously expanded the scope of eugenics.”²

Indeed, it was James D. Watson — a racist eugenicist and the author of The Double Helix book that had inspired Mark M. Davis years before — that the NIH chose to head The Human Genome Project in 1990. Watson, who holds beliefs such as the idea that Black people have genetically inferior intelligence than other races, first encountered Leroy Hood at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 1967, which Watson went on to head for sixteen years. During his time at Cold Spring Harbor, Watson met with Eugenics Society member Bodmer (p. 986), and even co-authored a research paper with Mark M. Davis and Leroy Hood.

Watson’s leadership at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory was quite suitable for a eugenicist such as himself. Nearly sixty years before his time there, the eugenicist Charles Davenport became its director and set up the Eugenics Record Office (ERO). As James Corbett notes in his book Reportage, Davenport envisioned the ERO as a place to store “a comprehensive registry documenting the ‘pedigree’ of every American…”³

According to Davenport himself, the Office retrieved this data through “our numerous charity organizations, our 42 institutions for the feebleminded, our 115 schools and homes for the deaf and blind, our 350 hospitals for the insane, our 1,200 refuge homes, our 1,300 prisons, our 1,500 hospitals, and our 2,500 almshouses. Our great insurance companies and our college gymnasiums have tens of thousands of records of the characters of human bloodlines…”⁴ While Davenport’s idea had a particularly racist tinge to it, his objective of scouring institutions for health data and uniting them into a single location to be observed under the scrutiny of elite bureaucrats never died — indeed it prevails today in the halls of ARPA-H, and was worked on by Susan Monarez herself.

That, however, will be discussed later in this investigation. In the meantime, let us return to Watson, whose government work extended beyond the National Institutes for Health — specifically involving the Pentagon and biological weapons. President John F. Kennedy, who was a prominent advocate of technological military modernization through his support of DARPA, had Watson serve on his chemical and biological warfare advisory panel from 1961 to 1964.

According to the Harvard Crimson, Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh said that Watson “admitted in an open letter to him that he had spent a great deal of time on the panel searching for a ‘satisfactory incapacitating agent.’” Watson’s time aiding the Pentagon in its biological weapons research during the Cold War highlights another element of the revolution taking place at the time within genetic science; the field’s mutually beneficial relationship with the national security state.

As one former high-level Pentagon official told Hersh in his 1968 Chemical and Biological Warfare book, “There’s a revolution in biological sciences, just as there was in the physical sciences in the 1920’s. It [genetics] is analogous to quantum theory. A huge area of science is in ferment — and it may have military implications and advantages for us.“⁵

Further demonstrative of these converging interests was Hood’s next step after Caltech, when he made a big move to the University of Washington Medical School to found the first cross-disciplinary biology department, the Department of Molecular Biotechnology — a move that was financed to the tune of $12 million by none other than Bill Gates, notably a longtime Pentagon contractor. Gates funded the project because he and Hood shared “a grand vision;” namely, using computer technology to read and manipulate all of the “vast genetic encyclopedia…cover to cover, three billion nucleotides long: The Human Genome Project” (emphasis added).  

Gates’ funding is particularly worth nothing because he also has connections to the eugenics movement, though they may not be as outwardly obvious as Watson and Eugenics Society member Bodmer. The Gates Foundation has a history of investing in projects such as global “family planning” initiatives focused on delivering low- and middle-income countries birth control, at times in conjunction with the Rockefeller Foundation. Eerily, before World War II, the Rockefellers were some of the most prominent funders of eugenics research, even funding departments that (albeit after the known time period of Rockefeller-funding) employed figures like Ernst Rüdin in the 1920s,⁶ who went on to become a key architect of Nazi Germany’s eugenics program and who worked on the Third Reich’s sterilization policy. The flow of Rockefeller money into eugenics research was not contained within Germany, however — along with other robber barons, John D. Rockefeller funded Davenport’s Eugenics Research Office at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York.

James Corbett, who has researched the history of eugenics extensively, told mehow in the aftermath of WWII, the field of eugenics became associated with the Nazis, and “thus had to go underground.” This was “an explicit and conscious decision,” Corbett told me, citing the General Secretary of the British Eugenics Society’s memorandum in 1968. The memorandum suggested that in an effort to deal with the diminishing success of the Society’s recruiting campaign since 1946, it “should pursue eugenics by less obvious means, that is by a policy of crypto-eugenics”⁷ to, as Corbett put it, “carry on the dream of eugenics under another name.”

An excerpt from a book written by Julian Huxley of the Eugenics Society immediately after the war appears to corroborate Corbett’s claim that eugenicists in this period indeed recognized the political impossibility of their agenda, and the need to revitalize it in some way. The book was written representing the newly created United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which the Rockefellers have been affiliated with since its creation. In the book, Huxley laments “even though it is quite true that any radical eugenic policy will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, it will be important for UNESCO to see that the eugenic problem is examined with the greatest care, and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake so that much that now is unthinkable may at least become thinkable.”⁸

Since that 1968 memorandum, Corbett speculates, eugenics policies were “rebranded” and “sold as a way to help save poor countries and peoples from the scourge of overpopulation.” Given this context, despite whether Gates considers himself a eugenicist or is even aware of these connections himself, some of his “health”-focused endeavors –– such as an implantable birth control device that could “be turned on and off with a remote control,” his idea to ration healthcare based on an individual’s perceived value to society, or his effort to promote long-acting reversible contraceptives in Africa with a company whose initial mission was “improving the biological stock of the human race” –– exist within a darker context than their seemingly benign, technocratic motivations.

Yet, Hood’s time at the University of Washington would not be the last time his professional work received massive funding from Gates. He would later go on to found the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB), a spin-off of the work he was doing in his lab at the University of Washington. Like his time at UW, ISB focused on Hood’s shared interest with Gates; bioinformatics, or the “use of information technology to store and analyze genetic information.” Gates has funded ISB to the tune of millions of dollars over the years (see here and here).  

And to wrap up this bundle of eugenics- and national security-linked science connecting all the way to Monarez’s time at Stanford, in 2015, Mark M. Davis — Monarez’s Department Chair during her postdoctoral years — was selected to head a new center at Stanford to “accelerate efforts in vaccine development” called the Stanford Human Systems Immunology Center. The way in which this center came to fruition? A $50 million grant from the Gates Foundation. Stanford Report announced that it would “draw upon a repertoire of technologies, many of which have been pioneered at Stanford, to provide a detailed profile of the human immune response” (emphasis added).

Davis, as Monarez’s Department Chair, likely played an important role in cultivating the staff at Stanford’s biology and immunology postdoctoral research program. These professors who Monarez likely encountered or took classes with include figures such as David Relman, a longtime government operator who has sat on the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity and who issued a questionable report on Havana Syndrome, and Garry Nolan, a Pentagon contractor and CIA ufologist who has his own strange connections to Havana Syndrome.

These figures demonstrate that the academic environment which preceded her government tenure was rife with links to the shadowy side of academia. Whether or not someone at Stanford helped bring Monarez into the biosecurity apparatus is unclear — yet it was only a few months after her graduation that she began her stint at HHS’ Biomedical Advanced Research Projects Agency (BARDA), a newly established government department that emerged in the wake of the Anthrax attacks, and from the minds of biosecurity-obsessed Cold Warriors.

Stockpiling In the Public Sector

BARDA was created in the backdrop of a post-Amerithrax United States. The false flag that associated Iraq with Al Qaeda without evidence injected panic into the American psyche, and it was in this period of trepidation that the HHS head Tommy Thompson began warning of a flu pandemic and vaccine shortages, calling for the funding of an American “stockpile of emergency vaccines for smallpox and anthrax.” Over the next few years, this stockpile funding was achieved, primarily through the Project Bioshield Act of 2004, and eventually managed by BARDA. The history of the stockpile’s and BARDA’s inception, however, ties its origins deeply to the world of national security and the paranoia surrounding the War on Terror.

The stockpile was the result of a years-long effort that had been cooked up by bioweapons-focused and Big Pharma-connected Cold Warriors — namely the Air Force doctor and intelligence officer Robert Kadlec, along with some of his mentors like William Patrick III. Kadlec had been advocating for this stockpile as far back as 1995,⁹ notably in between the trips he’d taken to Iraq along with Patrick in search of the Iraqi government’s weaponized anthrax program. Though the pair never found any evidence of such a program, throughout the 90s Kadlec was drafting hypothetical scenarios at the National War College of potential ways in which American adversaries could use bioweapons to wage war against the US,¹⁰ and Patrick was participating in private meetings with Clinton on biological weapons. In these meetings, Patrick described their use as inevitable and emphasized that a terrorist could make even the most dangerous pathogens in their “garage.”

With the prospect of terrorist-waged biowarfare marinating in Clinton’s mind, in this period the Arkansas-native President claimed that Saddam Hussein was “developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them,” despite a lack of any intelligence to prove so. Clinton’s fear eventually materialized into legislation when he requested an emergency budget supplement request in 1998. In it was “$51 million for pharmaceutical and vaccine stockpiling activities at CDC.” It soon passed, and the Strategic Pharmaceutical Stockpile (SPS) was born.

A few years later, the fear that the prospect of bioterror instilled in Clinton spread like a virus to the entire American population in the wake of an actual “bioterror” attack; Amerithtrax. While 9/11 showed that an anomaly like a plane-hijacking could destroy critical infrastructure of the normally protected United States, the anthrax attacks made Americans perceive terrorism as a new element of daily life, something that could be covertly unleashed through an item as innocuous as a letter, and wreak havoc and death through invisible spores and contamination.

Sometime before the anthrax attacks in the wake of 9/11, Kadlec became the special advisor on biological warfare to George W. Bush’s Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. It was that very month that Rumsfeld went on to announce that “he expected America’s enemies would try to help terrorist groups obtain chemical and biological weapons” — echoing Patrick’s concerns of the previous decade. In late November, with Kadlec still in his ear, Rumsfeld and his Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz would draw up strategy for regime change in Iraq, and among the ideas they pondered to launch the effort included the US discovering “Saddam connections to Sept. 11 attack or anthrax attacks?” Indeed, though indirectly and often through hints and nudges as opposed to official statements from the executive branch, a group of Bush-era bureaucrats in Washington made this exact connection in the aftermath of Amerithrax and 9/11.

It was in this climate of mass paranoia and fear of an invisible enemy — be it terrorists in plainclothes or hidden anthrax spores — that the stockpile was expanded and funded with billions of taxpayer dollars. While several pieces of legislation increased funding for this pandemic response measure, the 2004 Project Bioshield Act most significantly authorized $5.6 billion for the “for the advanced development and purchase of security countermeasures for the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS)” — a gargantuan subsidization compared to Clinton’s 1998 legislation. And finally in 2006, the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act of 2006 established the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) to manage the stockpile. With the help of Kadlec, the legislation established BARDA within the ASPR, and made the new agency responsible for granting Big Pharma contracts to create medical countermeasures for pandemics and bioterror attacks (including countermeasures for the stockpile).

It was at Kadlec and company’s brainchild, BARDA, where Monarez entered the public sector in 2006, where she served under the leadership of Carol Linden, a scientist long embedded at the Pentagon who from 1979 through 2000 worked at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) lab in Fort Detrick as “Chief Research Plans and Programs” — overlapping with William Patrick III’s tenure at USAMRIID as its Plans and Programs Officer.

The following year in 2007, Monarez drafted the first ever HHS Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise Strategy and Implementation Plan which, according to her LinkedIn, “defined the acquisition plan for the Department’s medical countermeasures program using the $5.6 billion Project BioShield Special Reserve Fund.”

In this capacity, Monarez shaped HHS funding for pandemic preparedness for years to come, subtly influencing the responses to future pandemics. She also codified a pledge that made clear what the nature of pandemic preparedness in a post-Amerithrax world would be; namely, a partnership between the world of academia/public health and the Pentagon:

“HHS [will] continue to coordinate medical countermeasure development and acquisition with DoD…”

One of the joint DoD/HHS ventures that this implementation plan set in motion was the funding of Ebola research and medical countermeasures for it. These funds trickled into several places; the USAMRIID lab in Fort Detrick, to members of the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium (VHFC) who worked at Fort Detrick — the organization which may have played a role in the 2014 Ebola outbreak — and the pharmaceutical company Gilead. Of the $1 billion that went into Ebola and Marburg virus research from 1997 to 2015, “public sources of funding invested $758.8 million” and “joint public/private/philanthropic ventures accounted for $213.8 million,” accounting for over 90% of total funds.

While the mainstream account of the 2014 Ebola outbreak postulates that the virus broke out zoonotically in Guinea, journalist Sam Husseini and virologist Jonathan Latham wrote a lengthy investigative report in 2022 arguing that the outbreak may have been the result of a lab leak from the VHFC’s only permanent lab in Sierra Leone. Since their report, the case for a lab leak has only become stronger as one VHFC member that has long researched the Ebola virus, Kristian Andersen, admitted that the VHFC lab in Sierra Leone was conducting Ebola research before the outbreak. While this had been suspected by researchers before, it had yet to be confirmed before Andersen’s claim.

If it is true that a leak from the VHFC Sierra Leone lab caused the 2014 Ebola outbreak, then some of the $5.6 billion in investments from Bioshield that Monarez helped define may have indirectly led to the devastation that occurred in West Africa that year. Monarez listed the Ebola virus as a top priority threat in her Implementation Plan, and defined antivirals, diagnostics and filovirus vaccines as the “projected future top priority medical countermeasure programs” to combat Ebola virus.

Based on accounts of Ebola researchers who were members of the VHFC and studied Ebola at Fort Detrick, the funding plan put forth by HHS had tangible effects for Ebola research. Former Fort Detrick scientist Thomas Geisbert, who in 2014 was selected as one of Time Magazine’s “Ebola fighters” of the year, has detailed how Fort Detrick received lavish funding for Ebola research as a result of post-9/11 and Amerithrax hysteria:

“[there] wasn’t money or interest or time to take those products across the finish line. “But after 9/11, everything changed. There was increased funding. It was fortunate for me, because Ebola was my main area of interest. When all the money became available, we started looking at developing a vaccine.”

This HHS funding was detailed further in the book, The Ebola Outbreak in West Africa by Constantine Nana:

“[Geisbert] has studied the Ebola virus for more than two decades and spent several years working with USAMRIID at Fort Detrick. In March of 2014, he was awarded (together with Profectus Biosciences, Tekmira Pharmaceuticals, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center) $26 million (to be distributed over five years) by the NIH to ‘advance treatments of the highly lethal hemorrhagic fever viruses Ebola and Marburg.’”¹¹

Further, according to Crunchbase, a $15 million contract awarded to Tulane University by the HHS-housed NIAID created the VHFC, and thus led to the incarnation of the Sierra Leone laboratory as a permanent site of VHFC. Importantly, VHFC member Robert Garry is a professor at Tulane university. Just a year before the virus ravaged thousands of West Africans, Garry co-authored a paper on “a novel treatment for Zaire Ebola” along with eleven other authors who all hailed from USAMRIID at Fort Detrick. The study was funded by the Pentagon, including its Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which focuses on countering weapons of mass destruction.

In the aftermath of the outbreak, Andersen, Garry, and others would go on to issue articles that placed the origin of the outbreak in Guinea, providing a convenient scientific consensus for those handling Ebola research at the Sierra Leone lab. Yet, as Husseini and Latham noted, there was considerable overlapping authorship between these papers:

“One or more of just six researchers are represented on all of them: Robert Garry, Andrew Rambaut, Stephan Gunther, Kristian Andersen, Pardis Sabeti, and Edward Holmes are lead authors on almost all of these publications.”

Furthermore, “most of the senior authors of the phylogeny papers (notably, Robert Garry, Kristian Andersen, Pardis Sabeti, Erica Ollman Saphire, Daniel Park, and Stephen Gire) and plenty of less well-known authors, are directly connected to the VHFC and its Kenema lab. These authors in particular, have a career-sized conflict of interest, which they may also think is dwarfed by the possibility of being implicated in 11,000 deaths.” In other words, if the lab leak theory is true, then many of the scientists who penned the papers that allegedly proved the virus originated in Guinea had a direct conflict-of-interest in making those claims. As Husseini and Latham note in their investigation, these authors did not account for a plethora of evidence against a Guinean origin point in order to draw their conclusions.

Notably, Andersen, Rambaut and Garry later became some of the earliest peddlers of the theory that the COVID-19 pandemic emerged as the result of a zoonotic origin, as all of them co-authored the now notorious “The Proximal Origins of SARS-COV-2” paper in March 2020. The paper, published in the prestigious Nature scientific journal, downplayed the potential of a lab leak — a theory that has now become increasingly mainstream since.

Importantly, by virtue of their connections to VHFC and the consortium’s Ebola research, many of these scientists were targets of the government funding that Susan Monarez helped define in the post-9/11 construction of biosecurity infrastructure.

Where there is crisis, however, there is also opportunity. Monarez’s Implementation Plan also seems to have played a role in funding the drug that the pharmaceutical giant Gilead attempted, and failed, to make the antidote to Ebola — remdesivir, the antiviral medication now used to treat COVID-19.

Remdesivir emerged as the result of a collaboration between “Gilead, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID).” In 2009, developers saw the drug “as a potential treatment for hepatitis C,” but it unfortunately “didn’t work as hoped.”

Thankfully for Gilead, Susan Monarez was serving on the White House Ebola Task Force at the time of the outbreak in West Africa. There, she was responsible for “evaluating investments in Ebola-related pharmaceuticals and diagnostics.” It just so happened that the failed hepatitis C drug, remdesivir, would be one of the targets of these Ebola-related government investments.

According to Public Citizen, remdesivir’s potential as an Ebola countermeasure began when federal scientists screened “a thousand compounds from a Gilead library in search of a molecule to target Ebola virus.” They identified remdesivir as useful, and soon “U.S. Army scientists worked with the corporation to ‘refine, develop and evaluate the compound.’” This began a years-long public-private venture with the HHS, DoD and Gilead to bring remdesivir to market as a treatment for Ebola.

In 2014, the CDC, DoD and Gilead began “antiviral testing of remdesivir for Ebola and other viruses” and in 2016, the NIH and Gilead began “antiviral testing for coronaviruses and other viruses.” Yet the drug seemingly went nowhere, and by the second Ebola outbreak in 2019 a NIAID study showed the drug to be ineffective and it was ultimately dropped from the trial.¹²

Still, however, this public-private collaboration persisted. In 2020, the NIH funded  “a multi-stage clinical trial of remdesivir for COVID-19” and the FDA issued an emergency use authorization for the unapproved drug, bringing it to market despite it still showing to be ineffective based on the results of a World Health Organization trial that found the drug did not “reduce mortality or the time COVID-19 patients take to recover,” a decision that reportedly “baffled scientists” who had been watching the trials unfold.

Even more oddly, the FDA never consulted the Antimicrobial Drugs Advisory Committee (AMDAC) to discuss the emergency passage of remdesivir. The AMDAC is a “group of outside experts that [the FDA] has at the ready to weigh in on complicated antiviral drug issues.” Had the FDA consulted this group, its representatives would have reviewed all available data on remdesivir and made a recommendation based upon it — yet at the time of remdesivir’s emergency rush to market, “it [had] not convened once during the pandemic.”

Nonetheless, the EUA paved the way for Gilead to rake in $873 million from remdesivir sales, topping Wall Street estimates at the time by over $100 million.

Yet another interesting investment that the White House made during the Ebola response period was a vaccine candidate developed jointly by National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and a subsidiary company of the pharmaceutical giant Glaxosmithkline. This candidate, called the ChAd3 vaccine, underwent trials at a few institutions, one of them being the Oxford Jenner Institute, and received €200 million in funding from an organization known as the Wellcome Trust.

The Wellcome Trust and the Jenner Institute are intimately linked as Unlimited Hangout has previously reported — most directly through the funding Wellcome provides the Institute. Also, the Jenner Institute’s director since 2005, Adrian Hill, leads a research group at the Wellcome Trust, and previously helped found the Wellcome Trust’s Center for Human Genetics.

The Wellcome Trust, notably, has deep ties to the eugenics movement via its connections to the organization formerly known as the British Eugenics Society, now called the Adelphi Genetics Forum, as multiple members of Adelphi’s governing board hail from the Wellcome Trust. Furthermore, when Wellcome set up its Contemporary Medical Archives Centre, the first organizational archive it acquired was that of the Eugenics Society. The records contain “a good deal of material on subjects such as the treatment of the mentally and physically defective, the development of birth control methods, the legalisation of sterilisation, [and] the use of artificial insemination…”

Francis Galton, the godfather of eugenics who “constructed a racial hierarchy, in which white people were considered superior,” was described rather uncontroversially by the Adelphi Genetics Forum as an “eminent late nineteenth century polymath.” This may be due in part to the fact that Galton was the honorary president of the first incarnation of the Eugenics Society/Adelphi Genetics Forum, according to A Life of Sir Francis Galton: From African Exploration to the Birth of Eugenics.¹³

Furthermore, Adrian Hill — the director of the Jenner Institute and a Wellcome employee — has an early connection with a longtime associate of the Eugenics Society, the late David Weatherall. Weatherall was Hill’s doctoral advisor, and had a lengthy history with Walter Bodmer, the man who made the first proposal for The Human Genome Project in 1986, and at that point had already been a decades-long affiliate of the Eugenics Society. Weatherall’s work was being funded by Bodmer around 1989, and this relationship persisted for decades after. During the period that Bodmer was president of the Eugenics Society (then called the Galton Institute) from 2008-2014, Weatherall spoke at one of their conferences in 2014. Furthermore, in 2008, the same year Bodmer became president, Weatherall joined Bodmer as a speaker at the Galton Institute centenary symposium — celebrating “100 years of medical genetics.”

While the Glaxo-Jenner vaccine never came to fruition, the Jenner Institute would go on to develop a vaccine in collaboration with AstraZeneca for COVID-19 a few years later. That vaccine was brought to market via emergency use authorization, and was heralded as the vaccine for low- and middle-income countries during the pandemic, as it was cheaper to develop and easier to store than its mRNA alternatives. Yet the vaccine’s use was eventually halted in multiple countries after “fears the shot may have caused some recipients to develop blood clots,” and was eventually withdrawn by AstraZeneca entirely.

Importantly, the precedent regarding the authorization of the unapproved AstraZeneca vaccine to market had been partially established back during the 2014 Ebola outbreak. In the heat of Ebola ravaging West Africa, the Glaxo vaccine  — which Monarez’s funding targeted — was rushed to trials in an “unprecedented” way. As Science reported, the early injection of the Glaxo vaccine into humans was an “extraordinary, unprecedented gamble” because of how quickly the process was moving. “Normally, vaccines take many years to advance from small phase I studies, which look at safety and immune responses,” the journal stated. From there, they move to“phase II studies, which do the same in larger groups; to phase III, in which efficacy is tested in large populations at risk of the disease. An earlier WHO consultation made the startling announcement on 5 September that this crisis required compressing the timeline, which effectively does away with traditional phase III studies” (emphasis added).

Furthermore, Jeremy Farrar, who at the time headed the Wellcome Trust, advocated for a “step-wedge trial” to avoid a randomized control trial. The step-wedge, notably, automatically gives every study participant the vaccine (just at different times). Yet this tactic “makes it more difficult to control for biases like differences in rates of new infection, behavior, and availability of protection suits” — thus making the trial less objective and its data less indicative of the vaccine’s efficacy. Farrar’s advocacy here is unsurprising; this kind of disregard for thorough and long testing of drugs pervades the Wellcome Trust. The organization has since pursued projects that seek to use lab-grown human organs to test pharmaceutical products on to replace animal trials altogether.¹⁴ Nonetheless, this acceleratory attitude still could not achieve the task of getting the Glaxo vaccine to market.

Despite the failure of the Glaxo-Jenner Ebola vaccine, however, remdesivir was not the only drug that made Big Pharma massive profits as a result of Monarez’s 2014 Ebola Task Force funding. The rest of her investments, such as vaccines from Johnson & Johnson and Merck, as well as monoclonal antibody treatments from Regeneron and the DoD-funded Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., would come to fruition in 2017 when they were added to the Project Bioshield stockpile with an investment of $170.2 million. It was a full decade earlier that Monarez penned the HHS Investment Plan to allocate $5.6 billion in BioShield funds across the public and private sectors, including for vaccines and antivirals against the Ebola virus. More than ten years later, after working in two different government offices since her time at BARDA, she’d completed a critical funding component of that Implementation Plan. It took, however, a potential lab leak, a deadly epidemic and bringing an unapproved drug to market, to achieve this goal.

Monarez’s role in the Ebola response, however, was likely not limited to her influence on drug investments. Her Linkedin states that she was an “instrumental member” of the Task Force, “responsible for developing the Nation’s public health response plans to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa…” Beyond pharmaceutical investments, the nation also embarked on a massive biosurveillance campaign to monitor the outbreak of the virus.

Much of the technology deployed to surveil and combat the Ebola virus in this period — by both private contractors and the Pentagon — would later be deployed, and likely refined beforehand, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. Government’s Ebola surveillance operation utilized a form of digital surveillance reliant on collecting a vast array of data from different sources in order to string together those broad samples into a precise narrative, such as where Ebola might potentially break out, and where a particular strand’s origins might trace back to. This form of surveillance is an age-old method of the national security state, and its implementation into the public health/pandemic preparedness model is not something that has occurred in parallel to national security usage, but in symbiosis with it.

For example, the Ebola Task Force issued $60 million to the Pentagon to create a Cooperative Threat Reduction program to “address urgent…biosurveillance needs in the three countries most affected by the Ebola outbreak.” The DoD addressed these needs at least in part by repurposing a system traditionally used to detect weapons of mass destruction to “instead flag the onset of Ebola outbreaks.” The system, which in 2014 was described as a “next-generation information gathering, sharing, analysis, collaboration and visualization system” harvested “data of interest across the military and intelligence communities.” Its name, complimenting its multi-source data harvesting likely picking from satellite imagery, social media data, phone call locations, medical records and more, was “Constellation.”

Assistant secretary of defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs Andrew C. Weber touted Constellation in 2014, advocating for “a shared biosurveillance system that integrates local disease information, civilian disease information and DoD information about its own military forces.” He also called for the use of information technologies such as social media to enable “real-time disease detection that allows countries to prevent outbreaks or contain them.”

Constellation quickly developed into a public-private partnership used by “nongovernmental organizations, governments most affected by the Ebola outbreak, and Defense Department laboratories involved in the outbreak response,” expanding its use, and likely the data the program could aggregate and analyze.

Another biosurveillance operation that was being used during the Ebola outbreak was the GDELT Project database, which, according to Defense One, once competed for funding from the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency (IARPA). Supported by the Google incubator Google Jigsaw –– a client of Antony Blinken’s consulting firm WestExec –– during the 2014 outbreak, GDELT claimed that it predicted an Ebola outbreak based on “a French language newswire article that observed, amazingly, not the keyword Ebola but ‘a disease whose nature has not yet been identified has killed 8 people in the prefecture of Macenta in south-eastern Guinea … it manifests itself as a hemorrhagic fever…’” Interestingly, the following year in 2015 Google Jigsaw was working with the State Department to “identify Google users interested in Islamic extremist topics” in order to de-radicalize them, engaging in “digital counterinsurgency.” In 2012, they were working with Hillary Clinton to oust Bashar al-Assad from power in Syria. ¹⁵

While it is not clear in what way the Peter Thiel-founded mass surveillance company Palantir aided the government response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak, the company has touted its role in “countering Ebola” with the CDC in two different press releases. These press releases state that this partnership took place not long after Palantir and the CDC “initially partnered,” implying that the Ebola outbreak may very well have been one of Palantir’s first forays into a real pandemic biosurveillance scenario.

During the Ebola outbreak, the CDC conducted a direct biosurveillance effort in West Africa in which they tracked the “approximate locations of mobile phone users” who dialed emergency call centers in order to predict outbreaks before they occurred and where they might spread.¹⁶ It is unclear whether or not Palantir aided this effort, though the program is strikingly similar to past Palantir projects. Yet, in whichever capacity the surveillance contractor aided the Ebola response, Monarez was not far from it.

Since then, via massive government contracts across HHS agencies, as well as former Palantir employees being installed at HHS,  the company has become a vital component of the US government’s biosecurity infrastructure.

Before Monarez served in the White House, however, she joined the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2009 and would remain there until 2013. There, she was the Branch Chief and Chief Science Advisor of the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (HSARPA) where she reported to biosecurity veteran, Tara O’Toole.

HSARPA, DHS and Tara O’Toole

Tara O’Toole is perhaps best known for writing a pre-pandemic disaster simulation of a smallpox bioterror attack just months before Amerithrax seeded a deep sense of paranoia and pro-war fervor into American consciousness. The simulation was conducted at the Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. and was in part presented by the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies, which O’Toole was the director of at the time. It was ominously titled “Dark Winter.”

While O’Toole chose smallpox as the pathogen that would infect Americans in her simulation, the exercise eerily predicted key elements of the actual anthrax attacks that occurred only months later.
As occurred in the real attacks, O’Toole’s script had threatening letters delivering to prominent members of the American media class, and predicted that such an event would transform the public’s affinity for peace into a thirst for revenge. Perhaps most importantly, Dark Winter established the narrative that Al Qaeda and Iraq were working as partners to carry out these attacks.

The simulation began with a geopolitical context briefing which contained a section titled “Suspected Bioweapons Production – Iraq,” in which it suggested that Saddam Hussein was using a vaccine plant as a front for bioweapons production, as Hussein had “imported equipment and materials that might be used to build chemical or biological weapons.” Later in the simulation, the National Security Council in Dark Winter deduced that the bioterror attack was “related to decisions [the U.S.] may make to deploy troops to the Mid-East.” Further, in one of the exercise’s fictional news reports, the reporter claims that “Iraq might have provided the technology behind the attacks to terrorist groups based in Afghanistan.”

As Robbie Martin and Abby Martin recounted in their audio documentary, Schrodinger’s Super Patriots: The 2001 Anthrax Mystery, multiple participants of the Dark Winter simulation as well as officials adjacent to them went on to make conspicuous connections between the 9/11 attacks, anthrax and Iraq. These included Dark Winter participants James Woolsey and Jerome Hauer, Bush official Richard Perle, and Dark Winter participant/disgraced New York Times reporter Judith Miller. Miller later released a book at the beginning of Amerithrax hysteria that, according to Whitney Webb, “asserted that the U.S. faced an unprecedented bioterrorism threat from terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and [nation states like] Russia.” In their audio documentary, the Martin siblings also dug up a slew of old news reports from the time citing anonymous U.S. government officials suggesting a connection between the anthrax attacks, 9/11, Al Qaeda and Iraq — eerily echoing the simulated predictions of O’Toole’s Dark Winter. Later, the anthrax used in those attacks was found to have originated from strains held only by the U.S. military.  

Given the proximity of O’Toole’s Dark Winter simulation to the Bush administration, and the ways in which it seemed to inspire the P.R. tactics the administration later employed in response to the anthrax attacks, the question has been raised as to whether or not someone who attended the Dark Winter simulation — or was familiar with the fictional trajectory it laid out — was the person who reportedly instructed Dick Cheney’s staff to begin taking Cipro, the antibiotic used to combat anthrax infection, the night of the 9/11 attacks. Based on this seemingly prophetic suggestion, it appears that this person had foreknowledge of the anthrax attacks. The prospects of this possibility become even more worth considering given that, as reported by The New York Times Magazine, O’Toole herself attended a meeting with Dick Cheney just days after 9/11 with former Air Force colonel, Dark Winter author and colleague of Robert Kadlec, Randall Larsen, in which they stressed that the U.S. was underprepared for a biological attack. To make this point, Larsen allegedly smuggled a sample of weaponized Bacillus globigii into the meeting, which is “almost genetically identical to anthrax,” in order to demonstrate the lack of government security surrounding bioweapons.

A few years later in 2009, shortly after Barack Obama became president, O’Toole went on to become the Under Secretary of Science and Technology (S&T) at DHS, “the principal adviser to the Secretary on matters related to science and technology.” It should be noted that the tenures of both Monarez and O’Toole at DHS seemingly overlap perfectly with each other, both joining the agency in 2009 and leaving in 2013. The two worked closely together, as Monarez played a significant role in allocating funds for HSARPA. HSARPA reports directly to the Undersecretary of S&T, which at the time was O’Toole.

An integral part of O’Toole’s focus during her time at the agency was the development of “Apex initiatives” which “pioneered new partnerships between S&T and DHS operations, and successfully delivered innovative technologies to meet DHS’ urgent operational needs, including the use of advanced ‘Big Data’ analytics by ICE.” ICE notably bought Palantir software during O’Toole’s tenure allegedly in order to track down and take “revenge” against drug cartel members who murdered an ICE agent in Mexico.

Another part of O’Toole’s reforms involved shifting most research and development (R&D) within S&T to HSARPA, making the agency encompass “the vast majority of the R&D activities in the S&T Directorate.” This change obviously made Monarez’s role vital to the S&T directorate. According to her LinkedIn profile, she was overseeing $300 million in federal contracts — presumably funding the majority of the entire directorate’s research.  

Monarez utilized these funds for research of border-security and counterterrorism technology. One of the most startling programs injected with this money appears to have been the testing of a “real-time malintent detection capability” called Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST).  Reveal News described this malintent detector as “machinery that can measure things like heart rate, micro-facial expressions, breathing patterns and body heat as an individual walks through a security portal.” Using the data harvested from this technology, software algorithms would then “determine if a combined set of behaviors and physiological qualities amounted to someone hiding plans to carry out a terrorist attack.”

According to National Defense Magazine, during a testing of the technology in 2009, “a laser measured [participants’] heart and respiratory rates, an eye tracker measured their blink rates and pupil dilation, a thermal camera measured the heat on their skin and a reconfigured Nintendo Wii Balance Board measured their fidgeting. Nearby computers processed the data, and the system’s software recommended to the security guard which participants should be taken aside for follow-up questioning.”

In a 2011 DHS budget paper, the agency claimed that, in 2009, they “demonstrated a real-time malintent detection capability at a simulated speaking event using indicators such as heart beat, respiration, and pore count to develop a screening facility and a suite of real-time, non-invasive sensor technologies to rapidly, reliably, and remotely detect indicators of malintent.”¹⁷ In 2011, notably, HSARPA was building on the FAST project to include “passive stimuli” in its screening procedures in order to better detect malintent.

Monarez also seems to have funded a Lockheed Martin-partnered border-security program called the Tunnel Detection Project –– an invasive surveillance effort to utilize “ground penetrating radar” to construct digital images of underground tunnels. The project was meant to provide DHS with the surveillance capacities to detect tunnels built by criminals for the illicit trafficking of drugs, humans and other contraband.

HSARPA scanned these tunnels using “radar antennas in a trailer…towed by a Border Patrol truck.” The antennas shot “a signal directly into the ground and [used] it to construct a multi-colored picture of the earth.” In 2011, National Defense Magazine reported that DHS and the Pentagon were deploying “sensors and robots” in the Southwest to detect and map out “illegal tunnels being built underneath the U.S.-Mexico border.”

Monarez left the agency in 2013 and returned to DHS three years later after her stint in the White House, this time as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Strategy and Analysis. There, she chaired a DHS Technical Advisory Board and served as a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Group — influencing policy and resource planning of DHS’s “$2 billion science and technology portfolio.”

Notably, in DHS’ 2017 budget proposal, the S&T Directorate requested “$94.9 million for R&D on Biological and Chemical Capability for the BioWatch program including S&T funding to test and identify technology enhancements to the existing operational system” (emphasis added).  The BioWatch program is a public-private national biosurveillance effort that “provides early warning of a bioterrorist attack in more than 30 major metropolitan areas across the country” that is managed by the DHS Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office. The effort “involves a large network of stakeholders” from a myriad of industries, including law enforcement, “who collaborate to detect and prepare a coordinated response to a bioterror attack.” Among Biowatch’s present goals are “providing real-time data across the Homeland Security Enterprise” and “improving information-sharing between federal, state and local operators.”

It has worked to achieve these goals in part by developing “autonomous biodetection instruments” with aerospace defense contractor Northrop Grumman. The autonomous instruments operated “24 hours per day, 365 days per year” and utilized bio-detectors placed in U.S. population centers to “continuously monitor the air for agents of biological concern” — providing DHS with a constant surveillance-based early detection system.

Monarez’s influence on a DHS budget portfolio that funded efforts such as this seemingly foreshadowed a later career move she would make — that which she is now most known for. In 2022, Monarez became the first official Deputy Director of ARPA-H, where she would spearhead the development of invasive biotechnology ripe with mass surveillance potential. In addition, ARPA-H’s origin story as a predictive crime “mental health” detector turned biotech procurement program sheds light on the symbiotic relationship between the technocratic nature of modern public health infrastructure, and the dystopian national security-based system of mass surveillance that continues to expand globally. Monarez’s roots, as well as her time at ARPA-H, make clear that virtually her entire career has existed at the cutting edge of this intersection.

ARPA-H

While ARPA-H was established under the Biden administration, it was initially pitched to Donald Trump during his first term. In the aftermath of two mass shootings that left 31 people dead in their wake, the ARPA-H sell to the Trump administration included a program called “Safe Home,” or Stopping Aberrant Fatal Events by Helping Overcome Mental Extremes.

Though the concept of a “health” focused iteration of DARPA –– conceived of and lobbied for by the Suzanne Wright Foundation –– was originally meant to be a “project to improve the mortality rate of pancreatic cancer through innovative research to better detect and cure diseases,” this new proposal to the Trump administration highlighted a different, less obvious, function of the program.

As The Washington Post described it, the program would utilize “volunteer data to identify ‘neurobehavioral signs’ of ‘someone headed toward a violent explosive act.’” A person familiar with the discussions surrounding ARPA-H told WaPo something eerily revealing regarding the true nature of ARPA-H: “There is no doubt that addressing this issue helps the president deal with two issues he has to find real success on: one is the health-care front and one is the gun-violence front.” This account implies that no matter what pretext the predictive medicine-focused ARPA-H would be launched under, its purpose going forward would always remain dual-use: both for “health” and national security.

Indeed, while Safe Home has not been outwardly pursued by ARPA-H, Monarez has since made it clear that one of her primary objectives at the agency was something similar. In an interview with One Mind, Monarez asked “What can we do through all of this harnessing of the data that has been generated for decades and decades, and it’s dispersed in so many different places?” With “generative AI capabilities,” she continued, we can “combine all of that [data]” to replace in-person mental health screenings of patients presumably with AI-generated ones instead — utilizing a myriad of datapoints about a patient to diagnose and treat them for a host of mental conditions, as opposed to the in-person guidance and analysis of a real doctor. This, Monarez said, will conveniently bring traditional medical experience “to the home,” providing “empowerment” to patients dealing with the “prohibitive” problems of “mental health issues.”

At the time Monarez made these statements, she was serving as Deputy Director of ARPA-H. A press release announced her selection as Deputy Director of ARPA-H in January 2023 and noted that she would work under the leadership of director Renee Wegrzyn, a former program manager in the DARPA Biotechnologies Office. In this role, Monarez shaped “the strategic vision” and executed the agency’s programs, and also oversaw “the development and management of groundbreaking health research initiatives.” She also worked with “multidisciplinary teams” to “evaluate and select” research proposals for ARPA-H to tackle. Furthermore, she fostered “strong partnerships with leading academic institutions, industry stakeholders, and government agencies to leverage expertise and resources for joint research efforts.” In other words, Monarez shaped much of ARPA-H’s catalogue of biotechnology research and development, and directly worked with contractors and “stakeholders” to facilitate the execution of these projects.

Yet, to totally understand Monarez’s objectives and role at ARPA-H, the dual-use nature of the agency itself  — as well as Monarez’s work at DHS — must be considered when analyzing the programs she helped select and execute.

ARPA-H’s REACT program, for example, is currently developing two chips that would be surgically implanted into patients during surgery that would “interface with a simple software platform or app that allows users to track their condition directly.” One chip would act as a “Living Sentinel” that would mine patients for data to track “key bio markers” in order to identify “markers for disease.” The other chip would act as a “Living Pharmacy” to deliver “therapeutic molecules” to patients on demand — leaving medicine intake, and presumably medical advice regarding drugs, up to AI technology. The REACT program manager previously worked at DARPA in the same position within the Biological Technologies Office. Before DARPA, he was at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory working as the head of “surface nanoscience and sensor technology.”

To pursue this project, ARPA-H awarded millions of dollars to different “teams” at different institutions each focused on developing specific parts of the treatment technology. The institutions awarded contracts were the Mayo Clinic, Carnegie Mellon University and Columbia University.

Notably, Carnegie Mellon University was established by the steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie in 1900 — the same man that was the head of the Carnegie Institute of Washington which Charles Davenport persuaded to establish his Eugenics Records Office at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.¹⁸ To work on REACT, Carnegie Mellon University brought in through a subcontract an external company to aid their research effort; Ginkgo Bioworks, a partner of the World Economic Forum that is primarily funded through an investment firm controlled by Bill Gates. Considering Monarez’s role in fostering “strong partnerships” with outside collaborators at ARPA-H — as well as Renee Wegrzyn’s, the ARPA-H Director whom Monarez worked under, previous role as vice president of business development at Ginkgo — it is very possible that Monarez played a role in cultivating this partnership.

Indeed, REACT is not the only partnership involving Ginkgo Bioworks and ARPA-H. Since Monarez left the agency to head the CDC, the agency has granted $29 million to a Ginkgo-led consortium to create “new and efficient biomanufacturing processes to strengthen pharmaceutical supply chains” utilizing “wheat germ cell-free expression systems.”

The joint venture is aimed at “improving the speed, scale, and access to medical treatments and enhancing health security in the US,” echoing the rhetoric of the ARPA-H program CATALYST which seeks to accelerate the time from which drugs are developed to when they’re brought to market. This is important to note in this context, as even though this Ginkgo partnership was established after Monarez left ARPA-H to take up her role as the interim Director of the CDC, her LinkedIn states that she shaped “ARPA-H’s future research agenda by identifying emerging trends and gaps in health innovation.” One of these “gaps,” based on this partnership and other ARPA-H projects, appears to be the lack of regulatory and manufacturing infrastructure that would enable drugs to be rapidly brought to market. The procurement of a more “accelerated” development-to-market paradigm is a major objective of the biotechnology industrial complex, which often suffers substantial losses within the current regulatory framework.

Yet this relationship between Ginkgo and ARPA-H warrants mentioning for the links it creates to another network deeply entrenched in the biosecurity apparatus — Palantir, and more broadly the “Thielverse.” Multiple members of Ginkgo’s board of directors are tied to Thiel’s sprawling business and investment empire.

Board member Ross Fubini, for example, founded a venture capital firm that invested heavily in the Thiel-backed AI defense contractor Anduril, founded by Oculus founder and Thiel Fellow Palmer Luckey. Beyond this, according to Forbes, Fubini has “solo invested” in as many as 15 Palantir alumni startups which “propelled [him] onto all three annual editions of the Forbes Midas Seed List of the world’s top earliest-stage investors.” Rubini’s Anduril investment is “now worth tens of millions at Anduril’s most recent valuation, enough paper gains to return its first fund several times over.”

Fubini’s induction into this network of Palantir associates continued to grow after his backing of Anduril. In 2020, Fubini invested in a “Medicare-focused” startup called Chapter, and soon after, “two of Chapter’s three biggest partner institutions” hopped on the fundraising train — Peter Thiel himself, and JD Vance’s Narya Capital.

However, Fubini’s connections to Palantir actually date back to 2006, when he introduced “Palantir’s first business hire to its first engineer.” That engineer was Akash Jain, “a former colleague of Fubini,” who is now the CTO of Palantir government business. The business hire, meanwhile, was Shyam Sankar, who is now the CTO and Executive Vice President of Palantir — and who also serves on the board of directors of Ginkgo Bioworks with Fubini. At Ginkgo, Sankar is the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee Chair, meaning Sankar plays a significant role in selecting who is on the board. Sankar’s influence appears prevalent, as Fubini and him are not the only Thielverse associates at Ginkgo.

Another board member is Christian Henry, who was previously the COO and CFO of the biotechnology company Illumina. Though Henry is no longer part of Illumina governance, he is still a major shareholder of the company. Recently, Illumina partnered with DNA test company Nucleus Genomics which is currently “realizing the dream set into motion long ago by The Human Genome Project” with its application that “harnesses the power of whole-genome sequencing.” Two years before this team-up, Nucleus raised $14 million in funding from a group of investors that included Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund.

And finally, there is Sri Kosuri on Ginkgo’s board of directors, who is the CEO of the fin-tech company Octane — which has been financed to the tune of $50 million by Peter Thiel’s Epstein-funded Valar Ventures.

Yet ARPA-H also boasts more direct ties to Palantir, as Palantir runs the agency’s core data infrastructure, enabling ARPA-H to “rapidly collect, synthesize, analyze, and make decisions from a range of data sources…” This closeness to Palantir –– a company built on the practice of making the retrieval and analysis of data from disparate sources seamless –– should also be considered as we examine more of ARPA-H’s projects, which mine bio-data under the pretext of health and wellness.

One of these programs harkens back to the HSARPA tunnel-penetrating technology that was worked on during Monarez’s time at DHS. Yet, rather than scanning and building three dimensional constructs of tunnels, this ARPA-H project seeks to scan and construct digital models of the human body. Called PSI, it aims to create detailed imaging technology capable of generating images of “hard-to-see nerves, blood vessels, and other structures, even if they are buried under other tissue” in order to provide 3D visualization of “critical anatomy” during surgery.

The ARPA-H program INDEX, meanwhile, focuses on how images generated by imaging technology (such as that which PSI aims to create) can be stored and harnessed for later use. INDEX is based on the premise that AI and machine learning algorithms currently lack the imaging data required to sufficiently train their models. This apparently leaves huge medical potential untapped, as the program claims that these algorithms “can help radiologists and pathologists make faster and better diagnostic decisions.”

INDEX provides a solution to this problem. It aims to create a massive, easily accessible bank of imaging data that links “data providers, data users and service providers with high quality images” to enable “AI tool development for pathology and radiology.” The range of data it seeks to provide will be vast, as the program aims to “increase the number, type, and quality of images available for machine learning models, as well as boost geographic, racial, and ethnic diversity of images.”

Interestingly, ARPA-H recognizes the regulatory hurdles of accumulating this sprawling dataset, and is already collaborating with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to “reduce barriers in obtaining data needed for INDEX.” It is likely that Monarez worked directly on diminishing these regulatory obstacles restricting the program’s aspirations of unfettered data access. According to her LinkedIn, at ARPA-H she provided “strategic guidance on regulatory and go-to-market matters, working closely with FDA, CMS, external investors and other stakeholders.”

Just as ARPA-H’s dual-use nature places the beneficial and convenient aspects of the program’s biotechnology development into a larger context, INDEX places programs such as PSI into a broader one as well. While enhanced imaging data could presumably have immediate positive effects during surgical operations, programs such as INDEX raise important questions; will those images be stored in databases? Will they be utilized later, and by whom, and for what purposes?

Just recently, the vast Center for Medicaid Services (CMS) database with information on more than 140 million Americans was handed over to ICE, the Palantir-powered deportation authorities. ICE is currently constructing a master database, reportedly with Palantir, to collect data from a myriad of sources to carry out their deportations. Among other agencies such as the IRS, this “master database” will also pull information from HHS — the parent agency of ARPA-H, and the CDC. So, more specifically; will data from programs like INDEX be utilized for purposes beyond public health?

Virtually all of ARPA-H’s catalogue of programs raises the same question. From PARADIGM, a project that seeks to use patient location data collected via satellite to build a de facto portable hospital system, to OCULAB, which aims to harness wearables to constantly scan patient “biomarkers,” specifically in the tearduct, to predict disease before onset, to PRINT, which seeks to utilize a massive database of genetic information to print vital organs for patients, to RAPID and POSEIDON, which plan to expand at-home COVID-19-style diagnostic testing to other conditions such as cancer — all of these programs, beyond their direct medical potential, pursue innovative methods of biodata collection.

POSEIDON seeks to integrate at-home cancer screenings “securely with electronic health records.” RAPID’s pursuit of AI technology capable of detecting rare diseases at home prioritizes “data interoperability and integration into existing clinical workflows” in order to ensure “scalability across healthcare organizations.” In order to enable this AI technology to make its diagnoses, it “aims to integrate data from a fragmented landscape” in order to construct “the largest curated dataset of…rare disease patient data…”  The very premise of PRINT, which plans to utilize a biodata bank to print organs, would inherently require a vast amount of detailed genetic data to achieve its goal. Will the biomarkers that the wearables in OCULAB scan for also be used to train the AI-diagnostic tools it relies on? It is hard to imagine a scenario in which it would not.

This question of data privacy becomes all the more important when contextualizing all of these programs in the background of ARPA-H’s BDF Toolbox — a project that seeks the unification of disparate health datasets, making vast amounts of data readily available by making it interoperable.

The program page remarks that all the research health datasets spread out around the medical field “could be so much more useful when pooled together…” Yet, privacy restrictions and dated technology that use “different platforms to store different datasets” make this goal difficult. The BDF Toolbox aims to solve this problem by making “it easier to connect biomedical research data from thousands of sources and overcome barriers caused by incompatible data dialects” through methods such as “lower[ing] barriers to high-fidelity timely data collection in computer-readable forms” and “improving stakeholder access while maintaining privacy and security measures.” How the program will “lower barriers” to obtaining and collecting this data while at the same time “maintaining privacy” measures is not specified.

The Toolbox also seeks to make this data integrable, presumably into both research and maybe even government policy, as the program page states that the technological innovations it plans to make will “reduce the time needed to integrate new data sources, and improve data usability by community members across disciplines and biomedical literacy levels.” Furthermore, the analysis and integration of this data will be conducted not only by humans but by AI algorithms, and fed into machine learning programs. Whether by human or AI, the Toolbox enables the harnessing of data from “thousands of labs, hospitals, and centers…”

The concept of the BDF Toolbox — creating a single location for vast amounts of data to be stored — is not a new one. It harkens back to Charles Davenport’s Eugenics Records Office and to the George W. Bush-era pre-crime Total Information Awareness program that sought to funnel huge amounts of data into a single, “ultra-large-scale’ database.” Most recently, this type of effort can be seen in the formerly Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) objective to construct a “mega-API” that can access huge swaths of data by making “software systems talk to one another.” This DOGE effort is carrying out an executive order from President Trump to “eliminate information siloes.” Importantly, the company that the Trump administration turned to to build out this mass surveillance infrastructure was Palantir — the same company that runs ARPA-H’s core data infrastructure.

These partnerships, as well as the simultaneously occurring efforts to expand data sharing, cast serious doubt on ARPA-H’s claimed commitment to privacy rights. Furthermore, Monarez’s essential role in the development of these programs, contextualized with her layered history within the biosecurity apparatus, suggests that she will take the CDC — which is currently already building out a massive biosurveillance program with Palantir — even further into the shadowy world of surveillance and militarized science.

Paving the Way To Technocracy

Dating back at least to Monarez’s time in her postdoctoral research program at Stanford Biology, continuous proximity to suspect moneyed interests and intelligence-linked scientists have long primed the CDC Director for a career at the intersection of traditional scientific academia and the military industrial complex.

The man that chaired her department, Mark M. Davis, was associated with veterans of genetic science who shared concerning ties to the eugenics movement of the 20th century and the national security state’s co-optation of academia. Davis staffed Monarez’s department with likeminded figures, two of whom share conspicuous ties to the biosecurity apparatus and U.S. intelligence agencies. She started her public sector career at BARDA in the aftermath of the anthrax attacks, an agency that was the brainchild of biosecurity veterans of the modern age like Robert Kadlec and William Patrick III.

That Monarez began her tenure in government at BARDA, carrying out the policy objectives of biosecurity hawks, demonstrates that her career was not only close to this network, but a byproduct of its ideas and the paranoid, fear-mongered climate which it rose to prominence in. While on a more technical level, Monarez is a classic organizational bureaucrat, seasoned with experience handling giant government expenditures across multiple agencies, it is the targets of those funds, and the influence of those targets, that ultimately clue us in to who she is beneath this impressive surface.

In a recent interview discussing ARPA-H, Monarez stressed the importance of health and wellness while sporting stylish glasses and artisanal jewelry on her slender frame. Yet this outward appearance obfuscates her direct experience working at DHS, working with Randall Larsen-colleague and Dark Winter author Tara O’Toole, and her directing funds towards invasive counterterrorism and border security surveillance technology — from tunnel-penetrating thermal scanners to the sprawling Biowatch biosurveillance program and dystopian  “malintent” detectors.

In her first position in government at BARDA, she directed plans to fund Ebola research, which likely led all the way to the VHFC lab in Sierra Leone which the virus may have leaked from, killing thousands. Then, years later, as part of the White House Ebola Task Force, she helped finance the prospective medical solutions of the outbreak, “evaluating investments in Ebola-related pharmaceuticals and diagnostics,”  
subsidizing Big Pharma companies to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in Bioshield funds. This Ebola saga that Monarez found herself in demonstrates that she is comfortable, and proficient at, a vital part of the biosecurity apparatus; the cyclical financing which potentially creates problems (lab leaks), wreaking havoc and death upon thousands, followed by the financing of their medical responses, enriching Big Pharma and their investors.

At ARPA-H, her talent as a director of giant budgets and procurer of blatantly invasive surveillance technology came together, and she oversaw a program list of tech straight out a dystopian sci-fi film. Yet perhaps the most vital program ARPA-H has pursued is the BDF Toolbox — an effort to enable mass surveillance through enabling the mass sharing of disparate datasets. This, combined with the partnership that ARPA-H has developed with the pre-crime surveillance company Palantir, encapsulates the true nature of Monarez’s role in the political sphere.

All of this makes it all the more curious why RFK Jr. — a man who rose to stardom in the last six years due to his opposition of COVID-era biosecurity measures — “handpicked” Monarez for the job. While we ultimately must wait to see what Monarez does before drawing any conclusions about whether or not she will carry out the public health overhaul that RFK Jr. rode to political prominence on, her past foreshadows an unfortunate future for anyone concerned with the security state’s weaponization of public health.  

So far, however, it seems that virtually no one in the mainstream media or political sphere have questioned Monarez’s time lurking in the darkness of the biosecurity apparatus. It appears that like her colleague Jim O’Neill –– the Thiel-associate who was recently sworn in as Deputy Secretary of HHS –– the concerning aspects of her past were quietly swept under the rug or ignored from all ends of the political spectrum. This has led us to today; Monarez is now the director of the CDC, sworn in without commotion or much critical analysis. As a result, the American public has been left in the dark when it comes to her background and what it entails for the future.

If the future is as blatant as it appears, Monarez will only expand the technocratic transformation of healthcare that decades of special interests have paved the way for from her new influential post. With Silicon Valley arguably more intertwined with government than it’s ever been, and Trump seemingly committed to the digitization of healthcare, she will be well-equipped to do so.

In a previous version of this article, the author mistakenly stated that the White House’s ebola response plan subsidized “Big Pharma companies to the tune of billions of dollars in Bioshield funds.”  In reality, these companies were funded to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, not billions. The article has been updated to amend this error.

Endnotes

1        “Stanford Bulletin Archive.” Archived Bulletins | Stanford University. Accessed August 13, 2025. https://archived-bulletin.stanford.edu/. To view the staff during Monarez’s time at Stanford, click on Stanford Bulletin 2003-04, Stanford Bulletin 2004-05, and Stanford Bulletin 2005-06. From there, click on “School of Medicine” under “Schools, Departments, and Interdisciplinary Programs,” and then on Microbiology and Immunology.

2        Galton, David. “Introduction.” Essay. In Eugenics: The Future of Human Life in the 21st Century, xvii–xx. Abacus, 2002.

3        Corbett, James. “They Don’t Want Your Genes In the Pool .” Essay. In Reportage , 75-75. Atlanta, Georgia : Diversified Graphics LLC, 2025.

4        “II. A Plan For Further Work .” Essay. In Eugenics, The Science of Human Improvement By Better Breeding, 30–30. Henry Holt and Company , 1910.

5        Hersh , Seymour. “Chapter 9: The Making of a Science .” Essay. In Chemical and Biological Warfare: America’s Hidden Arsenal , 280–280. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc. , 1968.

6        Corbett, James. “They Don’t Want Your Genes In the Pool .” Essay. In Reportage , 78–79. Atlanta, Georgia : Diversified Graphics LLC, 2025.

7        Schenk, F, and A S Parkes. “The Activities of the Eugenics Society.” , 154-154. The Eugenics review, September 1968.

8     Huxley, Julian. “The Principle of Equality and Fact of Inequality.” Essay. In UNESCO Its Purpose and Its Philosophy, 21–21. London , Englad: The Frederick Printing Co., Ltd. , 1947.

9     Schneider, Barry  R., and Lawrence E. Grinter. “Recommendations for the Future .” Essay. In Battlefield of the Future: 21st Century Warfare Issues, 242–242. Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama : Air University Press, 1998.

10     Schneider, Barry  R., and Lawrence E. Grinter. “Illustrative Scenarios .” Essay. In Battlefield of the Future: 21st Century Warfare Issues, 260–263. Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama : Air University Press, 1998.

11Nana, Constantine. “The Ebola Outbreak in West Africa .” Essay. In The Ebola Outbreak in West Africa: Why?, Chapter 2: The Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium. Archway Publishing, n.d. .

12     “Two Drugs Reduce Risk of Death from Ebola.” National Institutes of Health, December 10, 2019. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/two-drugs-reduce-risk-death-Ebola.

13     Gillham, Nicholas  Wright. “Chapter 22: The Triumph of the Pedigree.” Essay. In A Life of Sir Francis Galton: From African Exploration to the Birth of Eugenics, 336–336. New York , New York : Oxford University Press, Inc. , 2001.

14     “HOPE.” Wellcome Leap: Unconventional Projects. Funded at Scale. https://wellcomeleap.org/hope/. The HOPE program page boasts, “Success in the HOPE program would give researchers the ability to run pre-clinical trials on representative human organs and systems in the lab rather than on animals, which would reduce the attrition rate and in turn, decrease the cost of new drugs.”

15     Levine, Yasha. “Chapter 6: Surveillance Inc.” Essay. In Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet , 181–82. London, United Kingdom: Icon Books Ltd, 2019.

16     African Strategies for Health. “USE OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE EBOLA RESPONSE IN WEST AFRICA .” USAID , November 2014. https://www.msh.org/sites/msh.org/files/technology_and_Ebola_response_in_west_africa_technical_brief_final.pdf.

17     “FY 2011 Budget in Brief.” DHS.gov. Accessed August 3, 2025, (p. 134-134). https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/budget_bib_fy2011.pdf.

18     Allen, Garland E. “The Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, 1910-1940: An Essay in Institutional History.” Osiris 2 (1986): 227–28. https://doi.org/10.1086/368657.

Meet Trump’s CDC Director: Susan Monarez.

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One Nation Under Blackmail by Whitney Webb.

Sabby Sabs.

School choice ESAs and SGO tax credits may afford parents and students with a broader menu of learning options, but not without simultaneously expanding Big Government, Big Business, and Big Tech control over public, private, and home education. To be sure, ESAs and tax-credited “scholarships” are primed to expand government regulation of private, religious, and home schools while publicly subsidizing ed-tech companies that data-mine students’ psychometrics for predictive learning analytics. Not only are ESAs and tax-credited “scholarships” positioned to extend the reaches of government bureaucracies and ed-tech corporations into public, private, and home educationl, but they go even farther, as they are also positioned to usher fin-tech companies into public-private partnerships between ed-tech corporations and government bureaucracies in order to digitally dole out ESAs and “scholarships” to students.

In fact, several fin-tech corporations, including ClassWallet, Odyssey, Student First Technologies (SFT), Merit International, and SAP Ariba, are already specializing in “digital wallets” that streamline ESA and tax-credited “scholarship” payments. Altogether, these fin-tech companies have already contracted with at least 32 state governments to facilitate ESA and “scholarship” payments for public-private school choice programs. Some of these fin-tech corporations, such as ClassWallet, have also contracted with the United States (US) Federal government to digitize emergency education funding for virtual-online “distance learning” during COVID lockdowns. Many of these fin-tech companies and their digital wallets have also been promoted by a Koch–funded regiment of corporatist State Policy Network (SPN) think tanks, including the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), EdChoice, and ExcelinEd –– all of which are affiliates of Project 2025 contributors.

The corporatization and digitization of public education are problematic enough, but the fin-tech privatization of school choice subsidies through digital wallets is ultimately a stepping stone toward the public-private federalization of blockchain “distributed ledger technologies” (DLTs) that transfer, track, and trace all government funds through programmable cryptocurrencies, such as “stablecoins,” which have their value anchored to that of the US dollar. Pledging to crown America as the “world capital” of crypto and AI, Trump has not only minted his own “USD1” stablecoin, but he has also signed legislation legalizing digital stablecoin dollars in addition to signing executive orders to establish stablecoin regulations along with a US “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” and a US “Digital Asset Stockpile.” To achieve crypto and AI dominance, Trump has joined forces with top PayPal Mafia bosses, including Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and David Sacks, along with their venture capitalist (VC) cronies, such as Marc Andreessen, who together have laid the groundwork for the evolving digital economy by bankrolling digital wallets, blockchain DLTs, cryptocurrencies, and crypto exchange platforms.

In short, the corporatist contingent of the Koch-SPN think tanks behind Project 2025 is advocating for school choice ESAs and “scholarships” to be streamlined by fin-tech companies while the Silicon Valley technocrats of the PayPal Mafia are guiding Trump to accelerate the evolution of the digital economy through federal government adoption of blockchain DLTs and stablecoins. As Trump’s “PayPal Presidency” onboards federal blockchain systems, the school choice corporatization of the Koch-SPN cartel and the fin-tech disruptions of the PayPal Mafia are set to converge in a public-private digital wallet industry that tokenizes ESA and “scholarship” subsidies through stablecoins programmed by AI for government-restricted purchasing of ed-tech products and services. Synergizing the neo-conservative, beltway-libertarian, and VC Silicon Valley blocs of the Republican Party, the Koch-SPN and PayPal Mafia powers behind Trump are setting the stage for fin-tech digitization of school choice subsidies in order to upgrade public-private ed-tech systems for AI social credit scoring in the blockchain economy of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).

To SPN a Web: School Choice Corporatization Meets Fin-Tech Digitization

As I document in “TrumpED 2025,” the Trump administration’s education reforms are following the Project 2025 “Playbook.” Titled Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, Project 2025 was authored by associates of the Koch–funded SPN, which is a consortium of neo-conservative and beltway-libertarian think tanks, including the Heritage Foundation and the AEI, along with corporatist school choice think tanks, such as EdChoice, and ExcelinEd. Not only have these Koch-SPN think tanks advocated for school choice ESAs in alignment with Project 2025, but they have also called for corporate fin-tech overhauls to privatize payment and accounting systems for government ESA subsidies.

At the helm of Project 2025 is the Heritage Foundation, which is the “arch-conservative” think tank that has set the mold for Republican policies for more than a half century. In addition to directing Project 2025, which calls for converting federal education entitlements into school choice ESAs, the Heritage Foundation serves on the Project 2025 Advisory Board. The main author of Project 2025’s “Department of Education” chapter is Lindsey M. Burke, who is the Director of the Heritage Center for Education Policy where her Project 2025 co-author, Jonathan Butcher, is a Senior Research Fellow. In a Heritage Foundation article titled “Financial Technology and Parental Choice in Education,” Butcher calls for fin-tech corporatization to streamline payment and accounting systems for government ESAs.

According to Butcher, school choice ESAs are model financial vehicles for subsidizing private schools and ed-tech corporations with public tax dollars because ESAs enable “parents [to] customize their children’s education” by purchasing an array of “educational products and services.” In particular, ESAs enable “[p]arents [to] buy online classes, hire a personal tutor, . . . pay private school tuition,” and purchase ed-tech products.

While ESAs might deliver a more dynamic menu of customizable choices, the sheer scale of such individualized customization presents financial accounting and transaction complications that impede parents’ abilities to efficiently access the full menu of private schools and ed-tech companies that are eligible to receive ESA money. To resolve these transactional and accounting complications and, thereby, streamline the customization of education choice, Butcher advocates for ESA fin-tech that can be programmed to quickly verify a wider range of authorized educational services and products and, in turn, speedily transfer ESA payments to certified schools and vendors. Butcher avers that ESA payments:

“need a system that allows parents and students to make multiple purchases each fiscal quarter, perhaps even multiple purchases each day, while limiting such transactions to lawful educational products and services.

The system needs to block unlawful transactions and facilitate payment to multiple vendors without using cash—all characteristics of the payment services becoming available today through financial technology.”

To support his case for fin-tech privatization of ESA administration, Butcher describes how Visa and several fin-tech companies, including Venmo, PayPal, and BenefitWallet, have already contracted with the state governments of Arizona and Nevada to facilitate tax-funded ESA payments.

According to Butcher, next-generation fin-tech, such as ClassWallet, which specializes in school choice vouchers, “scholarships,” and ESAs, should replace prepaid Visa and PayPal ESAs in order to save parents money and prevent fraudulent use of ESA tax subsidies. Butcher relays that ESA transactions conducted through PayPal incur a fee that parents must pay with each purchase. Butcher also conveys that, although prepaid Visa ESAs are programmed with purchasing codes that restrict products or services that do not fall under authorized categories, some of those codes, such as Walmart product codes, are imprecise, creating loopholes for families to buy unauthorized products or services with government ESA subsidies. Conversely, Butcher highlights how next-generation fin-tech, such as ClassWallet, does not incur a fee and can be programmed to transfer funds only to specifically authorized schools, ed-tech companies, and educational service vendors.

Hyping next-gen fin-tech as the future of ESA administration, Butcher advises state governments to:

“outsource full or partial implementation of education savings accounts to private organizations. State departments of education should provide policy guidance concerning eligible educational services and products for purchase, but state lawmakers should look to companies that specialize in fintech in order to streamline transactions and prevent the expansion of government activity. State agencies should not create new data systems or hire new staff. Instead, the state should contract with private entities to manage payment processing and audits.”

In brief, Butcher’s Heritage whitepaper rationalizes fin-tech privatization of school choice ESAs on the basis of ostensibly eliminating government waste, fraud, and abuse, which is the same rationale that the Trump administration provides for directing the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to chainsaw public education and other tax-funded programs.

In addition to the Heritage Foundation, another Koch-SPN think tank that has espoused fin-tech privatization of ESAs is the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) where Butcher’s Project 2025 co-author, Max Eden, has served as a Research Fellow, a Senior Fellow, and an Education Policy Program Manager. In an AEI article titled “Implementing K–12 Education Savings Accounts,” Michael Q. McShane, who is an AEI Adjunct Fellow, asserts that “there should be more competition in the ESA payment platform industry. Part ‘govtech’ and part ‘fintech’ solutions should be able to straddle the worlds of private industry and government to make payments fast and fluid.” According to this AEI whitepaper, governments should contract with innovative fin-tech corporations that make the “use of ESA dollars seamless and straightforward.” To achieve these fin-tech efficiencies, McShane calls for legislation and regulations that appoint “a private entity to administer the day-to-day details of the program (approving expenditures, paying schools and other providers, etc.).”

McShane is also the Director of National Research at another Koch-SPN think tank, EdChoice, where Project 2025 author Lindsey M. Burke is a Fellow. Formerly known as the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, EdChoice has also advocated for fin-tech privatization of ESAs. In an “EdChoice Policy Toolkit” titled “ESA Financial Accountability: Reimbursements, Debit Cards or Online Platforms?,” EdChoice touts that “[o]nline [fin-tech] platforms like those developed by ClassWallet and SAP Ariba provide the highest level of [ESA] financial accountability with the least amount of bureaucracy.” According to this EdChoice “Toolkit,” “[s]ince the [fin-tech] platforms only allow the purchase of eligible products and services, this model provides the highest form of financial accountability. Moreover, it is much more cost-effective than the other models because it does not require a huge staff to pore over innumerable receipts.”

Another associate of yet another Koch-SPN think tank, the American Federation for Children (AFC), has championed “digital wallets,” such as ClassWallet, as the most cutting-edge fin-tech upgrade for privatizing ESAs. Sarah Raybon, who is the Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives at ClassWallet, “has worked to expand educational opportunities through . . . the American Federation for Children,” according to her ClassWallet employee profile. In a ClassWallet article titled “Ensuring Transparency with Education Savings Account Programs,” Raybon advises state governments to privatize “ESA programs” through public-private “digital wallet” contracts with fin-tech corporations in order to “meet the needs of all stakeholders,” including “[p]olicymakers,” “[p]rogram participants,” and “[s]tate administrators.” Raybon explains how:

“[ESA] [p]rogram administrators can set rules with digital wallets around [ESA] purchases to avoid the misuse of [ESA] funds, helping program administrators comply with legislative requirements and easily track where dollars are spent. The technology provides administrators with real-time tracking and reporting options. Real-time transaction tracking and digital record-keeping consolidate account data into one place, streamlining audit reporting, compliance and transparency.”

In addition to advancing school choice corporatization and digital wallet privatization through the AFC and ClassWallet, Raybon has also served as the Director of Communications and Engagement at the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) where she administrated facets of the state’s “Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA)” program, which is America’s first-ever ESA program. Today, the ADE website officially states that “ClassWallet is the financial management platform for the [Arizona] ESA program.”

It is worth noting here that the AFC, which was founded, financed, and chaired by former US Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, operates a “Growth Fund” that was formerly known as the Alliance for School Choice where Project 2025 co-author, Robert S. Eitel, served as the “national director.” Under Trump’s first presidency, Eitel served as “Senior Counselor” to Secretary DeVos, who has also bankrolled EdChoice, the Heritage Foundation, and the AEI.

It is also worth noting here that Secretary DeVos staffed her Department of Education with Neil Ruddock, Andrew Kossack, and Josh Venable, all of whom worked for Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education (ExcelinEd), which is yet another Koch-SPN think tank that has also been advocating for fin-tech privatization of ESAs. In an ExcelinEd blog article titled “Unlocking the Full Potential of Education Savings Accounts: Navigating Expense Review for Maximum Impact,” the ExcelinEd Education Choice Policy Director recommends administering ESAs through “multiple systems for payment methods, such as an online marketplace for direct purchases” facilitated through “various payment options,” including “digital wallets.” For precision accounting and transfer of digital ESAs, ExcelinEd recommends combining fin-tech with artificial intelligence (AI) that can “streamline the expense review process. AI can rapidly process and approve clear-cut cases while flagging more complex expenses for manual review, thereby balancing efficiency with oversight.” ExcelinEd adds that “[i]deally, the [AI] technology could ‘learn’ over time, reducing the number that require manual review.”

In sum, Project 2025 author, Jonathan Butcher, has directly hyped fin-tech privatization of ESAs. Meanwhile several Koch-SPN think tanks, including the Heritage Foundation, the AEI, and EdChoice, which are affiliated with Project 2025 authors, such as Butcher, Lindsey M. Burke, and Max Eden, have also been calling for fin-tech privatization of ESAs. At the same time, another Koch-SPN think tank, ExcelinEd, has likewise been cheerleading for fin-tech corporatization of ESAs. Considering that Trump’s push to “dismantle” the Department of Education has been following the Project 2025 “Playbook,” which calls for a portion of federal education entitlements to be converted into ESAs, the trajectory of Trump’s school choice reforms is palpably bent toward greenlighting the fin-tech ESA overhauls touted by Project 2025 affiliates and their Koch-SPN cronies.

Venture Capital & School Choice Fin-Tech: From Digital Wallets to Blockchain IDs

Leading fin-tech corporations, such as ClassWallet, Odyssey, Student First Technologies (SFT), Merit International, SAP Ariba, and BenefitWallet, have already been contracting with at least 31 state governments to streamline public education expenditures, including school choice subsidies, such as ESAs and tax-credited “scholarships.” These fin-tech companies have been bankrolled by disruptive venture capital firms, such as Stand Together Ventures Lab, which is associated with the Koch–SPN syndicate, along with Alumni Ventures, Bling Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz, which share common investments with PayPal Mafia don, Peter Thiel. Bolstered by venture capital and public-private partnerships with more than 60% of America’s State governments, these premier fin-tech companies are poised to not only privatize the Federal school choice ESAs championed by Project 2025 and its associate SPN think tanks, but to also upgrade digital wallets with blockchain DLTs and AI analytics backed by Thiel and other PayPal Mafiosos. In turn, school choice subsidies and other public education funds can be doled out by AI to pay for a menu of ed-tech products and services that are algorithmically prescribed based on students’ predictive social credit analytics extrapolated from their learning metrics logged into their blockchain digital IDs.

One of the most prominent fin-tech corporations facilitating ESA transactions is ClassWallet, which has sold its “patented digital wallet” services to at least 18 State governments, including Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington. According to a company press release, ClassWallet has been bankrolled by Lazard Family Office Partners: a subsidiary of Lazard Inc., which is a World Economic Forum (WEF) partner that has employed Nathaniel Rothschild, who is a WEF Young Global Leader, and Vernon Jordan, who was an advisor to President Bill Clinton and a member of both the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group. It is worth noting here that it was President Clinton who signed into law the first Federal school choice bill authorizing private charter school corporations to be publicly subsidized by US tax dollars.

If you’ve never heard of ClassWallet, it made the Inc. 5000 “prestigious annual list of the fastest-growing private companies in America” for the third year in a row in 2024 when it was ranked as the “88th fastest-growing software company.” In 2023, ClassWallet, which partners with Amazon, was ranked by Deloitte at number 114 on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 list. Prior to rising through the Deloitte and Inc. 5000 charts, ClassWallet capitalized on the COVID restrictions of 2020, 2021, and 2022 when it became a go-to for transferring emergency relief funds issued through the Education Stabilization Fund (ESF) under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the American Rescue Plan Act, and the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act.

In the wake of COVID lockdowns, ClassWallet has strived to expand its fin-tech platform beyond emergency ESF relief and school choice subsidies by branching out to digitally transfer public funds from other government bureaucracies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). ClassWallet has also sold its digital wallet services to transmit payouts from “Early Childhood Care Grants” issued through the Child Care and Development Fund of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Inversely, BenefitWallet initially developed its digital wallet for disbursing tax-advantaged funds from Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) before expanding its fin-tech platform to disseminate school choice tax subsidies from ESAs. It is worth noting here that BenefitWallet was formerly a subsidiary of the Xerox corporation’s spin-off company, Conduent, where Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) member Michael Montelongo and US Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Margarita Paláu-Hernández serve on the Board of Directors. Currently, BenefitWallet is a subsidiary of HealthEquity Inc. where the Board of Directors includes executives who formerly held “leadership positions” at PayPal, Mastercard, Bank of America, Citibank, Fidelity Equity, Charles Schwab, Western Union, Hartford Financial Services Group, and the New York Stock Exchange.

Another fin-tech corporation that manages ESA commerce is Odyssey, which is “the first [fin-tech] company designed specifically for education savings accounts (ESAs).” According to its company website, Odyssey’s fin-tech platform “connect[s] families, states, and vendors” through “[s]ecure digital student wallets” that optimize “[e]nd-to-end data retention and payment processing” by “[a]utomat[ing] verification and expense approval” of ESA transactions. To date, Odyssey has sold its digital wallet services to at least 7 State governments, including Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Wyoming, Idaho, Missouri, and Utah.

Odyssey, which partners with Amazon, has been bankrolled by several venture capital firms that are adjacent to PayPal Mafia godfather, Peter Thiel. For example, Odyssey has been financed by Bling Capital, which is also invested in Palantir: the AI predictive analytics corporation founded and directed by Thiel and his fellow Bilderberg Steering Committeeman, Alex Karp. Odyssey has also been funded by Marc Andreessen’s venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, which has shared common investments with Thiel’s venture capital firm, Founders Fund. In particular, both Andreessen Horowitz and Thiel’s Founders Fund have financed Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Palmer Luckey’s Anduril Industries, both of which have contracted with Trump’s Department of Defense, which also contracts with Palantir. It is worth noting here that Odyssey has also been bankrolled by Tusk Venture Partners, which has shared common blockchain and crypto industry investments with Thiel’s Founders Fund; and has also invested in Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange platform that traffics in digital crypto wallets.

It is also worth noting here that Odyssey was a finalist for the 2023 Yass Prize awarded by billionaire financier Jeff Yass, whose School Freedom Fund teamed up with Betsy DeVos’s AFC in 2024 to lobby legislators to sponsor and vote for school choice bills that greenlight ESAs, vouchers, and tax-credited “scholarships” through which “federal funding follow[s] students – rather than government assigned schools.” Yass, who has served as an Executive Associate of the Heritage Foundation, endows his Yass Prize for Sustainable, Transformative, Outstanding, and Permissionless (STOP) Education in partnership with the Center for Education Reform (CER), which also partners with the Koch–backed SPN behind Project 2025. In fact, the CER, which collaborates with other SPN think tanks, such as the AFC, EdChoice, and ExcelinEd, was founded by US Department of Education official, Jeanne Allen, who has served as a Manager of the Heritage Center for Education Policy where Project 2025 authors Lindsey M. Burke and Jonathan Butcher currently serve as Director and Senior Research Fellow respectively.

Along with Odyssey, Andreessen Horowitz has also financed Merit International, which is an “ID-tech” company that also provides fin-tech services through digital wallets. According to its company website, Merit International manages digital payment systems for “ESA, microgrant, and tax-credit programs” governed by the Ohio State Department of Education and Workforce and the Kansas State Office of Recovery. Synchronously, Merit authenticates “digital credentials” through a “digital identity ecosystem” engineered to optimize “Grants Management,” “Emergency Management,” “Workforce Development,” and “Professional Licensing.” Additional investors in Merit’s ID-tech/fin-tech system include Experian, which is one of the “Big Three” credit reporting companies; Alumni Ventures, which is a strategic “co-investor” with both Andreessen Horowitz and Thiel’s Founders Fund; and Stand Together Ventures Lab, which is an offshoot of the Stand Together non-profit corporation founded by Charles Koch, who also founded the Stand Together Trust, which is a partner with the SPN behind Project 2025.

While Merit International is combining digital ID-tech with digital wallet fin-tech, Student First Technologies (SFT), which partners with Mastercard, is combining fin-tech with AI-tech to enhance ESA payment and accounting systems. To date, SFT has serviced at least 18 state governments by tracking, tracing, and transmitting “ESA,” “Microgrant,” and “Tax Credit Scholarship” transactions through its “end-to-end” AI-enhanced Theodore platform, which transfers government school choice funds from digital wallets to authorized schools and vendors offering certified educational products and services. According to the SFT company website, Theodore “[e]mpower[s] each stakeholder” with an SFT AI program called QuinnIQ, which “is a comprehensive ‘human-in-the-loop’ ML (Machine Learning) learning [sic] model that optimizes and automates ESA program expense verification.”

By combining AI-tech, fin-tech, and ID-tech, the digital wallet industry is stacking the building blocks for a cybernetic matrix through which AI can data-mine predictive social credit analytics by tracking and tracing how the transmission of school choice subsidies through blockchain student ID ledgers correlate with specific ed-tech learning outcomes. In fact, at least one fin-tech platform, SAP Ariba, which collaborates with WEF partners such as IBM and Amazon, disburses school choice “scholarships” issued by the Florida State Department of Education in addition to interfacing blockchain applications and AI tools that monitor “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG)” scores and other social credit metrics.

In sum, now that fin-tech corporations such as SAP Ariba, Merit International, Odyssey, ClassWallet, and BenefitWallet have spread their digital tentacles throughout the public-private school choice marketplace, the stage is set for these fin-tech disruptors to capitalize on the federal ESAs and tax-credited “scholarships” being pushed by the architects of Project 2025. At the same time, these fin-tech trailblazers, which are bankrolled by venture capitalists connected to the PayPal Mafia and the Koch-SPN syndicate, are positioned to upgrade their digital wallet platforms with blockchain ledgers and AI analytics such as those that have been financed by Thiel and other PayPal Mafia technocrats. Once such DLTs are linked to digital student IDs, the convergence of blockchain-tech, ID-tech, and fin-tech will enable AI-tech to data-mine predictive social credit analytics by tracking and tracing cybernetic feedback loops between school choice subsidies and ed-tech learning outcomes tabulated on digital student ID ledgers.

PayPal Mafia 2.0: Blockchain Broligarchy Rolls Out Stablecoin Tokenization of Public Funds

The digital fin-tech privatization of ESAs, tax-credited “scholarships,” and other school choice subsidies being advanced by the Koch-SPN cartel is just one facet of a comprehensive game plan for establishing a blockchain social credit economy governed by an AI technocracy. To be sure, the proliferation of digital wallets for privatizing school choice subsidies is nothing less than a stepping stone toward the corporate fin-tech digitization of all public subsidies through blockchain DLTs and “stablecoins” that can be programmed by AI for government–restricted purchases.

In fact, Trump is already federalizing stablecoins while nationalizing a “Crypto Strategic Reserve” with clout from PayPal Mafia technocrats, including David Sacks, Peter Thiel, and Elon Musk, along with fellow VC disruptor, Marc Andreessen. Prior to courting Trump, these PayPal oligarchs and their VC sidekicks have altogether been financing foundational blockchain infrastructure, including digital wallets, crypto exchanges, and stablecoin platforms, along with the most valuable crypto coins, including those which Trump has proposed for his Crypto Strategic Reserve. Now, as Trump pushes for public-private school choice fin-tech along with stablecoins, the corporatist Koch-SPN machinations of the neo-conservative and beltway-libertarian wings of the Republican Party are being melded with the technocratic aims of the PayPal Mafia on the VC Silicon Valley wing of the party in order to advance blockchain DLTs and AI–programmed crypto for social credit cybernetics in the 4IR.

It is not happenstance that the school choice corporatization stratagems of the Koch-SPN think tanks behind Project 2025 are converging with the fin-tech digitization schemes of the PayPal Mafia under the Republican administration of President Trump. PayPal Mafia don Peter Thiel, who has been labeled Trump’s “shadow president,” holds a long track record of rightwing political activism. In addition to his Silicon Valley pedigree of funneling venture capital into disruptive fin-tech startups, Thiel, who is a WEF member, has spearheaded neo-conservative “culture war” propaganda; proselytized corporatist “beltway” libertarianism; and collaborated with cabinet-level officials in several Republican presidential administrations.

Through Stanford University, Thiel has bolstered neo-con culture wars by serving on the board of the college’s conservative satellite think tank, the Hoover Institution, and by founding the college’s popular conservative magazine, The Stanford Review, where he helmed the publication as the founding editor. Established in 1987 as a culture war garrison against the “social justice” polemics of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition, Thiel’s Stanford Review has since published a battery of “anti-woke” polemics that have fueled the Trumpian culture wars which paved the way for the current “PayPal Presidency.” Along with Thiel, other Stanford Review editors include the following roster of technocrats and venture capitalists who joined forces with Thiel to set up PayPal, Palantir, and the Founders Fund:

• David Sacks, who is a PayPal Mafia “original gangster.”
• Ken Howery, who is another PayPal Mafia “OG” and a co-founder of the Founders Fund.
• Joe Lonsdale, who is a co-founder of Palantir.
• Stephen Cohen, who is another co-founder of Palantir.

It is worth noting here that another Stanford Review editor, Candice Jackson, would go on to serve as US Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights under Betsy DeVos.

During Thiel’s enrollment at Stanford, he served as a speech writer for US Secretary of Education William Bennett, who has championed school choice and collaborated with several corporatist think tanks, including the Heritage Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which are both partners with the SPN and members of the Project 2025 Advisory Board. In 2023, Bennett joined forces with Betsy DeVos and Jeff Yass, along with ALEC, the AFC, the CER, EdChoice, and ExcelinEd, to lobby Pennsylvania legislators to pass a bill authorizing tax-funded school choice “scholarships” which can be paid through digital wallet fin-tech. Yass’s CER partner, Jeanne Allen, served in the US Department of Education under Secretary Bennett while Secretary DeVos was privately advised by Thiel, who also served on Trump’s first presidential transition team.

Before Trump’s rise to presidential power, Thiel was also a contributor to the corporatist Cato Institute: the beltway-libertarian think tank which, like the Heritage Foundation, has played a vital role in shaping Republican politics for decades. Founded by Charles Koch, the Cato Institute, which is a partner with the SPN cartel, is currently staffed by Project 2025 co-author Andrew Gillen, who serves as a “Policy Scholar” and a “Research Fellow” at Cato’s Center for Educational Freedom. It is worth noting here that Gillen, who is a contributor to the Heritage Foundation, has also served as a “Program Officer” for the Charles Koch Foundation where another Project 2025 co-author, Erin Valdez, has served as a “Program Manager” for “Educational Partnerships.”

In a 2009 Cato publication, Thiel authored an article titled “The Education of a Libertarian,” in which he professed, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” Hyping his trailblazing PayPal empire and its ambitions to advance the fin-tech “creation of a new world currency, free from all government control and dilution,” Thiel proclaimed that “the great task for libertarians is to find an escape from politics in all its forms,” including all forms of democracy. To realize his anarcho-corporatist utopia, Thiel resolved that libertarians should leverage the industrialization of disruptive fin-tech and other “new technologies that may create a new space for freedom” and, thereby, avert the so-called “tyranny” of the “unthinking demos.”

Anticipating an upsurge in such new “liberatory” technologies, Cato published a 2021 article titled “Charting the Fintech Future,” which advocates for digitally overhauling banking systems with “Chartered Fintechs” and “Stable Value Crypto Banks” comprised of “blockchain payments network[s]” that traffic in “Stable Value Cryptocurrencies.” Otherwise known as “stablecoins,” such “stable value crypto coin[s]” have been propped up by venture capital from Thiel and other PayPal Mafia goodfellas and associates. It is worth noting here that Cato has also promoted the privatization of school choice ESAs through fin-tech corporations such as BenefitWallet.

Today, Thiel has been aptly crowned the Republican “kingmaker” as he not only bankrolled Trump’s first presidential campaign, but he has also been instrumental to Vice President JD Vance’s rise to political power. In addition to financially backing Vance’s bid for Ohio Senate, Thiel, along with fellow Bilderberg Steering Committeeman Eric Schmidt, also backed Vance’s venture capital firm, Narya Capital, which is invested in AI and biotech corporations. Not only did Thiel groom VP Vance, who was an investor at Thiel’s Mithril Capital before setting up his own VC firm, but Thiel has also turned out to be a formative influence on the selection of President Trump’s current roster of executive appointments, which is filled with former employees of Thiel’s Big Tech corporations and venture capital firms. These include:

• Palantir Senior Advisor Jacob Helberg, who serves as the Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment at the US Department of State.

• Mithril Capital Management Director Jim O’Neill, who serves as the Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services.

• Thiel Capital Principal Michael Kratsios, who serves as the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

• PayPal Mafia gangster and Founders Fund co-founder Ken Howery, who is a WEF member and Trump’s Ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark.

It is worth noting here that Thiel is also financially connected to Trump’s US Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, through common investments in Vivek Ramaswamy’s “anti-ESG” investment firm, Strive Asset Management, which has been bankrolled by Lutnick’s Cantor Fitzgerald LP, Thiel’s Founders Fund, and Vance’s Narya Capital.

In brief, Thiel has played a key role in stoking neo-conservative culture wars through the Hoover Institution and The Stanford Review while also shaping Republican political policy, including economic, education, and presidential policy, through his collaborations with the Cato Institute, Secretary Bennett, Secretary DeVos, VP Vance, and President Trump. In the meantime, Thiel has also been advancing the techno–futurist machinations of Silicon Valley where he has been paving the way for a blockchain social credit economy through a surveillance–capitalist technocracy in the emerging 4IR.

It was in 1998 that Thiel ventured to kickstart the 4IR fin-tech revolution by launching an online payment corporation called “Fieldlink,” which would be rebranded as “Confinity,” where David Sacks joined the company as its Chief Operating Officer before it merged with Elon Musk’s online bank startup, “X.com,” to form “PayPal.” Together, these Silicon Valley pioneers formed a cornerstone of the infamous “PayPal Mafia” with help from Rod D. Martin, who is a member of the Board of Governors and the Gold Circle of the Christian-conservative Council for National Policy, which is the rightwing version of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Thiel, Musk, and Sacks would come to be known by their notorious “PayPal Mafia” moniker not only because they laid the groundwork for the digital fin-tech industry, but also because they founded and/or funded an all-star cast of disruptive startup companies that have become some of the world’s most powerful Big Tech corporations, including Palantir, OpenAI, xAI, SpaceX, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Stripe, Tesla, Uber, and Airbnb. Of these Big Tech powerhouses, more than half are WEF partners, including Palantir, OpenAI, Facebook, Stripe, LinkedIn, and Uber along with PayPal itself.

Eventually, the PayPal Mafia would sell its fin-tech platform to eBay where Marc Andreessen served on the eBay Board of Directors. Andreessen would later resign when the e-commerce company spun off PayPal back into a separate corporation. Although Andreessen is not an official PayPal mobster, his venture capital portfolio has frequently overlapped with those of PayPal godfathers, such as Thiel and Sacks, whose common investments with Andreessen include Facebook, LinkedIn, Stripe, Anduril, Airbnb, and Lyft along with Musk’s OpenAI, xAI, and SpaceX. Like Thiel, Andreessen not only financed Vance’s Narya Capital, but he has also intertwined his technocratic tentacles throughout President Trump’s executive offices and agencies, which are likewise filled with former employees of Andreessen Horowitz, otherwise known as “a16z.” These include:

• a16z’s “first employee” and Managing Partner, Scott Kupor, who has been nominated to serve as the Director of the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

• Andreessen Horowitz’s “Head of Policy for a16z crypto,” Brian Quintenz, who has been nominated to serve as Chair of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

• a16z Partner Sriram Krishnan, who serves as Senior Policy Advisor for AI under Trump’s White House AI and Crypto Czar: David Sacks.

Trump’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has also been filled with former employees of companies owned by Musk, who reinstated Trump’s Twitter account and bankrolled Trump’s presidential comeback, earning himself a position in Trump’s second administration as the magistrate of DOGE. Musk’s DOGE hirelings include at least 30 former employees of SpaceX, xAI, X, Neuralink, Tesla, and/or the Boring Co. Among these DOGE officials are at least two Musk cronies who have also been appointed by Trump to serve in other executive offices and agencies, including:

• SpaceX Vice President of Human Resources, Brian Bjelde, who serves as a Senior Advisor in the OPM.

• Tesla engineer, Thomas Shedd, who serves as Deputy Commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service at the US General Services Administration.

Other DOGE officials include at least four former employees of Palantir and at least one recipient of the Thiel Fellowship. As the head of DOGE, Musk outsourced to Palantir its stratagem “to build a new ‘mega API’ for accessing Internal Revenue Service records” whereby Palantir’s Foundry AI platform could “become the ‘read center of all IRS systems,’” according to Wired. Outside of DOGE, Musk’s xAI has partnered with Thiel’s Palantir “to Redefine Financial Services through Enterprise AI.” Before exiting DOGE, Musk called for the US Treasury to “be put on the blockchain” in order to “stop” an ostensible racket of “payments that are fraudulent or do not match the funding laws passed by Congress.”

But of all the PayPal Mafia technocrats who have garnered Trump’s favor, it is Sacks who wields the most command over the Trump administration’s scheme to overhaul the American financial system with blockchain DLTs and cryptocurrencies, including stablecoins, through AI fin-tech. One of Trump’s earliest executive appointments, Sacks has been tapped to serve as the White House AI and Crypto Czar and the Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).

Sacks, like Thiel, holds a long a track record of stoking neo-conservative culture wars and bankrolling Republican politicians, thus fueling the rise of the new brand of rightwing jingoism that has metastasized into Trumpism. Both Sacks and Thiel have agitated neo-con culture wars as editors of The Stanford Review and co-authors of a book titled The Diversity Myth, which was a forerunner to the wave of “anti-DEI” polemics that undergird Trumpism. Also like Thiel, Sacks has financed the venture capital firms and political campaigns of Vance, who is also a contributor to the Heritage Foundation. Not only did Sacks fund Vance’s Narya Capital, but he also donated $1 million to a political action committee supporting Vance’s race for the Ohio Senate. Vance, who said that Sacks is “one of my closest confidants,” was later recommended by Sacks to be Trump’s VP. In addition, Sacks put together a $12 million fundraiser to support Trump’s presidential comeback.

During Sacks’s tenure as White House AI and Crypto Czar, he has collaborated with his “close business associate,” Glenn Gilmore, to help Donald Trump Jr. set up a private pay-to-play “dining club” for rightwing elites, including business tycoons and politicians. Charging up to $500,000 per membership, the “Executive Branch Club” provides an exclusive venue where potential lobbyists of corporate special interests can “connect” with Trump’s cabinet and other high-level executive officials “without media interference.” For examples, the inaugural meeting of the Executive Branch Club hosted such cabinet officials as Commerce Secretary Lutnick, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. along with Sacks himself. Also in attendance were such corporate oligarchs as Keith Rabois, who is a PayPal Mafia mobster; Jensen Huang, who is the founder, president, and CEO of NVIDIA; and two of “the world’s richest crypto billionaires,” Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, who founded the cryptocurrency exchange, Gemini, which has been charged with “selling unregistered securities” by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Notwithstanding concerns that Sacks’s “member No. 1” status in the Executive Branch Club poses conflicts of interest with his official capacity as White House AI and Crypto Czar, representatives of the club have assured that “Sacks has no financial interest in the Executive Branch Club, directly or indirectly. His involvement has been reviewed and approved by government ethics attorneys.”

As AI and Crypto Czar, Sacks has been appointed by Trump to chair the President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets in accordance with Executive Order (EO) 14178: “Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology.” Section 1 of EO 14178 states that “[i]t is therefore the policy of my [Trump’s] Administration to support the responsible growth and use of digital assets, blockchain technology, and related technologies across all sectors of the economy.” Although Section 5 decrees the “Prohibition of Central Bank Digital Currencies [CBDCs],” Section 4 stipulates that the Working Group on Digital Asset Markets “shall propose a Federal regulatory framework governing the issuance and operation of digital assets, including stablecoins, in the United States.” While stablecoins are issued by corporations, commercial depository institutions, or “decentralized autonomous organizations” (DAOs), rather than central banks, they are nonetheless cryptocurrencies that can be digitally anchored to national currencies issued by central banks. Like CBDCs, stablecoins can also be digitally programmed for government-restricted purchases through blockchain smart contracts.

Just four months before Trump decreed EO 14178, he and his sons launched a stablecoin corporation, World Liberty Financial, with the help of Steve Witkoff, who now serves as the US State Department Special Envoy to the Middle East. World Liberty Financial, which is also bankrolled by “crypto billionaire” Justin Sun, has launched the USD1 stablecoin: a cryptocurrency that has its value affixed to that of the fiat US dollar. Other US dollar-linked stablecoins include PYUSD, which is issued by PayPal; USDT, which is issued by Tether and has been backed by Trump’s Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick; and RLUSD, which is issued by Ripple and is supported by Bullish: a cryptocurrency exchange backed by Thiel. Additionally, Thiel is also invested in Ubyx, which is a stablecoin clearing system, and Plasma, which is a blockchain platform that is “purpose-built for stablecoins.”

Greenlighting government regulation of stablecoins, Trump has signed into law the “Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act,” which permits federally insured “depository institutions,” such as commercial banks, and “nonbank entities” to issue “payment stablecoins” that can legally “be used as a means of payment or settlement.” Licensed stablecoin issuers must back their outstanding stablecoins at a “1 to 1” rate with reserves that must be comprised of high-quality liquid assets, such as “United States coins and currency (including Federal Reserve notes)” or “Treasury bills, notes, or bonds.” Just a few weeks before Trump signed the GENIUS Act, Mastercard announced its plans to upgrade the “Mastercard Multi-Token Network,” which “is built to power programmable payments and stablecoin settlement,” in order “to support a growing portfolio of regulated stablecoins from issuers around the world.”

In addition to federalizing stablecoins, Trump has also drafted provisions for national government stockpiling of digital asset reserves comprised of non-stable cryptocurrencies. Section 4 of Trump’s EO 14178 directs Sacks and the rest of his Working Group on Digital Asset Markets to “evaluate the potential creation and maintenance of a national digital asset stockpile and propose criteria for establishing such a stockpile, potentially derived from cryptocurrencies lawfully seized by the Federal Government through its law enforcement efforts.” Subsequently, on March 6^th, 2025, Trump issued EO 14233, “Establishment of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and United States Digital Asset Stockpile,” which directs Sacks’s Working Group to put together “a full accounting of all Government Digital Assets” that can be transferred to a US “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” or a US “Digital Asset Stockpile.” Five days after the decree of EO 14233, the “Boosting Innovation, Technology, and Competitiveness through Optimized Investment Nationwide (BITCOIN) Act,” which codifies into Federal law the government establishment of a national “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve,” was introduced in the US House of Representatives.

Although neither a reserve nor a stockpile has yet been formalized, Trump publicly pronounced through his “Truth Social” platform that the US “Crypto Strategic Reserve” will hold a cache of Bitcoin (BTC) and other non-stable cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum’s ETH, Ripple’s XRP, and Solana’s SOL, each of which has been backed by one or more of the PayPal Mafia kingpins behind Trump. For instance, Thiel has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into BTC and ETH, and he also provided startup funding for OpenCoin, which would later become Ripple. In fact, the Ethereum blockchain network is the brainchild of a Thiel Fellowship recipient, Vitalik Buterin. Like Thiel, Sacks also invested hundreds of millions of dollars into ETH and BTC along with SOL before reportedly divesting just prior to accepting his appointment as White House AI and Crypto Czar. Additionally, Musk has also stated that he personally holds BTC and ETH while his SpaceX and Tesla companies separately own BTC holdings that collectively total more than $2 billion. Orbiting the PayPal Mafia nexus, Andreessen Horowitz’s portfolio has also included Solana and Ripple’s predecessor, OpenCoin.

Other blockchain and crypto fin-tech enterprises backed by PayPal Mafia bosses and adjacent VC technocrats include Layer N, which has been financed by Thiel’s Founders Fund, and Bitwise, which is bankrolled by Sacks’s Craft Ventures, along with Coinbase, Alchemy, OpenSea, Uniswap, and Maker, which are funded by Andreessen Horowitz. In addition, Dogecoin has been propped up by Musk, who is aspiring to revive his old X fin-tech corporation through his revamped version of Twitter. Partnering with Visa, Musk is aiming to upgrade his X-branded Twitter from a social media platform into an “everything app” that will integrate an “X Payments” digital marketplace streamlined with “X Wallets” and “X Money” primed to be denominated in crypto tokens through blockchain ledgers. It is worth noting here that Andreessen Horowitz, which is a corporate member of the Blockchain and Digital Assets Initiative of the WEF’s Center for Financial and Monetary Systems, helped finance Musk’s purchase of Twitter. It is also worth noting that Bilderberger and WEF member Sam Altman, who co-founded OpenAI with Musk, launched the Worldcoin cryptocurrency, which requires biometric authentication.

In sum, the PayPal Mafia oligarchs and VC disruptors behind Trump’s federal crypto innovations have been laying the groundwork for the 4IR fin-tech economy by pumping up the most valuable crypto coins while bankrolling the most essential blockchain networks, digital wallets, and crypto exchange platforms. To be sure, the digital wallet industry around school choice subsidies is indispensable to the blockchain–crypto infrastructure of the emerging 4IR economy, which is being geared up for the tokenization of all public subsidies through stablecoins that can be programmed by AI for government-restricted purchases. By interfacing public-private school choice partnerships through digital wallets that can intermediate stablecoin transactions, Trump is effectively synergizing the technocratic ambitions of the PayPal Mafia with the corporatist objectives of the Koch-SPN cartel behind Project 2025 in order to advance stakeholder capitalism through 4IR blockchain and crypto fin-tech. Indeed, Trump’s push for school choice fin-tech and stablecoins emblemizes the corporate-technocratic convergence of the neo-conservative, beltway-libertarian, and VC Silicon Valley arms of the Republican Party coalescing to usher in programmable crypto and blockchain data-tracking for AI social credit cybernetics in the 4IR.

The Ed-Tech/Fin-Tech Matrix of AI Social Credit Algocracy

The digital wallet industry around school choice corporatization is not only integral to blockchain stakeholder capitalism in the crypto fin-tech economy of the 4IR, but it is also integral to cybernetic surveillance capitalism in the AI social credit technocracy of the 4IR. By synergizing fin-tech with ed-tech through AI, digital wallet ledgers and learning algorithms can be cross-analyzed to extract statistical correlations between school choice subsidies and student outcomes. In the final equation, fin-tech/ed-tech feedback loops can be data-mined by AI to extrapolate predictive social credit analytics that determine not only how ESAs, tax-credited “scholarships,” and other school choice subsidies are allocated to students, but also how educational products and services are prescribed to students in accordance with their 4IR “career pathways” curriculums.

Setting the stage for the AI fusion of fin-tech and ed-tech, Trump proclaimed his mission to make the US the “world capital of artificial intelligence and crypto” during his special address to the WEF 2025 Annual Meeting. To achieve this mission, Trump directed AI and Crypto Czar Sacks to develop a federal government “AI Action Plan” in accordance with EO 14179: “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence.” Trump also appointed Sacks to serve alongside the US Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, on the White House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence Education in accordance with EO 14277: “Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth.” In Winning the Race: America’s AI Action Plan, Sacks directs the US Departments of Labor and Commerce to collectively institute an “AI Workforce Research Hub” to “produce recurring analyses, conduct scenario planning for a range of potential AI impact levels, and generate actionable insights to inform workforce and education policy.” It is worth noting here that Sacks composed America’s AI Action Plan with Thiel hireling Michael Kratsios, who is the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

To advance cybernetic centralization of school-to-work planning under the directives of Sacks, McMahon, and Lutnick in accordance with EO 14277 and America’s AI Action Plan, 68 technology companies have signed Trump’s White House “Pledge to America’s Youth: Investing in AI Education.” These include multinational ed-tech companies, such as Pearson, along with Big Tech corporations, such as Accenture, Adobe, Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Cisco, Cognizant, Dell, Google, HP, IBM, Intel, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, Qualcomm, and Salesforce, all of which partner or collaborate with the WEF. Other Big Tech pledgers include the American branch of the SAP parent company, which partners with the WEF, along with NVIDIA and OpenAI, the latter of which is another WEF partner that has also been funded by Thiel and Andreessen. Other ed-tech pledgers include McGraw Hill, Cengage, Ed Technology Specialists, and Clever, the latter of which has also been funded by Thiel.

Racing to attain “global AI dominance,” President Trump is leveraging Thiel’s Palantir, which has maintained US government contracts throughout the Obama and Biden administrations, operating AI systems, such as Foundry and Gotham, across federal departments and agencies, including the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), HHS, and Musk’s DOGE. According to the New York Times, “Palantir representatives have also held talks with the Social Security Administration and the Department of Education to use the company’s technology to organize the agencies’ data.” It is worth noting here that Palantir was seeded with venture capital from the Central Intelligence Agency’s In-Q-Tel.

It is also worth noting that Trump’s General Services Administration has reportedly been preparing, under the leadership of Musk hireling Thomas Shedd, to utilize the new “AI.gov” website to launch “[t]hree powerful AI tools” conglomerated into “[o]ne integrated platform” in order to “[a]ccelerate government innovation with AI.” Although the official URL currently only posts Trump’s “AI Action Plan,” EOs, and pledges, an archived webpage records that the pilot site had previously planned to interlink an “AI assistant,” an analytics tool called “Console,” and an “all-in-one API,” which would interface with “top-tier AI models from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.” In the interim, OpenAI has been tapped by Trump to spearhead his Stargate AI infrastructure project, which is embarking to construct supercomputing data centers across the nation.

In brief, the Trump government is piecing together a pan-federal panoply of AI cybernetics through public-private partnerships with Big Tech corporations that have been propped up by the same PayPal plutocrats and venture capitalists who have likewise shored up the blockchain-crypto fin-tech enterprises which are concurrently being onboarded by the Trump regime. On top of ramping up the 4IR amalgamation of AI-tech and fin-tech, Trump’s PayPal Mafia bosses and their VC associates have also financed ed-tech products that data-mine feedback loops from student-learning analytics primed for psychological profiling and social credit scoring. For examples:

• Thiel has invested in Skinnerian adaptive-learning courseware, such as Clever and Knewton, which data-mine students’ cognitive-behavioral psychometrics.

• Sacks’s Craft Ventures has bankrolled Course Hero, which has acquired Symbolab: “a fully automated platform” that utilizes “adaptive learning” and other “machine learning algorithms” to streamline “AI-driven personalized learning” through cognitive-behavioral feedback loops.

• Andreessen Horowitz’s portfolio has included Udacity: an e-learning platform that “co-create[s]” online courses with an array of WEF partners, such as Microsoft, Amazon, Accenture, IBM, Intel, Facebook, and Google, along with NVIDIA and Affectiva, the latter of which engineers facial-recognition scanners and biofeedback wearables to data-mine students’ socioemotional psychometrics.

• Musk has funded Khan Academy, which platforms Khanmigo: an AI tutor-bot that leverages Chat GPT through OpenAI, which also operates its own proprietary AI tutor-bot and, like other GPT AI tutors, can data–mine students’ cognitive–behavioral and socio–emotional algorithms.

Altogether, the PayPal technocrats and VC disruptors behind Trump have been financing the foundational ed-tech, fin-tech, and AI-tech building blocks necessary to assemble the 4IR social credit cybernetics that the Trump regime is now putting in place. Full speed ahead, Trump and his Tech Barons are on course to upgrade school choice fin-tech from digital wallets to blockchain DLTs that log students’ learning algorithms and transfer programmable stablecoins which can be tracked and traced by AI to calculate predictive social credit analytics based on correlations between corporate-government financial inputs and education outcomes. Dawning the “Golden Age” of the 4IR, the social credit merger of ed-tech, fin-tech, and AI-tech is the endgame Trump card that will manifest a techno-fascist dream come true for the PayPal Mafia and the Koch-SPN syndicate. Welcome to the School World Order.

From Project 2025 to the PayPal Presidency: School Choice Fin-Tech for a Blockchain Social Credit Economy.

Links:

• 04/05/23 Tweet about Ryan Dawson
• 07/18/25 Tweet after Tucker Carlson guest claimed that Whitney stole research

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One Nation Under Blackmail by Whitney Webb.

The Kim Iversen Show.

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One Nation Under Blackmail by Whitney Webb.

Grand Theft World.

Links discussed:

“First Friends: How “Italy’s Donald Trump” Introduced Naomi Campbell to Jeffrey Epstein“

Miami Herald 2018-11-27 – “How a future Trump Cabinet member gave a serial sex abuser the deal of a lifetime”

The source for Epstein being an FBI informant is a Miami Herald report that notes that Epstein provided information to the FBI as part of his plea deal in 07-08 which remains under seal. However, this was brought up in a context of Epstein having been a FBI informant when he was meeting Peter Thiel, also reportedly a FBI informant, in 2014-2015 and it is not known if Epstein was still supplying the agency with “secret” information at that time.

Correction: During this interview, Whitney stated that Alfredo Rodriguez died in prison based off of information from a Fox News article used as a source in her latest article. Rodriguez actually died in 2014, shortly after serving his sentence.

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One Nation Under Blackmail by Whitney Webb.

Bad Faith Podcast.

See also: The PayPal Presidency Pt. I: Biotech and Biosurveillance with Max Jones and The PayPal Presidency Pt. II: Building the “Dark” Technate with lain Davis

Links Discussed:

• The Chain – Unlimited Hangout Series
• Plundering the Crisis Economy with John Titus
• John Titus: How We Can See The Banking Crisis Isn’t Over
• The PayPal Wars: Battles with eBay, the Media, the Mafia, and the Rest of Planet Earth by Eric M. Jackson
• Unmasking Farmington: FTX, Fluent Finance and the Coming Digital Dollar
• Stablecoins: Where the Carrot Meets the Stick with Mark Goodwin | Solari Report
• FBI Whistleblower on Pierre Omidyar’s Campaign to Neuter Wikileaks
• Debt From Above: The Carbon Credit Coup
• The Chain Of Command: How Facebook’s Libra, Bank Regulators, and PayPal Built A New World Currency
• Palantir – How the CIA, Mossad and “the Epstein Network” are Exploiting Mass Shootings to Create an Orwellian Nightmare
• Search results – Palantir – Unlimited Hangout

Follow Mark: Unlimited Hangout, @markgoodw_in, The Chain Series, The Bitcoin Dollar

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Find previous episodes on all podcast platforms.
Order Whitney’s book One Nation Under Blackmail. 
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Chapters

00:03:43: The Chain – Unlimited Hangout Series

00:06:53: Stablecoins

00:16:31: PayPal

00:31:17: Tether and FTX

00:45:50: Trump and Bank Deregulation

00:57:44: Stablecoins: Where the Carrot Meets the Stick

01:06:51: Public-Private Partnerships

01:19:47: Palantir

See Podverse.fm for clickable chapters, transcript and clips.

00:00

1X

PayPal Presidency Pt. III: New World Currency with Mark Goodwin.

Trump, as a political phenomenon, has long been able to brush off the most scandalous of leaks and recordings of lewd behavior that have emerged since he burst onto, and forever changed, the U.S. political scene. However, the fallout from the administration’s recent handling of Epstein-related information seems to have dented Trump’s reputation as “Teflon Don.” Given the prominent role the Epstein case played in Trump’s 2024 campaign and the administration’s recent communications, it is worth examining in greater detail some of the relatively unknown connections that could have helped shape what many are now calling a cover-up.

In this new series from Unlimited Hangout entitled “First Friends,” we will examine close friends and associates of the current president who also boast considerable connections to Jeffrey Epstein and/or his best known accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, including one who currently serves in an important post in the Trump administration. While some have posited that Trump himself may be significantly implicated in the Epstein scandal – a possibility worth considering – this series aims to show that these long-time Trump pals could also be part of the motivation for the administration’s dramatic aboutface on the release of most Epstein documents.

In the first installment of this series, Unlimited Hangout examines the Italian businessman Flavio Briatore, sometimes referred to in the press as “Italy’s Donald Trump” because of his long-running friendship with the current president, and how his rise to prominence and wealth was fueled by a series of seedy associations to the same network of organized crime and intelligence operatives that also aided the rise of Epstein. As detailed in the two-volume book One Nation Under Blackmail, this network is ultimately controlled by powerful financial interests and unaccountable mob-linked oligarchs who have made powerful nation states, including the U.S., their play thing. This article will also detail how Briatore, along with Donald Trump and others, were once accused by Epstein’s butler Alfredo Rodriguez of being “material witnesses” to Epstein’s sex trafficking crimes. Rodriguez died in 2014 shortly after serving time in prison in relation to his failed efforts to sell the now infamous “black book” of Jeffrey Epstein.

However, first, this article will examine the supermodel Naomi Campbell, who was introduced to Epstein by Briatore – her one-time fianceé and subsequently “her mentor.” Campbell later flew on Epstein’s plane and, shortly after ending her relationship with Briatore, became romantically involved with the rapper Diddy, who would remain her close friend years after their romantic flame went out. Diddy’s own sex trafficking scandal and trial has been a focus on media attention for much of the past several months and Campbell has been accused of involvement in Diddy’s alleged criminal activity.

Ultimately, the picture that emerges when looking at Briatore’s and Campbell’s connections again underscores how the Epstein scandal is, in many ways, “too big to fail” as it risks exposing a nefarious yet wide-reaching power structure that could lose its grip if widely exposed.

The Models and Moguls of the “Black Book”

Naomi Campbell, born in Britain to parents of Jamaican origin, began her modeling career in the mid-1980s at age 15. Prior to that she appeared in music videos for Bob Marley and Culture Club and in the Pink Floyd film The Wall. She enjoyed commercial success a few years later, in the late 1980s, and cemented her standing as one of the world’s most iconic supermodels during the 1990s. She first modeled for the Leslie Wexner-owned Victoria’s Secret in 1996, a year after the lingerie brand began its once very popular televised fashion shows. Those shows, until they were suspended in the wake of the Epstein scandal in 2019, attracted “more viewers than all other fashion shows combined” and were run by the Chief Marketing Officer of L Brands (Victoria’s Secret’s parent company) Ed Razek. Razek, who was later accused of inappropriate behavior toward company models, along with some of the brand’s top modeling talent – including Campbell – can be found in the now infamous contact book of Leslie Wexner’s long-time fixer and now deceased sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein.

Campbell, for much of her early career, was represented by Elite Model Management. Elite had been founded by John Casablancas who was open about his sexual preference for “child women” and he had several affairs and relationships with 16 and 17 year olds. In a now suppressed BBC documentary from 1999, Elite agents were depicted “boasting of sex and drug exploits with young recruits.” Elite came under scrutiny a few years ago due to Donald Trump’s political fame, as his daughter Ivanka began modeling for Elite at age 15, wearing what the New York Times described at the time as “sexy outfits,” including a “see-through white dress,” while “still chubby in the cheeks with baby fat.”

Campbell was 17 when she began working for Elite, after Elite bought out the agency that had first signed her in 1987. Elite and Campbell parted ways in 1993, with Casablancas accusing her of being “crazy, irrational and uncontrollable” and mistreating staff. Campbell claimed that she had quit and that, contrary to Casablancas’ claims, she hadn’t been fired. Campbell has been accused of a series of assaults and for mistreating staff on several occasions over the past three decades. As noted above, a few years later, she became a prominent fixture at Victoria’s Secret fashion shows, appearing at the annual events from 1996 though 2005.

Jeffrey Epstein attempted but ultimately failed to acquire Elite’s American branch in the early 2000s. However, another close associate of Epstein’s, model turned businesswoman Nicole Junkermann, was also managed by Elite in 1995 and this may be how she first became acquainted with Epstein some time between the late 1990s and the early 2000s. As will be noted later, this is also roughly the same time frame in which Campbell claims to have first met Epstein. Junkermann, in 2002, allegedly assisted Epstein in sexually blackmailing two U.S. Senators (the identities of which still remain unknown) at a Wexner-owned residence in the United Kingdom, suggesting that some of the relationships Epstein cultivated with certain models was related to sexual blackmail efforts.

Epstein began to focus heavily on the modeling industry in 1995, several years after he teamed up with Wexner. Some evidence, however, suggests that Epstein had become very involved with recruiting models for Victoria’s Secret (or at least claiming to do so) as early as 1993. However, 1995 remains a significant year for Epstein in the modeling industry. That year, Epstein first teamed up with Jean Luc Brunel, a controversial model agency mogul from France who – much like Epstein – died suspiciously in prison in 2022 while awaiting charges related to the Epstein scandal.

Brunel, who is believed to have played a major role in Epstein’s sex trafficking enterprise, had brought Epstein into close connection with Faith Kates of Next models, “one of the most respected agencies in the industry,” who was a former business partner of Brunel’s. Epstein continued to have a close relationship with Kates and Next well after Brunel and Kates severed their business arrangement in 1996. As previously mentioned, 1995 was also the year that Victoria’s Secret began its fabulously successful annual fashion show and it was also the time that Epstein successfully began to portray himself as either being “in charge of Victoria’s Secret” or sometimes as one of the brand’s most prominent modeling scouts. As noted in the book One Nation Under Blackmail Vol. 2, Epstein used his connections to the modeling industry, particularly his ties to Victoria’s Secret, as a lure to so many aspiring models it was later characterized in media reports as “an Epstein-Victoria’s Secret pimp pipeline.”

Some in the industry even referred to Epstein as “one of the most important people in modeling” in the late 1990s. His connection with the modeling world persisted up until his first arrest in 2007, particularly his ties with Jean Luc Brunel. With Brunel, an apartment complex owned by a company run by Epstein’s brother Mark was said to have housed underage and just-of-age girls mainly from Eastern Europe and South America. Some (and likely many) of the girls and young women had their travel documents confiscated by Epstein associates and were coerced into having sex with powerful men. One of the models that flew on Epstein’s plane and traveled to his island, Ruslana Korshunova – a model for Vera Wang, DKNY and others – jumped to her death from her ninth floor apartment roughly two years after her trip with Epstein. The reason for Korshunova’s suicide remains unknown.

In addition, Epstein’s black book of contacts confirms that he certainly did have influence within the modeling industry. Aside from his aforementioned ties to Faith Kates and Brunel, his black book includes listings for Tom Ford, then the creative director of Gucci, as well as Ford’s long-time partner Richard Buckley, a “titan of the fashion media world.” In addition, famous models like Naomi Campbell, Janice Dickinson and Chis Royer also appear in the black book. Campbell is not only listed in Epstein’s black book and also owes the Epstein-connected Victoria’s Secret much for their commercial success, she is also intimately connected to one of the few “untouchable” figures around Epstein that was once flagged by Epstein’s own butler of having considerable knowledge of or involvement in his criminal enterprise. His name? Flavio Briatore.

Epstein’s black book of contacts, arguably now one of the most infamous contact books in the world, contains many names, but only a few names are circled. The book, along with the annotations such as the circling of certain names, was originally produced by Epstein’s butler Alfredo Rodriguez, who attempted to sell the book to Epstein victim lawyer Brad Edwards for a significant sum. Rodriguez made several notes in the book that he said would be important to solving the case, with most of the circled names – unless otherwise noted by Rodriguez’s annotations – referring to alleged co-conspirators and “material witnesses” of Epstein’s sex crimes. Edwards, who works alongside career U.S. intelligence mop-up man and lawyer Stanley Pottinger (who, like Edwards, is also a prominent Epstein victim lawyer), reported Rodriguez to the FBI. The FBI then set up a sting operation to obtain the book from Rodriguez, who was later charged by the government with bribery and obstruction of justice. Rodriguez then went to prison and died in 2014, the same year the black book was published by journalist Nick Bryant and Gawker. Bryant told Vanity Fair in 2019 that he gained access to the black book around 2012 after the FBI had obtained it and ultimately published with Gawker after many prominent media outlets declined to publish his articles about the book and the Epstein case in general.

In the black book, Rodriguez had circled Briatore’s name, along with the names of Leslie and Abigail Wexner, Jean Luc Brunel, Ghislaine Maxwell, Sarah Kellen (an Epstein assistant and recruiter protected by the so-called “sweetheart deal”), Peter Soros (nephew of the infamous financier George Soros), Glenn and Eva Dubin (close friends of Epstein with the latter also being his ex-girlfriend), Ehud Barak (former Israeli Prime Minister and former head of Israeli military intelligence), Bill Richardson (former Democratic Governor of New Mexico named by prominent Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre), Alan Dershowitz (Epstein’s friend and former defense lawyer) and current U.S. president Donald Trump. In the case of Trump as well as the other circled names, it is unknown why specifically Rodriguez singled them out – e.g. were some of the names once “clients” of Epstein’s sex ring? Which were “material witnesses,” enablers or direct accomplices?

Ultimately, aside from Maxwell, Brunel and Epstein himself (one alive in prison and the other two found dead under unusual circumstances while in prison awaiting trial), none of the other circled names have been meaningfully investigated or pursued by law enforcement, Flavio Briatore included.

The Life and (Alleged) Crimes of Flavio Briatore

Flavio Briatore was born in Verzuolo, Italy and, after a failed restaurant venture, moved to the city of Cuneo. There, he became the assistant to local financier Attilio Dutto. Dutto was the owner of the Paramatti Vernici paint company, whose previous owner – Sicilian banker Michele Sindona – had laundered proceeds from heroin sales for the Gambino crime family. Sindona, in addition to his extensive mob ties, was also an adviser to the scandal-ridden Vatican Bank (officially known as the Institute for the Works of Religion) and a member of the infamous Freemason lodge “P2.” P2, also known as Propaganda Due, spawned a massive political scandal in Italy, as its members included mobsters, powerful businessmen, well-connected bankers and important politicians — many who were allegedly tied to the CIA’s Operation Gladio. P2 notably overlapped with Permindex-CMC, which Jim Garrison (and several researchers since) implicated in the conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy.

During the early 1990s, another member of P2, former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, would become one of Flavio Briatore’s longest-standing and closest friends. Berlusconi’s long-time holding company, Fininvest, is alleged to have made annual payments of 200 million lira to the Silician mafia for an unspecified period after the company was founded in 1975. He was later accused by multiple parties of continuing involvement with organized crime, often in the pursuit of business (and later political) favors, throughout the 1980s and the 1990s. Berlusconi, the subject of numerous investigations for corruption, is also known for reportedly having an appetite for underage girls, with his conviction for hiring an underage “prostitute” while Prime Minister of Italy and using his authority to attempt to conceal the crime. His wife left him due to his “surround[ing] himself with minors.”

The later blossoming of the Berluscioni-Briatore relationship is suggestive that Briatore’s early connection to Dutto helped connect him into a world where the mafia and other powerful interests mixed in the shadows. Author Paul Williams, who wrote the book on the infamous Operation Gladio, wrote that Dutto’s predecessor Michele Sindona had been a “lynchpin” between organized crime networks (particularly those involving the National Crime Syndicate), the CIA and the Vatican, which eventually resulted “in the toppling of governments, wholesale slaughter and financial devastation” in post-war Europe. Several members of P2 were implicated in the conspiracy, including employees and members of the Agnelli family. The Agnellis, years later, would later become financially entangled with Jeffrey Epstein.

Sindona was also behind one of the biggest bank collapses in American history, Franklin National Bank. Sindona’s entry into the bank had been facilitated by Laurence Tisch, who sold a 20% percent stake to the bank to Sindona. Tisch would later become an important, founding member of the so-called “Mega Group” that was founded in 1991 by Leslie Wexner and Charles Bronfman. Most of its known members share historical and more current ties to these same organized crime networks as well as the broader network that enabled Jeffrey Epstein’s illegal acts.

Tellingly, Sindona’s successor at Paramatti, Attilio Dutto, was murdered just like his predecessor. While Sindona had died after drinking a cyanide-laced coffee in prison despite being under 24 hour police surveillance, Dutto died in a car bomb explosion in 1979 – a murder which still remains unsolved. Dutto’s then assistant, Flavio Briatore, immediately disappeared from Cuneo following Dutto’s death. At least one report has claimed that Briatore was charged with wrong-doing after Paramatti collapsed following Dutto’s death, though it appears Briatore never went to trial for anything related to Paramatti.

After Dutto’s murder, Briatore later reappeared in Milan, working for Finanziaria Generale Italia at the Milan stock exchange. While there, he became connected to the aristocratic Caproni dynasty, who had built their fortunes by dominating Italy’s aeronautical industry for many decades. In particular, Briatore became close to Count Achille Caproni di Taliedo, who was accused and tried for financial crimes against banks and other companies in the early 1980s via a holding company he controlled, Compagnia Generale Industriale (CGI). Notably, during this period, Caproni gave control over major aspects of that holding company to Flavio Briatore. However, Briatore was not charged for any potential role he may have played in CGI’s illicit activities or its 1983 bankruptcy.

In addition to the Capronis, Briatore also became acquainted with Luciano Benetton, the founder of United Colors of Benetton clothing company, during this period. That relationship would later prove critical to Briatore’s commercial success. However, not long after getting close to Benetton, Briatore was charged with several counts of fraud resulting from his ties to illegal rackets at Milan gambling dens. Those rackets were largely orchestrated and operated by successors to the Milan organized crime boss Francis Turatello. Evidence used against Briatore included a page from his personal agenda that listed a New York telephone number under the name “Genovese.” According to journalist Gianni Barbacetto, the number was registered to the G&G Concrete Corporation controlled by John Gambino, a well-known U.S. organized crime figure. Briatore evaded his prison sentence by becoming a fugitive, landing in the U.S. Virgin Islands, later a favorite haunt of a man who would soon become Briatore’s friend – Jeffrey Epstein. Notably, Epstein’s main patron and another circled name in his black book, Leslie Wexner, also had alleged ties to the Genovese crime family, according to heavily suppressed documents originally authored by Ohio law enforcement. Those documents resulted from the police investigation into the “mob style murder” of Wexner’s lawyer Arthur Shapiro, who was due to testify to the IRS shortly after he was killed. Shortly thereafter, Wexner hired Jeffery Epstein to sort out his “tangled” finances.

Around the time Briatore was charged and fled Italy for the USVI, he was chosen by Luciano Benetton to become “the Benetton Group’s principal representative in the United States.” During his time running Benetton’s North American operations throughout most of the 1980s, Briatore “ferried backwards and forwards between New York and the Virgin Islands tax haven,” becoming a “flamboyant member of the Italian-American business circles.” His forays into New York saw him become a partner at the most famous of the Regine’s Disco nightclubs. Regine, born Rochelle Zylberberg, was a European Holocaust survivor whose nightclub empire was originally bankrolled by Guy and Edmond de Rothschild of the infamous banking dynasty and they remained long-time patrons and supporters of her enterprise for decades. Presumably, Briatore met Epstein, as well as his friend Donald Trump, during this period.

Also during this same period, Briatore was tangentially involved in another scandal, one that involved an alleged effort to sell atomic bombs to Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. This attempt to help make Libya a nuclear power had notably involved an infamous Saudi family tied to the BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International) scandal and money laundering for drug cartels. The story, never fully investigated, goes something like this: a significant group of shares in the Italian insurance giant Assicurazioni Generali (aka the Generali Group) were passed around as part of a deal that benefited a small network of figures tied to Libya and/or Saudi Arabia with links to arms smuggling and money laundering. This particular group of shares “mysteriously left Italy” before returning to the country as collateral for “opaque international transactions” involving Libya, the Italian state oil company ENI and the smuggling of American-made weapons that traveled a serpentine route to ultimately end up in Libya despite the U.S. embargo.

The main figures involved in this memory-holed scandal included Anthony Tannoury (sometimes spelled Tannouri), a French-Lebanese arms dealer with close ties to Libya; Mazed Pharaon, a wealthy sheikh and the brother of the infamous BCCI investor and money launderer for drug cartels, Saudi “financier” Ghaith Pharaon; and Florio Fiorini, former manager of the Italian oil company ENI who had made significant, past deals with Libyan oil companies. A company that Fiorini controlled, Sasea, ultimately bought the shares, which were controlled by Tannoury, Pharaon and two of their associates. Tannoury and Pharaon had previously attempted to collaborate on a covert effort to sell nuclear weapons components to Libya by route of Venezuela. The effort was unsuccessful (some reports paint the effort as a scam orchestrated by Tannoury). Tannoury and Pharaon later claimed to have lost the $33 million that they had invested in the failed venture. As it relates to Briatore, a company he briefly controlled called Finclaus was one of the entities in this close-knit network that held onto the Tannoury-Pharaon-Fiorini group of shares in the Generali Group as it “toured the world.” Notably, the Benetton family, which has long-standing and deep ties to Briatore, are also long-standing shareholders of the Generali Group.

Nearly a decade after this scandal was covered up, Briatore’s London residence was bombed in 1993, allegedly by the IRA. Briatore survived the bombing and his house suffered minor damages. Notably, the IRA faction said to have been responsible had reportedly been supplied bombs and weapons by Libya. While it’s unclear why the Irish separatist militant group would choose to bomb Briatore’s home, his past ties to the figures involved with arms smuggling by way of Libya may provide one clue.

Another possibility could be that it wasn’t actually the IRA and another group angry at Briatore was responsible. The year before the bombing, there was a phone call intercepted by Italian officials the year prior between Briatore and Felice Cultrera, a Sicilian businessman. During the call, Briatore had asked about an effort by a mob-connected figure to sell engines to the Briatore-run F1 racing team owned by the Benettons (more on that shortly). The call was used as evidence as part of a large investigation targeting organized crime by the Italian state and it’s possible that interests angered by the investigation could have orchestrated the bombing to intimidate Briatore. Briatore notably became a major figure in the sale of engines to F1 racers and it’s unclear if his engine supply chain was ever connected to the organized crime networks that had approached him, as laid out in his intercepted call with Cultrera.

There is also other evidence that, in addition to the above, suggests Briatore had more than coincidental ties to the worlds of organized crime, arms deals and money laundering. In 2015, it was reported that Briatore held 38 accounts totalling $73 million in the private Swiss branch of HSBC, a bank later found to have enabled the activities of drug dealers, arms dealers, money launderers and terrorists. Reports suggest that Briatore’s accounts at the bank were closed in 2007, the year when the bank also “weeded out” clients who did not meet new standards meant to prevent the bank from enabling crime. Notably, the HSBC branch in question, where Briatore banked, was created after HSBC acquired some of the holdings of Edmond Safra and then took Safra’s “wealthy international clients” and moved their accounts to the new branch. It is unknown if Briatore was among these clients that had originally banked with Safra and Safra-controlled institutions, but – given Safra’s connections and Briatore’s own – it is plausible.

Safra was an international banker whose banking institutions were dogged by controversy, in large part due to scandals involving money laundering and organized crime. This includes those that later formed the basis of HSBC’s private Swiss branch where Briatore banked. Safra was a close associate and friend of Robert Maxwell – father of Ghislaine Maxwell and Israeli intelligence asset – and also appears in Epstein’s black book, though his last name is misspelled as “Saffra.” Safra had considerable ties to Russian organized crime, the state of Israel and the secret society of B’nai B’rith, where he served on the board of overseers alongside Edgar Bronfman and Leslie Wexner’s business mentor Max Fisher. Safra’s banks also had significant connections to the networks that operated the intelligence and crime-linked bank BCCI.

While weaving himself even deeper into organized crime networks spanning both the Old and New World, Briatore also became even more intertwined with Luciano Benetton. The Benetton family had formally entered the world of Formula One (F1) racing in 1985, acquiring an underperforming team it re-named Benetton Formula Ltd. Briatore was made commercial director of the team by Luciano Benetton and later became its managing director. Briatore is credited with making the team competitive and for its greatest successes, which occurred during the mid-1990s thanks to driver Michael Schumacher, who Briatore had recruited to join the Benetton team and who delivered two back-to-back championships. Schumacher left Benetton to join Ferrari in 1996 and Briatore was let go from the Benetton businesses in 1997. After the Benetton team was sold to Renault in 2000, Briatore rejoined it as executive director. His girlfriend at the time, Naomi Campbell, credits herself with setting up “an intervention dinner” with top F1 figures to persuade Briatore to return to the sport.

Briatore’s success at Formula One was later marred by scandal. A race fixing scandal in 2008 that favored Briatore’s then-star driver Fernando Alonso at the Singapore Grand Prix resulted in Briatore’s supposed lifetime ban from the sport. The investigation into scandal, known as “Crashgate,” found Briatore to have been complicit in the conspiracy, despite his denials. However, Briatore was later allowed back into the sport, with the Alpine team announcing in 2024 that Briatore was joining as an executive advisor. Meanwhile, the 2008 “Crashgate” scandal may have repeated itself shortly after Briatore’s return. Last year, a whistleblower claimed that F1 races were again rigged last year to benefit Fernando Alonso. Briatore is still said to be Alonso’s long-time agent.

In addition to Flavio Briatore, numerous other important figures from F1 racing appear in Epstein’s book of contacts, including Bernie Ecclestone (who has long been very close to Briatore), Lawrence Stroll (who also has important ties to the fashion industry), and former star drivers Eddie Irvine and Jacques Villeneuve. Ecclestone and Briatore partnered in 2007 to take over the Queen Park Rangers football team, with Briatore leaving a few years later. The entry for Stroll, who made most of his fortune thanks to investments in fashion brands Tommy Hilfiger and Michael Kors, lists 17 phone numbers and two addresses, while the entry for Briatore lists – by comparison – 8 phone numbers and two addresses. Epstein’s former employee and alleged co-conspirator (who remains protected from prosecution by the “sweetheart deal”), Sarah Kellen, has ties to the U.S.’ F1 equivalent NASCAR via her husband Brian Vickers. Vickers notably filed for divorce earlier this year. It is worth mentioning that some F1 events have been accused of serving as “hubs” for human trafficking and that “young girls” in particular have been targeted.

By the mid-1990s, F1 and the Benettons had made Briatore rich and spurred his own ostentatious franchises focused on the rich and famous after being branded an “international playboy” (a phrase also once used to describe Jeffrey Epstein). For instance, in 1998, he opened the “Billionaire” nightclub brand, with its first location in Sardinia with others to follow. He later developed a conglomerate called Billionaire Life, a holding company for restaurants, luxury resorts and a haute couture fashion line. “With Billionaire, I didn’t just create a company,” Briatore later told Entrepreneur, “I created a lifestyle.” Thanks to Billionaire’s success, Briatore is now increasingly referred to in the press as a “hospitality mogul.”

Though Briatore’s Billionaire brand has holdings spread throughout the world, spanning Europe, the Middle East and Africa, his favorite place to build Billionaire brand businesses is now in Dubai. Briatore has developed several successful business ventures in the UAE as well as in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh. Another developer who has long made major hospitality investments in the Persian Gulf, with more allegedly on the way, is Briatore’s close friend, U.S. president Donald Trump.

The Briatore-Trump Relationship

Briatore and Donald Trump first met during the late 1980s, though Briatore has declined to give an exact date. Briatore’s introduction to Trump was allegedly related to the fact that the two men – at the time – were trying “to start their careers after the stock market crash with the ‘Black Monday’ in 1987,” according to an interview Briatore gave on the Beyond the Grid podcast that was later the subject of a report by Motorsport. Per Motorsport, “It is not surprising that their paths crossed. The scene of playboys who wanted to get rich quickly was manageable even in New York at the time. You knew each other.” The two other New York-based “playboys” closest to Trump during this time were Jeffrey Epstein and Tom Barrack of Colony Capital, who still maintains close ties to Trump (now serving as U.S. ambassador to Turkey) and also to Briatore. At the time, Epstein was just beginning to work for Leslie Wexner and had spent much of the early to mid-1980s “hiding and finding stolen money” for powerful people. It seems likely that Briatore first met Epstein either via Trump (who broke ties with Epstein decades later over their competing efforts to purchase a Florida mansion) or Barrack, who is also listed in Epstein’s black book. However, unlike the listings for Briatore and Trump in that book, Barrack’s name was not circled by Epstein’s former butler Alfredo Rodriguez. Tellingly, Briatore has – to this date – never been asked about his Epstein relationship despite granting numerous interviews since Epstein’s 2019 arrest and death, making it difficult to know who first introduced them and the extent of their relationship.

Briatore stated that he grew even closer to Trump after officiating a meeting between the real estate mogul and Briatore’s then-boss Luciano Benetton. The meeting, which occurred some time between 1991 and 1992, occurred at the Plaza Hotel in New York, the site of Victoria’s Secret annual fashion shows, and whose suites were once used by a group of organized crime-linked figures to sexually blackmail powerful figures in government. Trump’s mentor and lawyer Roy Cohn, an organized crime associate, had been intimately involved in those blackmail efforts and Trump, after he bought the Plaza, was accused of hosting parties in Plaza hotel suites “where young women and girls were introduced to older, richer men” in which the women were allegedly exploited and illegal drugs were widely available. Around this time, Trump had also taken a controlling interest in Resorts International, an infamous mob-linked CIA front company that had formerly been known as the Mary Carter Paint company. Briatore claims to have introduced Benetton to Trump “because I was sure it was possible to do something together.” It is unclear what, if any, agreement Benetton and Trump may have reached during or after the meeting.

However, Briatore claimed that, after arranging this meeting, Trump offered him a job. Briatore elaborated that he had nearly turned down an offer from Benetton to deepen his involvement in the family’s F1 racing team because of the offer from Trump. “I wanted to go back to New York. I had an offer from Donald Trump to work for him in America,” Briatore told Tom Clarkson in 2020. In that same interview, Briatore also specified that the offer had been related to “the commercial side of his [Trump’s] new casino in Atlantic City.” Notably, Trump’s decision to acquire control over the mob and intelligence-linked Resorts International had largely been motivated by his efforts to develop Resort’s casino interests in Atlantic City, namely the Taj Mahal, which officially opened in 1990. A few years later, Trump ran into major financial trouble and was bailed out by Rothschild banking interests.

Though the two never ended up directly working together on any casino-related venture, they eventually did collaborate on “The Apprentice,” with Briatore starring in the series’ Italian language version as Trump’s counterpart. In the 2020 interview with Tom Clarkson, Briatore said that “I have always had a good relationship with him [Trump] […] When he decided to broadcast ‘The Apprentice’ in Italy, he wanted me for it. He said: ‘I want Flavio Briatore.’” Briatore was also chosen to star in the recent reboot of the Italian “The Apprentice” and has also claimed that Trump personally asked him in 2024 to become the series’ representative in Europe. Briatore turned down the offer, citing his commitment to his recent return to F1 racing, and added that Trump, at the time, had also requested Briatore visit him in Florida.

Briatore has also been very supportive of Trump’s political career, and has characterized Trump as a political moderate. During the 2016 election, Briatore had heralded his long-time friend as an “unparalleled talent” that regular Americans can identify with more easily than career politicians. Briatore also has praised Trump’s response to the Covid-19 crisis, in particular the “Going Direct” fiscal policy pursued by former Treasury Secretary under Trump, Steve Mnuchin, with the input of Trump’s former money manager Larry Fink.

In 2019, Briatore attempted to follow Trump’s trajectory from businessman to politician and launched his own political movement in Italy called Movimento del Fare. The move immediately drew comparisons to Trump, which “honored” Briatore. Briatore’s political party initially portrayed itself as a group of “successful businessmen and professional[s] that, together with theirs ideas and visions, will help the country recover, create jobs and attract investments.” However, it appears to have garnered little success and Briatore has since remained more focused on his growing hospitality empire. With respect to the 2024 U.S. election, Briatore reiterated his support for his friend’s bid to return to the White House.

Naomi Campbell – The Woman Who Connects Epstein and Diddy

Regardless of exactly how Briatore and Epstein met and who introduced them, the two knew each other well before 2001, when Briatore introduced his then-fiancé, supermodel Naomi Campbell, to Epstein. However, given her prominent roles in Victoria’s Secret fashion shows, a prior meeting is possible. Indeed, Campbell herself later said that “He [Epstein] was always front and centre at Victoria’s Secret shows.” When interviewed after Epstein’s arrest in mid-2019, Campbell denied knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and said she stood “with the victims.”

Photos from the occasion where Campbell claims to have first met Epstein – her 31^st birthday party hosted on Briatore’s yacht – shows Campbell and Epstein associates in the same photograph. Those photographs are now rather infamous as they also show Epstein’s most prominent accuser, an underage Virginia Roberts (later Virginia Giuffre after her marriage), attending the party and following Epstein’s most notorious accomplice – Ghislaine Maxwell – around the event. Giuffre died earlier this year in April. There are other pictures of Campbell and Maxwell partying together in the early 2000s at subsequent events, suggesting the two became rather chummy after their initial meeting. Giuffre later alleged that Campbell and Maxwell had been “BFF,” i.e. best friends.

In addition, Campbell also flew on Epstein’s private jet five times after she met him, with those flights taking place between 2001 and 2003. One of the flights saw her travel with former president Bill Clinton. Two of the flights originated from the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Briatore had major long-standing connections and where Epstein’s infamous island was located. Campbell has not publicly commented on the flights or if she ever visited Epstein’s USVI island residence. However, she has said that she “ran in the same circles” as Epstein but has insisted that the two weren’t close.

In addition, some of the flights Campbell took on Epstein’s plane went to Brazil, a place where Campbell has said she would go out on the street and recruit teen girls for the modeling industry. The Miami Herald reported in 2018 that one lawsuit against Epstein claimed that he “used an international modeling agency [Brunel’s Mc2] to recruit girls as young as 13 from Europe, Ecuador and Brazil.” It is unknown if Campbell had played a role in those efforts while traveling to Brazil on Epstein’s aircraft. However, she was romantically linked to Briatore when most of the flights took place, and Briatore – as previously noted – is a circled name in Epstein’s black book. In addition, Campbell was accused of involvement in the sex trafficking scandal where her former boyfriend and long-time friend, the rapper Diddy, who recently stood trial for crimes similar to those reportedly committed by Epstein. One allegation claims Campbell was used by Diddy as a “lure” for his victims. If true, those allegations may offer cause to re-examine her flights on Epstein’s infamous jet.

Furthermore, Campbell was also accused by Epstein victims of being aware of his sex trafficking operation but doing nothing to stop it. Indeed, while Campbell has claimed to have known nothing of Epstein’s crimes and to support his victims, Virginia Giuffre tweeted at Naomi Campbell after his 2019 death, accusing her of knowing what was happening. “You saw me at your parties, you saw me in Epstein’s homes, you saw me on the plane, you saw me get my haircut, you saw me on the streets, you watched me be abused. You saw me!” Giuffre wrote in early 2020. In another tweet Giuffre said that “There is no way in hell that she [Campbell] didn’t know what was happening in front of her own eyes. They were all aware of Epstein and Maxwell’s op – didn’t go at [sic] to hide it either.” Notably, Campbell was also mentioned in the testimony of Epstein accuser Johanna Sjoberg.

Campbell began dating Briatore in 1998 and the pair dated for four years, ending their relationship in 2002. Some reports characterize their relationship as “on and off.” During this same period, Campbell was said to also have been dating rapper Diddy, with that relationship allegedly taking place in the year 2001, shortly after Diddy ended his relationship with Jennifer Lopez. That same year, in its October issue, the British edition of Vogue featured Diddy and Campbell on its cover with the headline “Naomi and Puff: The Ultimate Power Duo.” Some reports state they dated in 2002. Photographs also show Flavio Briatore partying with Diddy in the early and mid-2000s.

One interview Campbell gave to The Guardian in 2006 reported that Campbell “has always been attracted to older men, mentor figures.” The article added that “sometimes they have been boyfriends, sometimes she’s adopted them immediately as her dads.” With respect to those claims, Campbell was quoted as saying “I’ve got my dad Chris Blackwell. My dad Quincy [Jones]. I’ve got Flavio [Briatore]. And I have Mr. [Nelson] Mandela, my grandfather.” She later stated that she looks for “father figures” as boyfriends. Campbell later stated of Flavio that he was her boyfriend but had since become “her mentor.” They still maintain a friendly relationship.

Shortly after his split with Campbell in 2002, Briatore began dating another supermodel fixture at Victoria’s Secret fashion shows who is also incidentally in Epstein’s black book – Heidi Klum. Klum had been previously associated with Ghislaine Maxwell and Prince Andrew – another known associate of Epstein – who were photographed at her Halloween party in 2000. Maxwell was also photographed with Donald Trump and his then-girlfriend and later wife Melania at the same event. Melania had recently begun dating Trump, and Maxwell later claimed to have introduced them. Klum, like Campbell, was alleged by at least one Epstein accuser to have flown on Epstein’s plane. However, Klum denied the allegations.

Briatore’s relationship with Klum was publicly announced in early 2003 (though it appears to have begun in 2002) and it ended in 2004. Despite the short nature of the relationship, it provided plenty of fodder for tabloids, particularly as the couple split shortly after Klum announced her pregnancy and the two argued publicly about where their child should be born. Briatore was largely uninvolved in the life of his daughter with Klum, who was later adopted by Klum’s next partner, the singer Seal. However, Briatore and his daughter have since been photographed together vacationing in Europe. Briatore’s subsequent wife of nine years, Elisabetta Gregoraci, is also a former lingerie model who is best known for being the chief model marketing the Wonderbra. The Wonderbra brand was then owned by the Sara Lee Corporation, which – for many years – was controlled and chaired by members of the organized crime-linked Crown family. The Crowns boast ties to the Epstein-linked “Mega Group” of billionaires and also played a major role in the hiring of Jamie Dimon to lead J.P. Morgan alongside banking interests tied to Leslie Wexner. J.P. Morgan would later be linked to Epstein’s crimes.

Campbell’s subsequent long-term relationship after Briatore also deserves a quick mention. Campbell began dating billionaire Vladislav Doronin in 2008 and the two split in 2013 after Doronin was photographed vacationing with another woman and embracing another model that he had met through Campbell. Doronin, a billionaire of Russia origin, made his money largely through his close-knit relationship with commodity trader and Mossad asset Marc Rich. Rich, a long-time fugitive from U.S. authorities with very close ties to Israeli intelligence, was also close to prominent figures in the “Mega Group,” namely Michael Steinhardt, who, alongside former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, allegedly helped pressure former president Bill Clinton to controversially pardon Rich right before he left office. Rich also had controversial ties to Bruce Rappaport, a shipping magnate and banker tied to U.S. and Israeli intelligence, as well as the criminal bank BCCI, which – in addition to banking drug cartels, intelligence agencies and financial criminals – also ran a sex trafficking operation where minors were abused at the hands of the bank’s “VIPs.”

Doronin began his career working for Marc Rich in Switzerland before founding the Capital Group in Moscow in 1991. Capital Group was originally a commodities trading firm that later turned into a real estate investment company and allegedly engaged in extensive commodities trading with Rich in its early days. One article published by Business Insider referred to Doronin as one of the people Rich had chosen to mentor. Doronin has since divested from Capital Group. Doronin’s subsequent main corporate vehicle, luxury hotel manager Aman, came under fire for hiring Charles McGonigal as its head of security. McGonigal, a former FBI agent, was arrested while working for Aman for taking secret payments from Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska, one of Russia’s richest men, started – like Doronin – as a commodity trader, later merging his aluminum mining interests with Marc Rich’s Glencore. The Rothschild family boasts close ties to both Deripaska and Glencore.

Who Pulls the Strings?

This article exploring the ties between Briatore, Campbell, Trump and Epstein does not intend to imply that the Briatore-Trump relationship alone has influenced the current administration’s failure to release the bulk of the so-called Epstein files. Instead, the connections between these individuals reveals that, as Campbell herself once noted, they all swam in the same corrupt circles, and that they share significant ties to people and entities linked to organized crime, corruption across various industries, and sex trafficking. The intricacy of these “circles” will only become more apparent in subsequent entries in this series.

Epstein himself was the management, not the owner, of the criminal enterprises that have now made him infamous. The tight-knit network of oligarchs that enabled Epstein are transnational as their influence spans several countries. They work to manipulate global affairs and global finance while staying out of the limelight themselves, with more public-facing “financiers,” moguls and politicians serving as their middle-men. These oligarchs are the truly unaccountable ones, and their recurring presence in the circles around Epstein, Trump, and some of their long-time, mutual associates appear to be the real reason for the mismanagement of the Epstein files’ release.

However, at least one figure in the Trump administration, aside from Trump himself, may stand to benefit from the administration’s failure to release the lion share of the Epstein-related documents in the government’s hands. As will be detailed in the second article in this series, a close friend of both Donald Trump and Flavio Briatore currently plays an outsized-yet-quiet role in Trump administration foreign policy in addition to having unsettling, yet largely unknown, ties to the Epstein scandal.

Correction: The original version of this article misstated that Alfredo Rodriguez was in prison the year he died. He died shortly after serving his sentence and this article has been updated to reflect that. This article had also originally linked to a Fox News article that stated that Rodriguez had died in 2015. However, other articles have claimed that Rodriguez died late December 2014, citing his wife. We have decided to go with these more detailed reports, now linked in this article, and have listed the year of death as 2014.

First Friends: How “Italy’s Donald Trump” Introduced Naomi Campbell to Jeffrey Epstein.

1. The Finders cult, which was investigated for child sex trafficking and Satanic ritual abuse, was reported to be a CIA front operation posing as a “‘futurist’ network” guided by “human potential” psychology, “New Age” spirituality, and “Eastern mysticism.”
2. Sects of Tibetan Tantric Buddhists under the auspices of the Dalai Lama, who has served as a longtime CIA asset, have been accused of sexually abusing devotees through Tantric rituals conducted at Maurice Strong’s New Age mountain retreats in Crestone, Colorado [1].
3. The NXIVM cult, which branded its “sex slaves” under the cloak of its “human potential” development programs, was supported by members of the billionaire Bronfman family,  at least one of whom was instrumental in the broader network of the child sex trafficking operations of Jeffrey Epstein, who was evidently yoked with the CIA and the Mossad [2].

Are these overlaps between New Age sex cults and intelligence agencies merely tenuous coincidences? Or do these patterns suggest the existence of underground networks of intelligence operatives who orchestrate or infiltrate New Age cults in order to experiment with Tantric sex rituals and other forms of “sex magic” as tools for psychological operations? 

To be sure, the overlaps between these three case studies are not just thematic. Consider the curious common denominators of New Age futurist, Barbara Marx Hubbard, and her Malthusian gospel of conscious transhuman evolution:

1. Hubbard appointed NXIVM cult leader Nancy Salzman as an “ally” of her Birth 2012 “shift” toward Malthusian sustainable development through conscious transhuman evolution [3]. 
2. Hubbard also preached her Malthusian gospel of conscious transhuman evolution at Strong’s New Age outpost for Tibetan Tantric gurus in the mountains of Crestone [1]. 
3. Hubbard’s efforts to advance conscious evolution through her Synergistic Convergence, or SYNCON, conferences were also aided by members of the Finders cult [4]. 

Perhaps Hubbard’s position at the juncture of these alleged sex cults is coincidental. Yet, Tantra and other forms of sexual mysticism have been deliberately intermarried with Hubbard’s Malthusian vision of conscious transhuman evolution. Today, her Rockefeller-funded Foundation for Conscious Evolution is led by Marc Gafni who, despite being accused of sexually abusing two underage girls, is advancing a new rendition of conscious evolution through Integral Evolutionary Tantra and CosmoErotic Humanism . Like Hubbard, Gafni has magnified his “cosmo-erotic” version of conscious Tantric evolution through public displays of “co-creation” with the Dalai Lama, who also rendezvoused with NXIVM. 

Meanwhile, Hubbard’s Malthusian vision of conscious transhuman evolution has been carried on through the World Future Society, which she co-founded with Edward Cornish, reportedly with the help of the Finders’ “Game Caller” [4], whose alleged sex cult was implicated as a CIA shell operating as a “‘futurist’ network” that provided “information gathering” services for the price of “finders’ fees.” In fact, Hubbard’s World Future Society is listed as a “forecasting . . . resource” alongside the CIA in a US Army Psychological Operations (PSYOP) manual authored by Lieutenant Colonel Michael Aquino [5], who was investigated for child sexual abuse involving Satanic rituals. Hubbard also cultivated “co-creation” of global consciousness with fellow evolutionary, Lieutenant Colonel Jim Channon [6], who set up the US Army’s First Earth Battalion of New Age psychic soldiers.

Whether fortuitously or strategically, Hubbard personally occupied a nexus between New Age sex cults and intelligence agencies while her Malthusian beliefs in conscious transhuman evolution have been married to Tantra and other modes of sex magic practiced by gurus and spooks alike. Tracing the threads that tie together Hubbard and her legacy with these sex cults and intelligence agencies, this final article in my “Barbara Marx Hubbard” series examines whether these threads are anchored to coordinated PSYOPs aimed at socially engineering New Age cultures to believe in futurist promises of collectivized self-actualization through technocratic globalization and sustainable transhuman evolution. To be sure, as expounded  in previous installments of this series, Hubbard’s conscious evolutionary faith has been proselytized to generate new cultural values that are commensurate with transhumanism and sustainable development, which are the crux of emerging global technocracy of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).

From Conscious Transhuman Evolution to CosmoErotic Humanism 

Throughout this series, I have documented how Hubbard’s Foundation for Conscious Evolution, which was financed by Laurance Rockefeller, has been pushing for the “synergistic” convergence of biotech, nanotech, and supercomputing artificial intelligence (AI) in order to engineer a new transhuman species in tandem with a new “global system” that can save humankind from planetary “crises, most especially environmental” crises. Before her death, Hubbard appointed “former Orthodox rabbi,” Marc Gafni, as an “Evolutionary Scholar in Residence” at her Foundation for Conscious Evolution where he has since taken over her mantle as the current president and director. Notwithstanding multiple accusations that he sexually assaulted two underage girls, Gafni is now touting a revamped version of conscious evolution known as “CosmoErotic Humanism,” which integrates Tantric sex rites that have been implicated in numerous sexual abuse scandals involving cults immersed in Eastern mysticism, “human potential” psychology, and other “New Age” modalities that constitute “conscious evolution.”

In an apparent video response to my first article in this series, Gafni acknowledged Hubbard’s transhumanism, yet claimed that he had convinced her to repent of the errors of her transhumanist ways. Nevertheless, to this day (nearly three years later), the official website of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution continues to advance “synergistic” transhuman evolution driven by the “[t]he advent of radical evolutionary technologies such as biotechnology, nanotechnology, quantum computing, space exploration, etc. . . . [T]he tools are there to transform ourselves, our bodies and our world. We can and are actually moving beyond the creature human condition toward a new species, a universal humanity, capable of coevolving with nature.” As Gafni attempts to pivot the Foundation for Conscious Evolution away from the technocratic tenor of Hubbard’s transhumanist rhetoric, he is now propagating a “cosmo-erotic” rebranding of her evolutionary gospel. 

Gafni’s cosmo-erotic rendition of conscious evolution is a spin on Hubbard’s concept of “tel-erotic co-creation,” which was expounded at the 2015 Institute for Noetic Sciences (IONS) International Conference. According to the IONS Conference host, the word “tel-erotic” combines the Greek terms of “‘telos,’ which means purpose or goal,” and “‘Eros,’ the god of love”; but to be sure, “eros” narrowly refers to sensual pleasure and other forms of hedonic “love,” not the selfless love and charity signified by the Greek word “agápe.” Nonetheless, in Hubbard’s IONS speech, she pontificated how the tel-erotic synergizing of evolutionary “purpose” and “love” generates “suprasex,” shifting consciousness “from procreation to co-creation.” The tel-erotic “evolution of sexuality,” according to Hubbard, is predicated on the Malthusian premise that “we have hit a limit to mass procreation. We’re going to be having fewer children, and children by choice,” so “instead of joining genes,” the tel-erotic co-creation of suprasex “joins genius” in order to steer conscious evolution toward “sustainable” transhumanism.

While Hubbard’s evolutionary rite of tel-erotic suprasex stresses the conscious Malthusian decoupling of reproduction from sexuality, Gafni’s CosmoErotic Humanism channels the sensual, or erotic, energies of sexuality as esoteric initiations into supposedly higher, or more evolved, levels of spiritual consciousness. According to his personal website, Gafni’s philosophy of CosmoErotic Humanism calls for “a new sexual narrative” that exalts “Eros [a]s the deepest Reality of Cosmos, the pulse of evolution, the universal energy of emergence, intimacy, and wholeness. CosmoErotic Humanism unfolds a new evolutionary theory of Eros, a phenomenology of Eros, and re-imagines the ancient sacred mysteries of Eros.” 

Hubbard herself anointed Gafni’s theory of CosmoErotic Humanism, as she wrote the foreword to his  book, A Return to Eros, which he co-authored with Kristina Kincaid, who is the Vice Chair of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution and the Director of Gafni’s Integral Evolutionary Tantra Institute. In a promotional for A Return to Eros, Gafni’s website publicizes how he and Kincaid unveil “the radical secret tenets of relationship between the sexual, the erotic, and the holy,” elucidating how the “qualities of the erotic modeled by the sexual are actually the same core qualities of the sacred.” Gafni and Kincaid also lead the Eros Mystery School, which propagates CosmoErotic Humanism through workshops that induct initiates into “tantric practices” in order to catalyze “the evolution of love” and “achiev[e] expanded consciousness” by “open[ing] the doors to embody deeper hidden orgiastic wisdom.” 

If this emphasis on the hedonic eros of sexual love, rather than the self-sacrificing love of agápe, isn’t taboo enough, it is disturbing to note that Gafni was accused not only of sexually abusing his adult students at his “New Age-style” Bayit Chadash spiritual center, but also of sexually assaulting two underaged girls, one of which he allegedly assaulted when he was her “youth leader.” On a 2018 episode of the Dr. Phil show, Gafni was confronted about these allegations. During this interview, Dr. Phil read from a letter in which Gafni confessed to the allegations. Although Gafni admitted that he wrote and signed the letter, he redacted it by stating that the letter was a “mistake” which he “greatly regrets.” Gafni, who was quoted as saying that one of the girls was “14 going on 35,” denied any forcible assault, asserting that he was “in love” with the girls and only engaged in “heavy petting . . . above the waist.” After quibbling with Dr. Phil over the legal definition of statutory rape, Gafni conceded that even the “heavy petting” was “against the law,” yet he reasserted that he had done nothing “immoral.” Dr. Phil ended the episode by noting that, although Gafni has been formally denounced by a list of over 100 “rabbis” and “New Age” leaders, he has never been “arrested” for, “charged” with, or “convicted” of any of the alleged sex crimes.

Despite these allegations, Hubbard ordained Gafni as a tel-erotic apostle of her Foundation for Conscious Evolution. On Gafni’s personal website, it notes that Hubbard venerated:

“Marc Gafni [a]s a rising star . . . [who is] paving the way for a new psychology and spirituality for evolving humanity to fulfill our enormous potential. He has incorporated the 13.8-billion-year Evolutionary Impulse of Creation directly in the heart of humanity as our motivation to love, to grow to become our Unique Selves, the future human. It is a joy to work with Marc.  . . . He is inspiring us to change . . . to the new source code of co-creating and co-evolving with one another.”

According to Gafni, it was Hubbard, along with Kincaid and ed-tech futurist Zak Stein, who helped him coin the concept of CosmoErotic Humanism. On his personal YouTube channel, Gafni recorded a video titled “Celebrating Barbara Marx Hubbard,” which boasts that “there could be nothing that would make Barbara more ecstatic, than this book,” First Principles and First Values: Forty-Two Propositions on CosmoErotic Humanism, the Meta-Crisis, and the World to Come, which was co-authored by Gafni and Stein under the single pseudonym “David J. Temple.” 

If you think that CosmoErotic Humanism is just a fringe philosophy without reach, it should be noted that Stein, who serves on the Scientific Advisor Board of the Neurohacker Collective, has been sowing seeds of “conscious” and “cosmo-erotic” evolution through a futurist think tank known as “Game B.” Describing itself as a “community of . . . thinkers and doers, bodhisattvas and businesspeople, economists and ecologists, visionaries and pragmatists,” Game B convenes transdisciplinary “working groups” which explore “political meta-modernism” in order to “forge a new ‘social operating system’” that is “resilient” and “sustainable.” Transcending the “collective evolutionary path” of Game A, which is “the world’s current civilization,” Game B harnesses “the expansion of our consciousness” to achieve cosmic “At-One-Ment” by “fully groking the ‘other’” through “a tantric return to non-judgment.” 

The referees of Game B include key players from the “Intellectual Dark Web,” such as Jordan Peterson, Bret Weinstein, and Eric Weinstein, along with Nora Bateson, who is a member of the Club of Rome, which published the Limits to Growth “environmentalist” treatise that shaped Hubbard’s Malthusian outlook on conscious transhuman evolution as well as the sustainable development initiatives of the United Nations (UN) Agenda 2030 and the 4IR and “Great Reset” policies of the World Economic Forum (WEF). It is worth noting here that Stein is also a member of the Club of Rome and that Nora is the daughter of renowned cognitive scientist and cybernetician, Gregory Bateson, who collaborated with Hubbard’s “kindred spirit,” Jonas Salk, on a Lindisfarne Association panel titled “Conscious Evolution and the Evolution of Consciousness.” It is also worth noting here that Game B cultivates “collective intelligence” to advance the “Cognitive Revolution,” which is a concept  coined by WEF transhumanist Yuval Noah Harari. 

Gafni’s cosmo-erotic revamping of Hubbard’s Malthusian gospel of conscious transhuman evolution is also being proselytized by his Tantric evolutionary, Aubrey Marcus. A co-leader of Gafni’s Eros Mystery School, Marcus hosts a popular podcast that explores the “optimization” of “human potential” through the “conscious evolution” of “cosmo-erotic” sexuality instilled with Tantric mysticism and other forms of “sex magic.” The Aubrey Marcus Podcast, which has platformed Gafni and Kincaid along with a number of Hubbard’s colleagues, including Marianne Williamson, Bruce Lipton, and Stanislav Grof, has also platform-boosted numerous Game B players, including Jordan Peterson, Bret Weinstein, John Vervaeke, Charles Eisenstein, Alexander Bard, Jordan Hall, Guy Sengstock, Daniel Schmachtenberger, and Jamie Wheal.

In summary, Hubbard’s Malthusian gospel of conscious transhuman evolution has been tantrically titivated by Gafni’s philosophy of CosmoErotic Humanism, which is being evangelized through the Foundation for Conscious Evolution, the Integral Evolutionary Tantra Institute, the Eros Mystery School, and Game B. At the same time, Gafni’s Cosmo-Tantric rendition of conscious evolution is being popularized by Marcus’s alternative media platform and its adjacent multi-level marketing (MLM) networks that push wellness products and “self-empowerment” workshops under the pretense of optimizing human potential. While Gafni’s CosmoErotic Tantra is being propagated through alt-media and self-help MLMs, Hubbard’s vision of conscious evolution has been similarly proselytized through other Tantric sects and human potential MLMs that have been embroiled in sexual abuse scandals. 

NXIVM, the Human Potential Movement, and Hubbard’s Birth 2012 Shift to Conscious Evolution

In her Birth 2012 and Beyond: Humanity’s Great Shift to the Age of Conscious Evolution,Hubbard named Nancy Salzman as an “ally” of her Birth 2012 Campaign through the Transformational Leadership Council, which Hubbard listed as an “Affiliated Organization” of the Birth 2012 Campaign [3]. Salzman is a co-founder and the former president of the NXIVM multi-level marketing (MLM) company, which manipulated “consciousness-raising” human potential psychology to orchestrate a sex abuse cult. In fact, in Birth 2012 and Beyond, Salzman is promoted alongside the web address for the NXIVM MLM: “www.nxivm.com” [3]. In brief, both the president of the NXIVM sex cult and the MLM itself were endorsed by Hubbard as “co-creators” of her Birth 2012 “shift” into the new age of conscious transhuman evolution.

Most notorious for using a cauterizing wand to brand its sex slaves with the initials of its co-founder, Keith Raniere, the NXIVM sex cult known as “Dominus Obsequious Sororium (DOS),” which translates to “Lord of the Obedient Female Companions,” was a “secret society” within the MLM. The NXIVM MLM involved Hollywood celebrities, such as Smallville actress Allison Mack, and high-profile political figures, including Roger Stone, who has served as a political advisor to Donald Trump; Joe Bruno, who was a state senator of New York; and Emiliano Salinas, son of the former President of Mexico, Carlos Salinas. 

The NXIVM cult lured its supplicants through “consciousness-raising” seminars steeped in human potential psychology, which was developed by Hubbard’s mentor, Abraham Maslow, who advanced the Human Potential Movement (HPM) through his Eupsychian Network, where Hubbard distributed her Center Letter [7]. According to Maslow, his “third force” of “humanistic” psychology, which he coined as a stepping stone toward the “fourth force” of “transhuman” psychology, transcends the environmental stimulus-response conditioning of the “first force” of behavioral psychology and the subconscious psychoanalysis of the “second force” of Freudian psychology in order to achieve “self-actualization” through a combination of “positive psychology” and “gestalt psychology” techniques [8]. Promising self-actualization through NXIVM coursework, Raniere and his partner in crime, Salzman, manipulated a concoction of “positive thinking” and groupthink within the pyramid scheme of an MLM company in order to coerce NXIVM adherents into submitting to sexual abuse under the pretense of attaining higher levels of consciousness.

In particular, NXIVM’s “Executive Success Program (ESP)” borrowed from the HPM psychotherapies of the Landmark Forum’s Erhard Seminars Training (EST), which was developed by Werner Erhard, a friend of Hubbard’s protégé, Marc Gafni. Orchestrated by Raniere and Salzman, NXIVM’s HPM-inspired ESP workshops were structured as a hierarchy of MLM courses that certify graduates with “sashes” and “stripes” as they progress through the ranks to become NXIVM coaches and recruiters. The HPM psychology and the MLM pyramid structure of NXIVM’s ESP courses were also borrowed from the Amway MLM megacorporation. Before rising to NXIVM stardom, Raniere worked for the Amway MLM, which, like NXIVM, recruits salespeople by touting promises of human potential development resulting from successfully leveling-up through its corporate pyramid. After his stint at Amway, Ranieri created his own MLM, National Health Network, where he teamed up with his future criminal accessory, Salzman.

Currently, Raniere is serving a 120-year prison sentence after being convicted of the crimes of “forced labor conspiracy,” “wire fraud conspiracy,” “sex trafficking,” and “racketeering,” including “predicate acts” of “sexual exploitation of a child” and “production and possession of child pornography,” which he committed as the ringleader of the NXIVM sex abuse cult. Raniere’s accomplice, Salzman, was released from jail in 2023, having served less than 20 months of her 42-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to “racketeering conspiracy, including predicate acts of conspiracy to commit identity theft and conspiracy to obstruct justice” as Raniere’s coconspirator. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Assistant Director-in-Charge, Michael J. Driscoll, “as Raniere’s right hand for more than a decade, Nancy Salzman’s conduct supported NXIVM’s objectives to recruit victims, stave off critics, and alter evidence connected to a federal lawsuit.” Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent-in-Charge, Peter C. Fitzhugh, stated that “Salzman was essential to the NXIVM criminal enterprise, not merely a peripheral co-defendant.”

To be sure, there is no evidence that Hubbard’s endorsement of Salzman and NXIVM was published with Hubbard’s knowledge of NXIVM’s sex crimes or Salzman’s culpability in aiding and abetting those crimes [3]. There is also no record of Hubbard ever publicly disavowing Salzman or the NXIVM cult after the fact. Either way, NXIVM’s “consciousness-raising” human potential MLM, Hubbard’s Foundation for Conscious Evolution, and Marc Gafni’s CosmoErotic  Mystery School have all enticed their aspirants with HPM empowerment mantras that were coined by Hubbard’s mentor, Abraham Maslow [8], and refined by Gafni’s friend, Werner Erhard. NXIVM’s MLM structure is also congruous with the network of MLMs floating Gafni’s cosmo-erotic rebranding of Hubbard’s gospel of conscious evolution. Altogether, NXIVM, the Foundation for Conscious Evolution, and the Eros Mystery School have all leveraged similar HPM modalities and MLM networking tactics to “shift” populations into actualizing “tel-erotic,” “cosmo-erotic,” “Tantric,” and other vogues of “conscious” evolution, including sustainable transhuman evolution for the 4IR [3]. In addition, NXIVM, Hubbard, and Gafni all shared a common tie to the Dalai Lama, who is the religious figurehead of Tantric sects of Tibetan Buddhism that have been scandalized by accusations of ritualized sexual abuse [1]. 

Crestone and the Conscious Evolution of Tibetan Tantra 

Hubbard also preached her Malthusian gospel of conscious transhuman evolution to the “sustainable interfaith community” of Crestone, Colorado [1], which was fostered by Maurice and Hanne Strong’s Manitou Foundation. In coordination with the Strongs’ Manitou Institute and Conservancy, the Manitou Foundation manages Crestone’s “Mountain Tract properties” as an outpost for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and non-profit corporations to incubate sustainable development initiatives that leverage “consciousness studies” and ecumenical spirituality to advance the globalist objectives of the UN[1]. According to Christine A. Chandler, a former resident of Crestone’s sustainable interfaith community, the Strongs’ Manitou Mountain Tract properties are also a haven for sex abuse cults that have involved Tibetan Tantric Buddhists under the auspices of the Dalai Lama [1], who has advocated for conscious evolution in collaboration with Hubbard and her protégé, Marc Gafni.

Titled Enthralled: The Guru Cult of Tibetan Buddhism, Chandler’s memoir states that at the core of Tibetan Lamaism are secretive Tantric sects that practice the occultic sex rituals of Dzogchen, which channels the cosmic “rays” of the primordial Rigpa, or “rainbow,” energy of the universe in order to ascend to the metaphysical kingdom of Shambhala through the evolutionary enlightenment of consciousness [1]. Notwithstanding the eminent Lamas who pontificate that their Tantric sex rituals are divine rites of initiation into the higher rays of consciousness, Chandler contends that the cult of Tibetan Tantra exploits, abuses, and debases disciples through a sophisticated methodology of brainwashing that meets psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton’s eight criteria for determining a “thought control system” [1].

After several years of Tantric devotion to the Tibetan guru Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Chandler moved to Crestone where Maurice Strong, who served alongside Hubbard on the Global Advisory Council of the World Future Society, and his wife Hanne, who has “deep ties” to the Tibetans, issued Manitou land grants to an array of sustainable development non-profits and Tibetan Buddhist “spiritual centers” [1]. These Manitou-sponsored spiritual centers include Yeshe Khorlo and Karma Thegsum Tashi Gomang, which are administered by the Tantric Nyingma and Kagyu sects of Tibetan Buddhism, along with the Third Tsoknyi Rinpoche’s Pundarika Foundation [1]. According to Enthralled, Manitou land grants were also issued to several other Eastern mystical cults, including “Roshi Baker’s Zen group,” “the late Sai Baba group,” and “Yogi Bhajan’s Kundalini Tantric cult group,” each of which was involved or implicated in sex scandals or sexual abuse crimes before setting up Crestone retreats. It was Hubbard’s benefactor, Laurance Rockefeller, who was “the first and main donor” to the Manitou Land Grant Program [1]. It is worth noting here that Hanne Strong reportedly bragged about how “pleased” she had been when a “High Lama,” the Sixteenth Karmapa, “recognized” her son as a “tulku,” or, in other words, a “reincarnation” of a “Tibetan saint” [1].

At Crestone, Chandler served as a disciple of Tsoknyi Rinpoche, who taught Tantric Buddhism at the Lerab Ling retreat under the leadership of Sogyal Rinpoche, whom Chandler and others have accused of sexually abusing his acolytes under the pretense of Tantric initiation rites that would purportedly raise their consciousness [1]. Throughout Enthralled, Chandler also details her encounters with several other Tibetan gurus, including Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, and Osel Tendzin, all of whom she alleges sexually abused their adherents [1]. Chandler’s accounts of these sexual crimes are corroborated by reports from several mainstream media outlets, including the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, which have recorded accusations of sexual abuse from other victims of these Tantric gurus. Additionally, her reports of widespread sexual abuse among the Tantric orders of Tibetan Buddhists have also been corroborated by the confessions of the Tibetan guru, Kalu Rinpoche, who publicly admitted to being sexually abused by elder Lamas.

According to Chandler, the New Age communitarian hub of Crestone was also visited by Barbara Marx Hubbard, who preached her gospel of conscious transhuman evolution there [1]. In Enthralled, Chandler relays how: 

“Barbara Marx Hubbard declared all Crestonians would survive the Great Shift, the coming apocalypse she had been predicting for years, because she told them they were the more evolved race in this sacred place. The rest would be scorched as bad seeds.  . . . 

Hubbard told everyone in Crestone that they were the special ones; the ‘more evolved’; the already saved; since they are part of the great SHIFT into a spiritualized world governance that will be the result of a higher consciousness-shifting of the planet into a transcendent plane of existence, where Crestonians already dwell.” [1]

Hubbard’s rhetoric here mirrors that of her infamous unpublished manuscript, The Revelation: Alternative to Armageddon, which declares that, in order for humankind to consciously evolve into a new transhuman species, “one-fourth” of the population, who are “defective seeds,” must “be eliminated from the social body” by “the riders of the pale horse” during a “quantum shift.”

Hubbard’s evolutionary prophecy of a Malthusian apocalypse is also echoed by the Tibetan Buddhist Kalachakra Wheel of Time eschatology, which is preached by the Dalai Lama. According to Chandler, Hubbard “is a good friend and ally of the Dalai Lama, another apocalyptic believer of prophecies with his Kalachakra Wheel of Time Tantra” [1]. In the Kalachakra Tantra scriptures, it is ordained that the “End Time” of this age will commence when the King of Shambhala leads a messianic crusade to cleanse the earth of “barbarians” in a holy war that will usher in a dharmic “Golden Age” of enlightened consciousness.

Hubbard’s Malthusian prognostications about conscious transhuman evolution have also been echoed by Hanne Strong, who declared that “[y]ou cannot function in Crestone unless you evolve. This energy is so high that a lot of people come and cannot function at this level of energy. That is why the energy is here. To let people evolve” [1]. In a similar statement, Hanne professed that “a lot of people come in [to Crestone] and they cannot function at this level of energy. It disturbs them. They lose it. You cannot function in it unless you evolve. It is all about evolving. This energy is helping people evolve rapidly. That is the secret of Crestone” [1]. Notice here that, according to Hanne, there are certain types of people who are not “functionally” capable of “evolving” and will therefore “lose it” when immersed in the evolutionary “energy” of Crestone just as, according to Hubbard, there are certain “bad” or “defective” seeds who cannot consciously evolve and will therefore be “eliminated” when the “quantum shift” in evolutionary consciousness permeates the globe.

As I have documented throughout this series, Hubbard’s Malthusian outlook on conscious transhuman evolution was likewise shared by Hanne’s husband, Maurice Strong, who was the godfather of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which have been advocated by the Dalai Lama. With help from Hubbard’s “beloved patron” [6], Laurance Rockefeller, Maurice was instrumental in setting up the UN Environment Program (UNEP) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of UN Agenda 21, which laid the groundwork for the Malthusian SDGs of UN Agenda 2030. It is worth noting here that, notwithstanding the greenwashed ethos of Maurice’s pioneering role in spearheading the UN’s campaign to save the planet through sustainable environmentalism, his leadership at the UN was marred by implications that he was complicit in the UN “Oil-for-Food” money laundering scandal.

Sharing a common Malthusian outlook on the future of environmental sustainability and spiritual evolution, Maurice and Hubbard both participated in the State of the World Forum (SWF), which was orchestrated by the first and only president of the former Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, who was also a member of the Club of Rome. Bringing together New Agers, religious leaders, business magnates, heads of state, and representatives of global governance institutions such as the UNEP, the SWF fostered a “worldwide . . . spiritual renaissance” committed to “ecological sustainability” and “global governance.” Among SWF attendees were Laurance Rockefeller’s nephew, Steven Rockefeller, and a number of Hubbard’s New Age colleagues who have also reverently collaborated with the Dalai Lama. 

These liaisons between Hubbard and the Dalai Lama include the following SWF speakers:

• Deepak Chopra, who is the author of Digital Dharma: How AI Can Elevate Spiritual Intelligence and Personal Well-Being, led a group of “friends” to Dharamsala, India, where he spoke alongside the Dalai Lama. Chopra and Hubbard served together as Fellows of the World Business Academy while Chopra, who praised Hubbard as “the voice for conscious evolution of our time,” also served as an “ally” of her Birth 2012 Campaign[3].

• Jean Houston, who has ministered as an advisor to the Dalai Lama, is featured along with Hubbard in the Dalai Lama Renaissance documentary, which records their “Synthesis Group” conference with “His Holiness” in India [1]. In Birth 2012 and Beyond, Houston is recorded as an “ally” of Hubbard’s Birth 2012 Campaign [3]. Additionally, Houston and Hubbard served together as Fellows of the World Business Academy.

• Hazel Henderson has served alongside the Dalai Lama on the International Advisory Board of the Forum 2000 Foundation. In addition, she has spoken at the World E-Conference on Culture of Peace and Sustainability along with the Dalai Lama, and they also participated together in a public “dialogue” on “Business as an Instrument of Societal Change.” Henderson and Hubbard served together as Fellows of the World Business Academy while Henderson was also one of Hubbard’s  “[c]olleagues and teachers of conscious evolution,” according to The Book of Co-Creation [7].

• Lynne Twist, who participated in “Synthesis Dialogues” with the Dalai Lama, recounts how her “profound experience” with “His Holiness” inspired her to embrace “money” as an “ally of our own transformation and the transformation of the world in which we live.” Both Twist and Hubbard served together as Fellows of the World Business Academy, while Twist also “closely collaborat[ed]” with Hubbard’s Birth 2012 Campaign [3].

• Michael Murphy is a co-founder of the Esalen Institute where the Dalai Lama has participated in public dialogues that have resulted in a book of his teachings being published by Esalen, which was part of Abraham Maslow’s Eupsychian Network along with Hubbard.

As a result of the State of the World Forum, the Gorbachev Foundation convened another international forum: the Global Peace Forum, which was hosted in Moscow, Russia, where a speech was given by the Dalai Lama, whose teachings have since been frequently promoted by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

A similar global forum was propositioned to the Dalai Lama by Hubbard’s cosmo-erotic protégé and Tantric evolutionary, Marc Gafni. During a “private spirituality conference” at the “home” of “His Holiness,” Gafni proposed “meetings” or “conferences . . . of local leaders, regional leaders, and international leaders who would get together for a week, one week a year, to do spiritual practice of any kind, so that when they negotiate, they actually feel the interconnectivity of reality” and are thus able to co-create a “different world.”

In brief, Hubbard, the Dalai Lama, Gafni, and the Strongs have all collaborated in efforts to convene global meetings that would synergistically converge New Age spirituality, world governance, and sustainable development under a singular mission toward conscious evolution. At the same time, Hubbard’s Malthusian prognostications about an apocalyptic shift toward conscious transhuman evolution resonate with the Dalai Lama’s Kalachakra Wheel of Time eschatology, the Malthusian bent of Maurice Strong’s UN sustainable development initiatives, and Hanne Strong’s evolutionary spirituality, which envelopes the “sustainable interfaith community” of Crestone where Tantric Lamas preach the Kalachakra. In turn, Crestone, which is still a haven for Tibetan Buddhist spiritual centers to this day, has offered a launchpad where Tantric esotericism can be leveraged to initiate a “global citizenry” into Hubbard’s transhumanist belief in conscious evolution merged with the Strongs’ communitarian movement toward planetary sustainable development under a world government unified by an ecumenical world religion [1][9]. 

Indeed, in Chandler’s memoir, Enthralled, she maintains that “Crestone-Baca is the brainchild of the Strongs, and main headquarters where international corporatism, eastern cultism, local and county governments, and the green movement all connect and network together to create their Utopian version of how local government should be in America, under the directorate of the United Nations” [1]. More specifically, according to Chandler, Crestone’s Tantric orders of Tibetan Buddhism are: 

“part of the ‘spiritualized arm’ of the Strongs’ U.N. Agenda 21. The purpose was to facilitate and solidify the delusional dreams of a spiritualized world government merged with environmentalism, and many of these new religious movements and eastern cult groups in Crestone had even been given temporary or permanent ‘advisory and consultative status’ on the U.N. Economic and Social Council to facilitate a world citizenship movement from that esteemed perch.” [1]

To be sure, the Dalai Lama has issued public statements disavowing Lamas who have been accused of sexual abuse. Yet, Chandler claims that these denunciations are merely public relations cover-ups. She contends that, behind the scenes, the Dalai Lama actually orders his devotees to keep vows of secrecy surrounding the Tantric sexual taboos and misconducts of the Lamas [1]. If Chandler’s allegations sound far-fetched, consider that, in 2023, the Dalai Lama was recorded prompting a young boy to “suck” his “tongue” during a televised event. In response to public outcries, the Dalai Lama apologized “for the hurt his words may have caused,” yet others, including at least one “top Tibetan leader,” asserted that the lewd advance was not an act of pedophilia, but rather an “affectionate behavior” or a Tibetan cultural custom of showing a “sign of respect.” 

Nonetheless, it is worth noting that the Dalai Lama wrote the foreword to Keith Raniere’s book, The Sphinx and Thelxiepeia, and he also spoke at a 2009 World Ethical Foundations Consortium conference, which was a NXIVM satellite event where he bestowed a Tibetan scarf upon Raniere. It was Raniere’s NXIVM accomplices, Clare and Sara Bronfman, with the help of the Dalai Lama’s “gatekeeper,” Lama Tenzin Dhonden, who arranged for the Dalai Lama to attend the NXIVM satellite event after Sara and Dhonden consummated a sexual affair.  

It is also worth noting that, according to Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, it was the “Ascended Masters” of Tibet who bequeathed upon her the secret mystery wisdom of Theosophy, which is the occult source of the New Age belief in conscious evolution, which was coined by Theosophist Alice Bailey before it was revamped by Hubbard. In fact, Bailey, whose teachings are the crux of the UN World Core Curriculum, professed that her evolutionary New Age prophecies were inspired from her communion with an Ascended Master named Djwhal Khul, otherwise known as “The Tibetan.” Blavatsky’s protégé, Annie Besant, and her Theosophical counterpart, Charles W. Leadbeater, adopted a young Indian boy, Jiddu Krishnamurti, whom Leadbeater reportedly sexually abused while grooming him to become the “vehicle” for the New Age messiah, “Lord Maitreya.” According to Chandler, the Tibetan Lamas believe that Tantric evangelism has the power to ultimately usher in “The Age of Maitreya,” which is a utopian “Golden Age” prophesied in ancient Buddhist and New Age lore [1]. 

In sum, the Theosophical roots of Hubbard’s New Age gospel of conscious transhuman evolution stem from Tibetan esotericism while the New Age messianic belief in the coming Age of Maitreya is a rendition of Tibetan Buddhist eschatology. At the same time, Marc Gafni’s cosmo-erotic twist on Hubbard’s conscious evolution is spun from Tibetan Tantra while New Age Theosophy is the bedrock of the UN’s World Core Curriculum. Formulated by UN Assistant Secretary General Robert Muller, who participated in Mikhail Gorbachev’s State of the World Forum along with Hubbard, the World Core Curriculum is the UN’s global education curriculum, which spreads Bailey’s New Age teachings, including her theory of conscious evolution, as a universal pedagogy for schools throughout the member nations of the UN. Meanwhile, UN Agenda 2030 and New Age spirituality are being amalgamated at the Strongs’ sustainable interfaith community in Crestone, which has offered a launchpad where the futurist bent of Hubbard’s conscious transhuman evolution has been synergized with the mystical bent of Tibetan Lamaism’s conscious Tantric enlightenment. Altogether, the SDGs of UN Agenda 2030 and the New Age indoctrination of the UN World Core Curriculum, which have been cultivated at Crestone, are both guided by the doctrine of conscious evolution, which is rooted in a Theosophical remix of Tibetan esotericism that is steeped Tantric mysticism.

Of SYNCONs, Spy-Ops, and PSYOPs: From Finders to Mind Wars

Barbara Marx Hubbard also associated with a cult known as “The Finders,” which experimented with communal living, including communal sex and communal parenting, guided by “human potential” psychology, “New Age” spirituality, and “Eastern mysticism.” Operating communes out of Virginia and Washington DC with apparent military intelligence ties, the Finders founder, Marion D. Pettie, who was otherwise known as “The Game Caller,” inculcated his followers through a system of experimental “games” ostensibly aimed at raising the consciousness and actualizing the human potential of the “players” [4]. According to Finders member Robert “Tobe” Terrell, the Finders cult helped Hubbard set up her Synergistic Convergence conferences on multiple occasions [4]. Hubbard and the Finders were also linked through memberships with her World Future Society [4]. The Finders, who would be investigated for human trafficking and child sexual abuse involving “satanic rituals,” also endeavored to bankroll William Irwin Thompson’s Lindisfarne Association [4], which came to be stationed at the Strongs’ mountain tract outpost in Crestone where Hubbard preached her gospel of conscious transhuman evolution [1]. 

In 1987, two Finders members, Douglas E. Ammerman and Michael Houlihan, were arrested and charged with child abuse by Tallahassee police who received an anonymous phone call reporting “two ‘well-dressed men’ who were ‘supervising’ six disheveled children in a neighborhood park.” According to the Washington Post, a “police spokesman” described the children, who had been traveling in a van with the two Finders, as “hungry and . . . pretty pathetic” while “a court document” described them as “dirty, unkempt, hungry, disturbed and agitated.” United Press Internationalrecounts how the children “were covered with scratches and insect bites” while other reports relayed that the children said they were fed only as a reward and were forbidden from living indoors.

According to the New Times, the children described living at a commune with “lots of mommies and daddies” who take orders from a man they refer to as “the Game Caller.” A Tallahassee Police Department (TPD) report states that the children said they were “being ‘weaned’ from their mothers,” and “[t]he oldest child . . . did not know . . . her last name.” The children also said that “the adults had to do what the ‘Game Caller’ said, and the adults told the children what to do.” TPD spokesman Scott Hunt reported that one of the girls “showed signs of sexual abuse.” According to the New York Times, “after receiving a half-dozen phone calls threatening to the children,” the police moved the children to a “shelter” at an “undisclosed” location “protected by armed guards.”

As a result of the Tallahassee arrest, DC police raided a Finders warehouse where, according to news media, they “removed large plastic bags” that contained “wallet-sized pictures of children, . . . and some were of naked children.” TPD spokesman Hunt informed the press that “the Finders cult might have been accustomed to selling or smuggling the children of its members out of the country.”According to the Washington Post, “Customs officials” launched a probe into “whether a child pornography operation was being conducted” by the Finders while the FBI investigated whether the Finders were complicit in “the transportation of children across state lines for immoral purposes or kidnaping.” 

These investigations into the Finders would ultimately be dropped, citing a lack of evidence. But, in 2019, the FBI released its 870-page vault of files concerning the Finders investigation, which includes FBI memorandums, US Customs Service records, and TPD and DC Metro police reports. In turn, many unanswered questions have been raised by several investigative journalists, including Elizabeth Vos of Mint Press News, Derrick Broze of the Conscious Resistance Network, and John Brisson of We’ve Read the Documents, all of whom have highlighted how the initial police and Customs reports conflict with the FBI’s determination that the Finders case lacked evidence.

Prior to being investigated for child sexual abuse and human trafficking, the Finders helped Barabara Marx Hubbard orchestrate her Synergistic Convergence (SYNCON) conferences on multiple occasions [4]. On one such occasion, some of the Finders rendezvoused with former MIT Professor William Irwin Thompson, who propositioned the Finders to broker investments into his Lindisfarne Association, which was created to promote the cultivation of a “new planetary culture” [4].

According to The Gamecaller, which narrates the memoirs of Tobe Terrell’s experiences as a Finder, he and a fellow Finder, Roy Mason, took a road trip from the Finders headquarters in Washington DC to Montreal, Canada, “for the American Humanistic Psychology annual convention” where they attended a session hosted by the Tantric guru Chogyam Trungpa [4]. Reflecting on this encounter with Trungpa, Terrell recalls, “I don’t remember much of what he said, but I had no doubt as to what he was. I’d never been in a presence like his before” [4]. 

On the way back from the humanistic psychology convention, which was integral to the Human Potential Movement, Terrell and Mason stopped in Boston “to help Barbara Marx Hubbard, who’s staging a ‘Syncon,’” otherwise known as a “Synergistic Convergence” conference [4]. Terrell narrates how “[w]e’d attended the first one when it was held at the Washington Hilton and we’d stored the Syncon props afterward on the second floor of the warehouse” [4]. Terrell goes on to describe the entire SYNCON process:

“[t]he props are primarily plywood barriers, which are used to form a great circle in which the Syncon takes place.

Inside the circle are further barriers that form pie-shaped wedges, each wedge representing a category of human knowledge.  . . . [E]xperts from each field meet inside the wedges and try to arrive at a consensus on what to do about the most important problems in their field. When they think that they have done so, a wall is taken down between their field of knowledge and an adjoining field. Then the combined experts from the two fields redefine the problems and take down another barrier. The timing for their removal is determined by Barbara and her principal assistant Jerry Glenn. Gradually all of the walls come down until, at the end of the third day, everybody is sitting in one circle considering the biggest problems for the planet as a whole. As usual, the Syncon is considered a success by all who come.” [4]

After leaving Hubbard’s SYNCON, Terrell and Mason traveled “south” toward “Huntington,” New York, to the Lindisfarne Association to meet with William Irwin Thompson, whose “work” was “admire[d]” by the mastermind of the Finders: “[Marion] Pettie” [4]. Just“[a] few months later,” the Finders would “hear that Lindisfarne ha[d] lost its land and that Thompson [wa]s looking for another place,” so the Finders wrote “a letter to him . . . offer[ing] him some land in Nethers [Virginia] as a location for the new incarnation of Lindisfarne” [4].In turn, at Pettie’s behest, Terrell met personally with Thompson to negotiate the proposed deal [4]. Terrell writes, “[a]s was his usual practice, Pettie does not meet with him [Thompson], leaving that to his lieutenants,” who “report on Thompson’s visit” [4]. The Finders’ offer to grant a plot of land for a new Lindisfarne property was ultimately rejected by Thompson, who was only interested in “cash” to pay the expenses for rebuilding Lindisfarne at a different location in “Cooperstown, New York” [4]. 

Nevertheless, Thompson’s search for a Lindisfarne property would be resolved by Hubbard’s World Future Society colleague, Maurice Strong. Thompson joined forces with Strong through the “Gaia movement” that was sparked by James Lovelock’s “Gaia hypothesis,” which posits that the biosphere and ecospheres of planet Earth are super-organically co-evolved by conscious interventions from sentient lifeforms [1]. According to Christine Chandler, Thompson was “a student of Hindu Kriya yoga,” and he led “the original Gaia movement group,” which played a role in setting up his new Lindisfarne center at Crestone  [1]. In Enthralled, Chandler explains how “[t]he Gaia group relocated their ‘intentional community’ of Lindisfarne to meet in the friendliness of the natural world of Crestone . . . Apparently, this Gaia group of Thompson’s believed in the myth of Crestone being the perfect place to ‘confab’ together about the future ‘planetary communities’ that would solve the world’s problems” [1]. At Crestone, Lindisfarne received financial backing from Hubbard’s benefactor, Laurance Rockefeller. 

In brief, after failed negotiations with the Finders, Thompson moved his Lindisfarne Association to Strong’s Manitou property. There, it was funded by Rockefeller money and assimilated into the New Age collective of Crestone, where Hubbard preached her gospel of conscious transhuman evolution to communitarian acolytes of Tibetan Tantric Buddhism. Altogether, The Gamecaller reveals how one Finder’s field trip links together members of the World Future Society, human potential psychologists, the Tantric guru Chogyam Trungpa, Barbara Marx Hubbard’s SYNCONs, and William Irwin Thompson’s Lindisfarne Association, which was bankrolled by Rockefeller capital at Maurice Strong’s Crestone outpost for conscious evolution and Tibetan esotericism.

Hubbard, Strong, and the Finders were also connected through the World Future Society, which Hubbard co-founded with Edward Cornish. According to Steam Shovel Press, which interviewed Pettie, an unattributed “Investigative Leads” memo relays that Pettie “established a ‘futurist’ network, assisting Edward S. Cornish in founding the World Future Society and [sic] working through Roy Mason and John Naisbitt.” To be sure, in The Gamecaller, Terrell quotes Pettie saying he had known Cornish “for 20 years” [4]. In fact, Cornish hired Hubbard’s SYNCON aide, Roy Mason, who was a member of the Finders, to serve as the architecture editor for The Futurist, which is the flagship publication of the World Future Society [4]. According to Cornish, Mason “had lots of associates,” who were probably fellow Finders, “whom he could call on as volunteers for [World Future] Society projects.” When a Finders cabin in Virginia was searched during the investigations into the cult’s alleged sexual abuse and child trafficking crimes, it was revealed that World Future Society literature was strewn about the domicile. Incidentally, the World Future Society and the Finders cult were both headquartered in Washington DC [4]. 

It is worth noting here that, in FindFar, which is the third volume in Lieutenant Colonel Michael Aquino’s MindWar series on psychological operations, Hubbard’s World Future Society is listed as a “3D forecasting . . . resource” alongside the CIA, which was incriminated in the Finders investigations; Stratfor, which is commonly dubbed “the private CIA” and is self-described as “the world’s leading geopolitical intelligence platform”; and the Hudson Institute, which was set up by Herman Khan, who was a World Future Society member and a RAND Corporation analyst [5]. Like Aquino, who was himself embroiled in an alleged child sex abuse scandal as a US Army Psychological Operations officer, Pettie and the Finders were entangled with intelligence operations that were ostensibly linked to their cult’s alleged child abuse and trafficking crimes.

According to a NewsLine bulletin from the NameBase intelligence officer database, webmaster Daniel Brandt, who worked with a team of Finders operating under the guise of an organization called “The Information Bank,” procured a “memo of undetermined origin that summarizes Pettie’s intelligence links.” Brandt’s synopsis of the memo recounts that “Pettie began his career with assorted OSS contacts, served as a chauffeur to General Ira Eaker, became a protégé of Charles Marsh ( . . . who ran his own private intelligence network), and was trained in counterintelligence in Baltimore and Frankfurt, Germany. His wife worked for the CIA, and Pettie himself was run by Col. Leonard N. Weigner (whose . . . career was spent in air force intelligence and the CIA).” In fact, Pettie’s intelligence training and his chauffer service under General Eaker are confirmed by Tobe Terrell in an interview with Derrick Broze of the Conscious Resistance Network, and Pettie himself confirmed his wife’s CIA associations in an interview with Steam Shovel Press. 

Although Pettie denied ever contracting directly with the CIA, he confessed that he “kept open house mainly to intelligence and counterintelligence people in Washington.” He also said, “I run a private intelligence game, and I send people out undercover to find out various things.” According to the anonymous memo relayed in Brandt’s NameBase bulletin, “on [Col.] Weigner’s advice Pettie resigned from the military and surrounded himself with ‘kooks’ so that he could infiltrate the ‘beat,’ human potential, and now the New Age movements.” 

It is worth noting here that the Human Potential and New Age Movements have also been appropriated by military intelligence operations through Hubbard’s World Business Academy comrade, Lieutenant Colonel Jim Channon [6]. Channon conceived the US Army’s First Earth Battalion, which experimented with cultivating psychic superpowers that are explored in Jon Ronson’s The Men Who Stare at Goats. Channon, whose First Earth Battalion assimilated Hubbard’s concept of “supra-sex,” professed that “Barbara Marx Hubbard is a spiritual visionary and masterful planetary social inventor” [6]. In fact, Channon championed the “science of conscious evolution” as a compass for realizing the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were the precursors to the UN SDGs. In brief, the New Age and Human Potential Movements, which are integral to Hubbard’s Malthusian gospel of conscious transhuman evolution, were penetrated by intelligence operations that were evidently coordinated by her futurist cohorts, Channon and Pettie.

To be sure, the Finders have denied all allegations that the cult is a front for intelligence operations. However, the Associated Press recounts a “Customs report” which avers that “the CIA” had “admitted to owning the Finders organization as a front for a domestic computer training operation but that it had ‘gone bad.’” In fact, a company called “Future Enterprises Inc.” was investigated by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) as a potential CIA “front company” run by the Finders. Consequently, a “CIA spokesman” told media outlets that the CIA did contract with “Future Enterprises Inc. for computer training in the 1980s,” but that it was unaware of “any connections between the company and the Finders.” Nonetheless, Finders member Tobe Terrell was indeed employed by Future Enterprises. Succinctly, at least one member of the Finders worked for Future Enterprises, which contracted with the CIA, while other members of the Finders were evidently involved in setting up a “‘futurist’ network” through Hubbard’s World Future Society [4], which is endorsed in military PSYOP literature as an intelligence “forecasting . . . resource” [5]. It is also worth noting here that Finders member Kristin Knauth founded Foresight Alliance, where she still works as a Senior Futurist and Foresight Analyst who has provided future forecasting and scenario planning services for the Rockefeller Foundation.

Adding to these suspicions of intelligence links, computerized telecommunications equipment, which was highly sophisticated for the pre-internet era of the 1980s, was discovered on several Finders properties during investigations. The Washington Postrelayed that, upon searching the Finders’ van, “[a]uthorities in Florida . . . found 20 floppy computer discs and a device . . . [that] could be used to hook into a computer in another location by telephone.” A TPD report states that the Finders children told police how “the Game Caller . . . would tell them what to do” by “using the computer in the van (a TRS-80).” While searching a Finders DC property, US Customs Special Agent Ramon J. Martinez inspected a proto-email system known as “MCI,” which the Finders used to transmit “telex messages,” including one that “expressed an interest in ‘bank secrecy’ situations” and one that “specifically ordered the purchase of two children in Hong Kong to be arranged through a contact in the Chinese Embassy.” 

Notwithstanding the Finders’ denial of CIA involvement, Martinez determined that “the investigation into the activity of the FINDERS had become a CIA internal matter” and that the CIA was blocking him from pursuing his own investigation. In turn, Martinez dispatched his Customs reports to former CIA officer Skip Clements, who operated Technology Strategic Planning, which was a private intelligence firm. Clements forwarded Martinez’s documents to US Congressman Tom Lewis, who prompted the DOJ to investigate the CIA’s alleged obstruction of justice, stating that “all the evidence points to” the likelihood that “our own government ha[d] something to do with this Finders organization and turned their backs on these children.” Nevertheless, the DOJ ultimately exonerated the CIA of interfering in the Finders case.

It is worth noting here that the Finders are not the only cult to be entrenched with intelligence agencies, New Age spirituality, and sexual abuse accusations. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Dalai Lama, who is the religious figurehead of Crestone’s Tibetan Tantra cults [1], served as an asset for the CIA, which paid his administration a yearly stipend of $1.7 million, including  an annual subsidy of $180,000 earmarked for the Dalai Lama himself. Today, one of the Dalai Lama’s most prominent disciples and financial benefactors is eBay Founder, Pierre Omidyar, a billionaire technocrat who has yoked up with several ostensive “CIA cutouts.” According to The Grayzone, Omidyar’s CIA “regime-change” cooperators include the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and Frontier Design Group along with the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which awarded its Democracy Service Medal to the Dalai Lama, who has also joined forces with the NED. Omidyar, who operates an impact investment firm that collaborates with the WEF to “Evolv[e] Humanity” by “Evolving Technology” for “the digital revolution,” is also an acolyte of the Dalai Lama’s “gatekeeper,” Lama Tenzin Dhonden, who had an affair with Sara Bronfman while serving as the liaison between the Dalai Lama and the NXIVM human potential cult.

Sara’s father, Edgar Bronfman Sr., who lauded Nancy Salzman as “one of the most influential females in my life” before publicly denouncing NXIVM as “a cult,” played a notable role in facilitating the rise of transhumanist child sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein.  After facilitating Epstein’s 2008 non-prosecution agreement,  US Attorney Alexander Acosta imparted that he “was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone” [2]. In One Nation Under Blackmail, investigative journalist Whitney Webb documents myriad connections between the “Epstein Network,” the CIA, and the Mossad [2]. 

It is also worth noting here that Epstein’s “shadowy” non-profit corporation, Gratitude America Ltd., bankrolled the Chopra Foundation, which is committed to “expanding consciousness” under the headship of Hubbard’s evolutionary “ally,” Deepak Chopra [3], who has also fellowshipped with the Dalai Lama. Epstein also financed the Edge Foundation, which strives to “evolve” a “Third Culture” with the help of Eric and Bret Weinstein, both of whom are Game B players along with Zak Stein, who “co-created” CosmoErotic Humanism with Hubbard and Marc Gafni. Another Epstein-funded non-profit, the Santa Fe Institute, which is a “global research network” that “search[es] for order” in the “evolutionary processes” of “complex systems dynamics,” including “biological, social, and technological systems,” was chaired by Jim Rutt, who also set up Game B. Additionally noteworthy, Gafni’s book, Soul Prints, is endorsed by the Director of the Bronfman Center for Jewish Life.

Altogether, these interconnections between intelligence agencies, sexual abuse allegations, and the cults of NXIVM, Tantra, and the Finders reveal that Hubbard occupied a nexus between multiple intelligence operations entangled with an array of sex cults that have inculcated supplicants through human potential psychology, Buddhist mysticism, and other New Age esoterica which are integral to her Neo-Theosophical gospel of conscious transhuman evolution.

Before closing, this analysis would be remiss to omit the accusations of Satanic ritual abuse levied against the Finders. Not to be sensational, the relevance here is that Hubbard expressed sympathies for the Devil on several occasions [10], which perhaps betray a common Luciferian spirituality that was not only shared by Hubbard and the Finders, but was also the crux of her Neo-Theosophical belief in conscious transhuman evolution. 

According to the Washington Post, “D.C. police sources” reported that a “warehouse linked to the [Finders] group” contained “pictures of children engaged in what appeared to be ‘cult rituals’” while “[o]fficials of the U.S. Customs Service” described one such picture as a “photograph of a child in chains.” US Customs Special Agent Martinez itemized “a series of photos of adults and children dressed in white sheets participating in a blood ritual.  . . . The photos showed the execution, disembowelment, skinning, and dismemberment of two goats at the hands of the children.” At another Finders property in DC, a “police detective” observed that a circle of “several round stones had been gathered” amidst other evidence of practices “sometimes used in satanic rituals.” In a separate Finders investigation prior to the Tallahassee arrest, a “confidential” source told DC police that the Finders were “a cult” involved in “brainwashing” and the use of children for “rituals.” This confidential source, according to the Washington Post, also “told of being recruited by the Finders with promises of ‘financial reward and sexual gratification’ and of being invited by one member to ‘explore’ satanism with them.” 

To be sure, these claims about the Finders’ Satanic rituals were ultimately dismissed as symptoms of “Satanic panic,” and Tobe Terrell has maintained that the Finders were never involved in any Satanic activities. However, Terrell’s memoir notes that Marion Pettie was an “admire[r]” of William Irwin Thompson [4], who co-authored Reimagination of the World with Luciferian, David Spangler, who professed that “Lucifer . . .  is the angel of man’s evolution” and that “the Luciferic initiation . . . is an initiation into the New Age.” 

Similarly, Hubbard’s New Age gospel of conscious transhuman evolution was inspired by Lucifer, whom she credited for kindling the evolution of human consciousness by offering Eve the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. In The Revelation: Alternative to Armageddon, Hubbard proclaimed that “[t]wo evolved Sons of God, Lucifer and Christ, were actual beings sent to nurture godly beings on Earth. Lucifer attracted Eve to do what she naturally would have done — become self-conscious.” In The Hunger of Eve, Hubbard confessed, “[w]hen I first read Genesis in my youth, I was on Eve’s side. I thought she was right to eat the apple of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil — I would have! It was worth the suffering to struggle out of animal innocence to become human” [10]. Like Lucifer, who told Eve she would become god-like upon eating the Fruit of Knowledge, Hubbard evangelized New Agers by preaching that scientific knowledge will generate transhuman technologies which will enable humans to consciously evolve into “godlings.” 

Likewise, the coiner of conscious evolution, Theosophist Alice Bailey, avowed “Lucifer” as the “Ruler” of “Humanity” and “Self-consciousness” in two of her occult tomes: The Externalization of the Hierarchy and The Destiny of Nations. Bailey also founded the Lucifer Publishing Company, which she revamped into the Lucis Trust, which holds “Consultative Status” with the UN and “play[s] an active role in the United Nations, particularly in spreading information about the UN and fostering support for UN programs,” including “sustainable development” initiatives that are integral to the transhumanist 4IR.

It is worth noting here that the PSYOP architect of “MindWar,” Michael Aquino, who endorsed Hubbard’s World Future Society [5], was a disciple of Satanist Anton LaVey and the founder of the Temple of Set, which is an offshoot of LaVey’s Church of Satan. Like the Finders, Aquino was implicated in a child sexual abuse scandal that allegedly involved Satanic rituals. It is also worth noting here that the “sex magic” rites of Satanic occultist, Aleister Crowley, whose exegesis of the “Enochian Keys” influenced LaVey’s Satanic Bible and Aquino’s Satanic Bible: 50^th Anniversary ReVision, are based on Tantra. According to Secret Agent 666by Richard B. Spence, who is a professor of history at the University of Idaho, Crowley was a British intelligence asset.

In sum, whether or not there is any veracity to the allegations of Satanic ritual abuse levied against Aquino and the Finders, Luciferianism dovetails with the “Lefthand Path” of Tantric sex magic, which is practiced by Hubbard’s cosmo-erotic protégé, Marc Gafni, along with Tibetan gurus who have collaborated with the Manitou Foundation and the NXIVM human potential cult. Luciferianism is also the spiritual ethos of Hubbard’s Neo-Theosophical gospel of conscious evolution, which she propagated through collaborations with Gafni, NXIVM’s Nancy Salzman, and the New Age community of Crestone. Moreover, the Luciferian mythos of humanity becoming godlike through the Tree of Knowledge is congruent with 4IR axiology, which is bent on technologically evolving humankind into a new transhuman species that Hubbard and other eminent futurists, such as WEF mouthpiece Yuval Noah Harari, conceive as god-like. 

The Fog of Psych-War

To be clear, my account of Hubbard’s connections with the Finders, Crestone, NXIVM, and Gafni is not intended to implicate that she was complicit in the sexual abuse allegations or convictions of these individuals and organizations. Rather, the connections documented herein are highlighted to illuminate how Hubbard’s Neo-Theosophical gospel of conscious transhuman evolution is enmeshed with a tapestry of New Age spirituality, human potential psychology, and Tantric sexuality that has been systematically exploited by cults that have been entangled with PSYOPs and intelligence operations. 

It is difficult to quantify the degree to which Tantric, Satanic, or other forms of sex magic are baked into Hubbard’s gospel of conscious transhuman evolution. It is likewise difficult to determine whether Hubbard volunteered her conscious evolutionary mission to be used for psychological operations conducted by intelligence contractors, or whether such contractors co-opted it for their own agendas. Either way, Hubbard and the CIA, along with other intel agencies and PSYOP special forces, share a mutual history of propagating New Age futurism with the common effect of socially engineering cultures to believe in utopic promises of human potential actualization through various modes of conscious evolution, including sustainable transhuman evolution through 4IR technocracy. Whether a circuitous stratagem or the spontaneous convergence of imbricating ideologies and organizations, the synergistic legacy of Hubbard’s Tantric, Satanic, and intel-PSYOP associations is reified in the encroaching 4IR machinations of globalist technocrats whose transhumanist reimagining of the future emerges from an arcane sacralization of conscious Luciferian evolution instilled with sexual mysticism.

References

[1]  Christine A. Chandler, Enthralled: The Guru Cult of Tibetan Buddhism (North Charleston, SC: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017)

[2]  Whitney Webb, One Nation Under Blackmail: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Organized Crime That Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein (Walterville, OR: TrineDay, 2021). 

[3]  Barbara Marx Hubbard and The Welcoming Committee, Birth 2012 and Beyond: Humanity’s Great Shift to the Age of Conscious Evolution (USA: Shift Books, 2012).

[4]  Tobe Terrell, The Gamecaller (Gainesville, FL: Old Rag Publishing, 2009).

[5]  Michael A. Aquino, FindFar (San Francisco: CreateSpace, 2017).

[6]  Barbara Marx Hubbard, Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of Our Social Potential (Novato, CA: New World Library, 1998).

[7]  Barbara Marx Hubbard, The Revelation: Our Crisis Is a Birth (The Book of Co-Creation) (Sonoma, CA: Foundation for Conscious Evolution, 1993).

[8] Abraham Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being, 2^nd ed. (New York, NY: D. Van Nostrand Co., 1968).

[9]  Rosa Koire, Behind the Green Mask: U.N. Agenda 21 (Santa Rosa, CA: Post Sustainability Institute Press, 2011).

[10] Barbara Marx Hubbard, The Hunger of Eve: One Woman’s Odyssey Toward the Future (Eastsound, WA: Island Pacific NW, 1989). 

The Legacy of Barbara Marx Hubbard and the Conscious Evolution of Psychological Operations.

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Scientology’s methods and their extremely pervasive effects on the minds of its own cult members only truly begin to make sense when understood within the context of the non-redacted history of founder L. Ron Hubbard, including the Church’s primordial Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation connections to the intelligence community, and Hubbard’s own intelligence career. His role in under-discussed operations, on the behalf of US Naval and other intelligence agencies, include Hubbard’s work at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. in the 1930s –– the hot-bed of psychiatric research during Project Bluebird and Project Artichoke, the precursors to the infamous MK-ULTRA program –– in addition to his infiltration of Jack Parsons’ occult-influenced rocket program, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, whose work became the scientific foundation for NASA.

In 1953, The MK-ULTRA program was formally authorized by CIA Director Allen Dulles in order to close the “brainwashing gap” after the US learned of Korean mind-control techniques that had been used on American prisoners of war. As detailed later in this investigation, Scientology itself would later employ such tactics to direct fanatical members of the Church to infiltrate a handful of US agencies, including the IRS, the Treasury, and the FDA, among others, to enact an elaborate intelligence gathering operation in the largest infiltration of the US government in history –– Operation Snow White.

This piece, the first in a two-part series, attempts to abridge the history of the Church of Scientology from its formation through the mid-1990s in order to properly frame an ensuing article on Scientologist Sky Dayton and his numerous internet businesses strewn across his prolific data-mining venture portfolio.

Ultimately, Scientology is far more than just another run-of-the-mill religion. In fact, its mostly untold history paints a picture of an organization that much more closely resembles a tax-exempt intelligence operation –– signed off by the highest members of the CIA and its primordial OSS –– than a wacky cult of alien worshippers invented by a pulp science-fiction author.

St. Elizabeth’s, the OSS, and Project Artichoke

Remember one thing, we are not running a business, we are running a government. We are in direct control of people’s lives.

–– L. Ron Hubbard, Policy Letter from August 5, 1959

Lafayette Ronald Hubbard was born March 13, 1911 in Tilden, Nebraska, the son of a teacher and a US Navy officer. Hubbard spent his early childhood on various Navy bases, including a lengthy stay in the US territory of Guam. Before authoring the concepts of Dianetics and founding Scientology, Hubbard was a well-published science-fiction author. Hubbard began his ventures into the study of the mind after sailing alongside the former Navy spy and pioneering-yet-controversial psychoanalyst Commander Joseph “Snake” Thompson. His father, Harry Ross Hubbard, was ordered to return to the east coast, and thus the Hubbard family was deployed alongside Thompson on the USS Ulysses S. Grant in 1923. Despite the young Hubbard being only 12 years old at the time of meeting, the two engaged in friendly correspondence for years. Hubbard later attended George Washington University to study engineering, but would leave before graduating.

Hubbard encountered and befriended William Alanson White, a professor of psychiatry at the university. For the remainder of the 1930s, Hubbard stayed in Washington, D.C. and volunteered with the psychiatric community in the nation’s capital, including alongside White, who was then also serving as the Superintendent of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. His former shipmate, Thompson, soon became the Vice President of the Washington Psychoanalytic Association, of which White was President, and was also stationed at St. Elizabeth’s hospital. Scientologist John Galusha later penned a letter to the FBI in 1954 stating that Hubbard was “trained in psycho-analysis in Washington, D.C.” by both Thompson and White.

In a lecture given in June 1955, Hubbard himself confirmed this mentorship:

“And I came back to this very city in which we’re giving this congress, and I took engineering… And majored, in that engineering, in finite energies, and thought of the finest energy I could think of – it must be the human mind. Experimented to discover how memory was stored, and found by no computation I could ever compute, that it – a man couldn’t remember, certainly by this computation, more than three month’s worth. Because there wasn’t that much storage space because energies weren’t that small. And I was proposed, as a young engineer, a conundrum of such magnitude that I went over to my very good friend, the head of Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital… Dr. William Alan White. He said, ‘If you pursue along this line’ (…he was a golf friend of mine) – and ‘if you pursue along this line,’ he said, ‘you tell me about it from time to time,’ he says, ‘because I’ll be watching.’

Now, another fellow who had been more or less my mentor when I was a little kid – as a matter of fact, I followed in the footsteps of this man – Commander Thompson, who brought psychoanalysis straight from Vienna to the US Navy, and introduced psychoanalysis into the Navy… I told Commander Thompson about this work, I tried to get more information, and when I had turned to Commander Thompson and Dr. Alan White, I had turned to the only two probables in the country who could have shed any light on this subject at all.”

Despite a fondness for his former teacher White, White’s successor at St. Elizabeth’s, Winfred Overholser, became an object of Hubbard’s hatred following Overholser’s dismissal of his Dianetic research. Hubbard lectured in 1952 about the dangers of Overholser’s treatment of schizophrenics at the hospital’s Chestnut Lodge. The lecture even includes mention that three members of the staff from the Chestnut Lodge were sent to service Hubbard himself during the 1930s. This overlaps with CIA activity at Chestnut Lodge, which directly involved Overholser. According to the CIA, in 1942, then-OSS Chief William Donovan assembled “a half-dozen prestigious American scientists” tasked to “come up with a substance that could break down the psychological defenses of captured spies and POWs” in order to cause an “uninhibited disclosure of classified information.” Overholser was appointed chairman of the panel working on this “Truth Drug.”

According to a University of London research paper titled “The Role of Psychoanalytic Knowledge in CIA’s ARTICHOKE and MKULTRA Documents During the Years 1947-1963: Use and Misuse of Psychoanalytic Techniques,” the Chestnut Lodge “held CIA-cleared psychiatrists ‘for in-house employees and other sensitive cases’ and was officially ‘approved by the CIA Security Office for use’ in 1953.” The paper asserts that “the collaboration between US-intelligence and Chestnut Lodge psychiatrists and psychoanalysts” had began even earlier, during World War II. For example, Chestnut Lodge employees Mabel B. Cohen, Robert A. Cohen, and Alfred H. Stanton were “all security-cleared OSS-medical personnel” who were, at the time, “assigned to Henry A. Murray’s OSS Assessment Staff.” The paper also states that some of their OSS assignments were “conducted at the Lodge,” and that “this collaboration continued when the CIA superseded the OSS in 1947.” St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, the Chestnut Lodge, and the CIA’s headquarters at Langley are all within a few miles of each other, and two CIA Directors, Richard Helms and Allen Dulles, employed the same psychoanalyst at the Chestnut Lodge for their personal care.

A published memo from Paul Gaynor, the CIA Security Research chief, to Project ARTICHOKE director, Morse Allen, reads: “It is imperative that we move forward more aggressively on identifying and securing a more reliable ready group, or groups, of human research subjects for ongoing Artichoke work.” According to the Alliance for Human Research Protection, the now defunct Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) was created in 1953, the same year as the aforementioned memo was written, and “the CIA found it remarkably easy to gain HEW’s approval for use of Federal medical facilities as fronts for covert drug and interrogation experiments using unwitting human subjects.”

Allen later suggested to Gaynor in another memo titled “Artichoke Research Program” that “there are some four thousand American military men who are serving court martial sentences in the federal prisons at the present time,” and he suggested “offer[ing] reduced sentences” to these men in order to gain their consent to participate in Artichoke-related experimentation. About a week later, Allen tweaked the aforementioned memo to include “federal hospitals and institutions under the control of the [U.S.] Public Health Service.” Shortly after, Artichoke progress reports were sent to the CIA via Gaynor about “the experiments at three federal prisons,” in addition to experiments conducted at Hubbard’s former haunt, St. Elizabeth’s Hospital.

The aforementioned OSS agent in charge of St. Elizabeth’s staff, Henry A. Murray, later joined Harvard as a researcher, where he conducted the infamous Harvard Experiment, whose research subjects included Theodore Kaczynski –– more famously known as “The Unabomber” –– in addition to supervising Timothy Leary’s controversial work with psychedelic drugs. Leary’s deeper connections to Scientology and intelligence will be explored later in this piece. Murray remained secretly employed by the CIA during this time, leading many to theorize that Murray’s work were conducted as a part of MK-ULTRA or related projects. Murray was far from being the only intelligence-linked figure who served in a prominent role at Chestnut Lodge. For instance, Harry Stack Sullivan, the one-time head psychiatrist at Chestnut Lodge and founder of the William Alanson White Institute, left the hospital before helping establish a CIA-precursor, the Office of War Information in 1942.

In a lecture titled “How to Handle Audiences” delivered by Hubbard on November 1, 1956, the Church’s founder confirmed his 1930s stint at the D.C.-area mental hospital, and even boasted of tricking the workers at St. Elizabeth’s using advanced hypnotism:

“I hypnotized one time the staff at St. Elizabeth’s. Told him they’d heard a good speech and left the stage. They all came around afterwards saying, ‘What a good speech that you gave!’ They might afterwards have suspected my knowledge of the mind, but certainly not my knowledge of hypnotism. It’s very easy to hypnotize groups.”

At the onset of World War II, Hubbard himself enlisted in the Navy after his stint at St. Elizabeth’s. There is much discrepancy about his rank and accomplishments during the war, but by nearly all accounts –– including critical biographers and the Church itself –– Hubbard served as an intelligence officer. In 1945, upon the war’s conclusion, Hubbard moved into an estate in Pasadena, CA owned by Jack Parsons, the aforementioned founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The Parsonage

John Whiteside Parsons was born in Pasadena, CA in 1914 and spent his early life reading science-fiction and emulating his desires for space travel in his backyard with model rockets and fireworks with his childhood friend, Edward Foreman. After numerous craters were made in his mother’s backyard, and while still enrolled in high school, Parsons joined the Hercules Powder Company and began experimenting with solid-fueled rockets. He later left Hercules and, along with his childhood friend Foreman, joined the Halifax Explosives company based in the Mojave Desert. During their time at Halifax, in 1937, both of the aspiring rocketeers attended a lecture on the subject at Caltech, where they met Frank Malina.

Parsons, Foreman and Malina went on to pitch Theodore Von Karman of the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratories of the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT) on their ideas of rocket propulsion, with Malina’s proposal for a doctorate eventually being approved by the “legendary aerodynamicist.” The trio, now with access to the labs and literature available via Caltech and GALCIT, began their experiments in earnest –– with their infamous explosive tendencies earning them the name the “Suicide Squad.” Their work formed the basis of the Jet Proposal Laboratory (JPL) on the outskirts of Parsons’ hometown. As mentioned previously, the JPL was eventually incorporated into NASA, and Malina’s son, Roger Malina –– the husband of Christine Maxwell, the daughter of Robert Maxwell and sister to Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell –– later served as the first Director of this new joint venture.

Long before the JPL was formalized under the Executive Branch, Parsons and his crew received funding from the US Army in 1938 to develop rocket engines to assist in the launch of small aircraft. The military was pleased with the results on their JATO canisters –– “Jet Assisted Take Off” –– and funneled more money towards developing these fuel sources. The solid rocket fuel that had been developed by Parsons became “the basis of the Minuteman missile, the Titan rocket, and the Space Shuttle solid rocket booster.” Despite, by nearly all metrics, the success of the primordial JPL –– then-known as the GALCIT Rocket Project –– Parsons soon turned his eye away from the stars and, in 1939, began focusing on the works of English Occultist, Aleister Crowley.

Crowley, a member of The Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn, joined the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) in 1910, a Freemasonry off-shoot, that was quickly influenced by Crowley’s interest in his Thelemic religion, occult ceremonies, and “Sex Magick.” Parsons and his then-wife, Helen Northup, joined the OTO in 1939, and Parsons engaged in frequent correspondence with Crowley, eventually becoming the American representative of the OTO. In order to further his study of Crowley’s teachings and the OTO, Parsons purchased a mansion in Pasadena to create a commune of occultists he dubbed “The Parsonage.” The manor soon became a hot bed of lavish parties, orgies and occult rituals. Meanwhile, the military continued to pour funding into the GALCIT Rocket Project and, in 1942, the rocket builders founded the Aerojet Engineering Company to keep up with the increasing demand for militarized propulsion. The next year, in 1943, the military formally took over the GALCIT Rocket Project, and renamed it the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Now under military control, JPL developed “several weapon deployment systems based on the liquid and solid fuel technology” including the WAC Corporal sounding rocket, which played a large part in the construction of “the first American rocket ever to exit the Earth’s atmosphere.”

As his interest in the occult deepened, the military became wary of Parsons’ ways, and strong-armed him into unloading his shares of the Aerojet Engineering Company. The ensuing payout provided further funding for his “spiritual” life and the Parsonage itself. At this time, in 1945, L. Ron Hubbard became acquainted with Parsons, and was quickly initiated into the OTO. Hubbard subsequently moved into Parsons’ Pasadena estate. In a letter to Crowley describing Hubbard, Parsons wrote, “I deduced that he is in direct touch with some higher intelligence. He is the most Thelemic person I have ever met and is in complete accord with our own principles.”

Hubbard and Parsons soon became inseparable, with the pair even sharing Parsons’ then-partner Sara Northrup –– the half-sister of Parsons´ first wife, Helen. In the winter and spring of 1946, Parsons and Hubbard toiled on a series of occult rituals in the Mojave Desert dubbed “Babalon Working,” in which the pair attempted to incarnate the Thelemite goddess Babalon onto Earth. Shortly after its conclusion, and having believed the ritual to be a success, Parsons sold the Parsonage for cash and looked to Hubbard for business concepts to pay back the hefty expenses from their years of occult investigations. Hubbard promptly took nearly all the funds from the sale of the estate, as well as Parson’s wife Sara. The pair then eloped in Mexico. While Parsons did eventually get his money back, Hubbard, Sara and Parson’s sailboat continued on without him.

In 1950, Parsons lost his security clearance after the FBI began investigating the occult scientist for the theft of “rocket plans,” plans which the bureau claimed Parsons “had planned to exchange” with “the newly founded Israeli government in exchange for admission into Israel.” The US Air Force told the FBI that they had been “monitoring Parsons and his relationship with Crowley,” stating in a report that “a religious cult, believed to advocate sexual perversion, was organized at subject’s home at 1003 South Orange Grove Avenue, Pasadena, California, which has been reported subversive.” According to statements made by the Church in December 1969 to the Sunday Times, Hubbard was sent by the US Navy to “[break] up black magic in America.” The Church wrote, “He went to live at the house and investigated the black magic rites and the situation and found them very bad… Hubbard rescued a girl they were using. The black magic group was dispersed and destroyed.” In 1952, Parsons died suspiciously in an explosion at his workshop. Hours after the explosion, Parsons’ mother, Ruth, purposefully overdosed on sedatives and died the same day.

Shortly after splitting from Parsons and settling in with his now-wife Sara, Hubbard penned the beginnings of his life work with Scientology, then-known as Dianetics, publishing his first work on the subject in May 1950.

Dianetics and the CIA’s Influence on Scientology

Initially published as an article in the Astounding Science Fiction magazine’s May 1950 issue, “Dianetics: The Evolution of Science” was written by Hubbard over three weeks on an IBM typewriter. In April 1950, a month before the release of the article, the magazine’s editor John W. Campbell –– an extremely important figure in the blossoming science fiction scene having mentored and published Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and Hubbard, among others –– worked with Hubbard to coalesce the pre-publication hype into a foundation to spread its teachings. This culminated in the founding of the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation. Coincidentally, the same month, the CIA’s mind control program Project BLUEBIRD was authorized by the CIA. According to letters from John Galusha –– a Board member of the Hubbard Association of Scientologists International –– later released by the FBI, the idea for the formation of the Dianetics Research Foundation was suggested by Charles Parker Morgan.

In a declassified report from the FDA, files cited by ex-Scientologist investigator Mike McClaughry, “the Dianetic Research Foundation was incorporated in New Jersey, in April 1950, as a ‘non-profit, scientific and educational corporation, the primary purpose of which is to do research in the field of Dianetics and, for the correction of all psychosomatic ills of mankind’.” The report lists Hubbard as President, Parker Morgan as Secretary & General Counsel, Campbell as Treasurer, alongside Sara Hubbard and Donald H. Rogers as Trustees of the Foundation. The same report also lists Parker Morgan as a “former special agent for the FBI,” while his name also appears on a government-hosted list of OSS Agents, confirming the primordial intelligence ties to the formation of Scientology. An FBI Memo from the L. Ron Hubbard Files dated March 21, 1951 also refers to Donald H. Rogers, the Director of Research at the newly formed foundation, as a former FBI agent.

In January 1951, the New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners filed a lawsuit against the Foundation, and Hubbard found himself in need of a new operational strategy for Dianetics. According to both McClaughry and The Royal Maze, two separate intelligence officers suggested that Hubbard incorporate Dianetics as a religion as a defense mechanism against these lawsuits. They were the aforementioned OSS/FBI agent Charles Parker Morgan, and John Starr Cooke.

In The Game Player by ex-CIA agent Miles Copeland, Copeland describes his political influence work with fellow agent Bob Mandlestam, which they referred to as “Occultism in High Places” or “OHP.” OHP was “a theory of political activism based on an impressively detailed study of ways in which leaders of the world based their judgements on one form or another of divine guidance.” Copeland further described the duo’s theory that “properly ‘charismatized’ leaders, placed in certain positions in the ‘free world’s’ ‘key’ bureaucracies, could be used as political levers by which an enlightened American foreign policy could uplift the world,” which would “enable a properly employed CIA to fulfill the Wilsonian pledge to ‘make the world safe for democracy’ while removing certain goings-on here and there that were inconveniencing the American way of life.” Consider, for example, the influence of Presidential spiritual advisors such as Ronald Reagan’s astrologer Joan Quigley, or Choi Soon-sil over former South Korean President, Park Geun-hye.

Copeland specifically mentions such “arrangements” with the Church of Scientology:

“When Bob Mandlestam made similar arrangements with Scientology, the brainchild of another nut, this one a science-fiction writer named Ron Hubbard, we were on our way to having a political action capability which would make the highly expensive, largely ineffective and largely overt ‘covert action’ of Bill Casey’s CIA seem trivial by comparison. ‘MRA will hit ’em high, and the Church of Scientology will hit ‘em low!’ Bob liked to boast, and he was right… we planted an agent in the Scientology cult who became a ‘clear’ under the tutelage of Ron Hubbard himself, and then demanded and got more and more ‘operation expenses’ to be turned over, in addition to his own life’s savings, to the cause of Dianetics.”

The 1985 book Acid Dreams by Martin Lee and Bruce Shlain confirms the agency’s infiltration, suggests that the aforementioned John Star Cooke had been the CIA proxy sent by Copeland and Mandlestam:

“A man of wealth and influential family connections, Cooke was no stranger to high-level CIA personnel. His sister, Alice, to whom he was very close, was married to Roger Kent, a prominent figure in the California state Democratic party; Roger’s brother, Sherman Kent, was head of the CIA’s National Board of Estimates (an extremely powerful position) and served as CIA director Allen Dulles’s right-hand man during the Cold War. John Cooke hobnobbed with Sherman Kent at annual family reunions and is said to have made the acquaintance of a number of CIA operatives while traveling in Europe.

Driven by an avid interest in the occult, Cooke journeyed around the world befriending an assortment of mystics and spiritual teachers. In the early 1950’s, he became a close confidant of L. Ron Hubbard, the ex-navy officer who founded the Scientology organization. Cooke rose high in the ranks of the newly formed religious cult. (He was the first “clear” in America, meaning he had attained the level of an advanced Scientology initiate.) Before long, however, he grew disillusioned with Hubbard and they parted ways.”

Cooke moved back to California, and became an important pillar in the blossoming occult scene, with numerous connections to Timothy Leary, the CIA, and many of the chemists and traffickers associated with the LSD movement. Cooke died at his home in Cuernavaca, Mexico in 1976, but not before being visited by Andrija Puharich, an ex-Military scientist and researcher, and Seymour “The Head” Lazare, a long-time affiliate of William Mellon Hitchcock, who will be discussed shortly.

Puharich was famous for his study on parapsychological phenomenon, and attempted to find military applications of such practices of remote viewing and telekinesis. His work led to the founding of the Stanford Research Institute, which employed high-ranking Scientologists Hal Puthoff, Ingo Swann, Pat Price and Eli Primose. Puthoff had worked for the National Security Agency, and Swann for the United Nations. Their research, eventually merged under the CIA’s infamous Project Stargate, was directly supervised at Langley by John McMahon, the “second-in-command under [CIA Director] William Casey. “Many of the SRI empaths were mustered from L. Ron Hubbard’s Church of Scientology,” according to a December 1996 report from Alex Constantine titled “CIA MIND CONTROL AT STANFORD RESEARCH INSTITUTE”:

“Harold Puthoff, the Institute’s senior researcher, was a leading Scientologist. Two remote viewers from SRI have also held rank in the Church: Ingo Swann, a Class VII Operating Thetan, a founder of the Scientology Center in Los Angeles, and the late Pat Price. Puthoff and Targ’s lab assistant was a Scientologist married to a minister of the church. When Swann joined SRI, he stated openly, ‘fourteen Clears participated in the experiments, more than I would suspect.’ At the time he denied CIA involvement, but now acknowledges, ‘it was rather common knowledge all along who the sponsor was, although in documents the identity of the Agency was concealed behind the sobriquet of an east-coast scientist.’”

According to the CIA, the SRI’s work was funded by the CIA, the Parsons-founded Jet Proposal Laboratory (now within NASA), ARPA and the Military. The CIA and the Church of Scientology had become direct partners in their advancement of psychic and paranormal research by the 1970s. However, the groundwork for this relationship appears to have started years earlier, given numerous connections between the CIA’s LSD trafficking scheme and Hubbard’s newly-formed personal navy, the Sea Organization.

Drug Running, LSD, and The Sea Org

“I give the CIA a total credit for sponsoring and initiating the entire consciousness movement counter culture events of the 1960s.”

– Timothy Leary

Timothy Leary, a student of former St. Elizabeth’s staff and OSS/CIA agent Henry A. Murray, became an FBI informant with numerous connections to the CIA over the course of his psychedelic missionary work across the United States. For starters, the estate where Leary conducted much of his LSD experiments was gifted to him by the Mellon banking family‘s William “Billy” Hitchcock after being visited numerous times by family friend and eventual CIA Director Richard Helms. The Mellon family had many family members serve in the OSS, including OSS Station Chief of London, David Bruce, who was coincidentally the son-in-law of former US Treasury Secretary, Andrew Mellon. Hitchcock himself had ties to intelligence-linked sexual blackmail operations, such as the Profumo Affair, and he also held an account at Castle Bank and Trust, a mob-affiliated bank founded in the Bahamas by the CIA banker Paul Helliwell. In addition, he was a frequent guest at Resorts International-owned properties –– known infamous meeting grounds of the mob, off-shore bankers, and the CIA. Hitchcock concurrently had served as the banker and financial advisor to the LSD cult and drug operation, The Brotherhood of Eternal Love (BEL).

Hitchcock evicted Leary off his estate in 1967, but shortly thereafter in the spring of 1968, Hitchcock traveled to the Bahamas with LSD chemist and BEL member, Nick Sand. Sand had been appointed the alchemist of Leary’s League for Spiritual Discovery, a religion formed in September 1966 that “incorporated psychedelic drugs as sacraments.” Sand’s chemistry operations, culminating in the infamously pure LSD known as Orange Sunshine, were a product of a long-time partnership with David Mantell, a Scientologist who studied directly under Hubbard’s successor, David Miscavige.

This trip to the Bahamas led to Hitchcock and Sand staying at an estate owned by Sam Clapp, a chair of the Fiduciary Trust Company, in addition to being a “college-chum” and long-time business partner of Hitchcock. According to Acid Dreams, Hitchcock and Clapp “arranged for Sand to open an account under a false name at Clapp’s bank,” while simultaneously looking “into the feasibility of setting up an offshore LSD laboratory on one of Bahamas secluded cays.” The book furthers Hitchcock’s financial activity during this trip, directly connecting his account at Clapp’s Fiduciary Trust with the CIA-front set up by Allen Dulles and Thomas Dewey known as the Mary Carter Paint Company (later renamed Resorts International):

“Hitchcock took full advantage of his unlimited borrowing privileges at Fiduciary. At Clapp’s urging he poured over $5,000,000 into unregistered ‘letter stocks’ (the kind that aren’t traded publicly but tend to show dramatic gains on paper) associated with the Mary Carter Paint Company, later known as Resorts International. It was the single largest chunk of money raised by Resorts, an organization suspected of having ties to organized crime. Resorts International proceeded to build a casino on an exclusive piece of Bahamian real estate called Paradise Island…”

The 1987 book, Hot Money and the Politics of Debt by R.T. Naylor, further details Hitchcock’s connection with the off-shore banking enterprise linked to intelligence and organized crime, alluding to his shares in Resorts being managed by the CIA-linked bank, Castle Bank & Trust:

“To finance these activities [various efforts to topple the government of Cuba], the CIA turned to Castle Bank & Trust of Nassau. The bank was established by Paul Helliwell, a former OSS China hand with a background in drug-trade intelligence. After the war, Helliwell had run CIA front companies in Florida. Through his Bahamian bank, and a companion institution in Florida, millions of dollars were funneled for covert military operations staged off Andros Island in the Bahamas. Castle also facilitated tax evasion, and, in its trust-company capacity, voted the shares of certain nonresident owners of Resorts International, the top [Meyer] Lansky-era casino operation on Nassau. When one of those shareholders so strongly objected to the way Castle was voting his shares that he sued the bank, the scheme began to unravel.

The shareholder was William Mellon Hitchcock, the New York stockbroker who had been using the Paravicini Bank of Berne, Switzerland, to circumvent the New York Fed’s margin requirements. Allegedly, Hitchcock also put his business experience to work in ‘high finance,’ along with the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, whose clandestine California laboratories reportedly produced more than half the LSD that levitated political debate on American campuses in the 1960s. It was Hitchcock’s friend Timothy Leary, the era’s most publicized advocate of the chemical lobotomy, who got him involved with the LSD operation. The profits were laundered through the Paravicini Bank until its demise and through the IOS-controlled Fiduciary Trust in the Bahamas.

After Hitchcock’s lawsuit, the IRS made its move, anticipating the biggest tax-evasion bust in American history. But the CIA successfully lobbied for the inquiry to be buried, and many IRS veterans quit in disgust. But Castle Bank shut down its Caymans and Bahamas operations in 1977, and moved to the more congenial environment of Panama.”

The 1985 book Acid Dreams by Martin Lee and Bruce Shlain importantly connects Castle Bank founder Helliwell with the Sea Supply, a 1950s trafficking operation run by the CIA:

“Castle Bank was founded and controlled by Paul Helliwell, a Miami lawyer with long-standing ties to American intelligence. Helliwell’s career as a spook dates back to World War II, when he served as chief of special intelligence in China with the OSS. He stayed in the Far East when the CIA was formed and bossed a bevy of spies, including E. Howard Hunt of Watergate fame. In the early 1950’s, Helliwell organized Sea Supply, a CIA proprietary company that furnished weapons and other material to anti-Communist guerrillas in the hills of Burma, Laos, and Thailand. Based in the Golden Triangle, this mercenary army cultivated fields of opium poppies, and the CIA was drawn immediately into the drug connection. Helliwell also served as paymaster for the ill-fated Bay of Pigs operation in 1961. A few years later he set up Castle Bank, serving in a dual capacity as CIA banker and legal counsel for the Cuban Mafia, which prospered by selling Southeast Asian heroin in the US. Helliwell’s law firm also represented [Meyer Lanksy Frontman] Louis Chesler and Wallace Groves, both partners in Resorts International.”

Sea Supply operated for a decade, before the former OSS and CIA officer Helliwell wound down the operation. Helliwell passed away at age 62 in 1976, but not before becoming infamous for advising Walt Disney to establish shell companies and “phantom cities” in Florida during the construction of Disney World in order for the organization to “avoid taxation and environmental regulation as well as maintain immunity from the U.S. Constitution.” Similar tactics were later employed by the Church of Scientology during their takeover of Clearwater, Florida in the 1980s.

While seemingly unconnected to the story of Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard at first glance, Sea Supply seems to have served as an inspiration and template for Hubbard’s Sea Organization, with numerous connections to the aforementioned CIA-driven drug trafficking nexus.

The Sea Organization

In the Spring of 1966, Congressman J. William Fulbright, then-chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, initiated an investigation into the CIA’s impact on foreign policy. Reporting from the Boston Globe specifically alluded to Sea Supply as an example of such operations by the intelligence agency. The report makes the case that “spying is a fact of modern international life; our enemies spy, and so must we,” before concluding that “increased congressional scrutiny of the CIA does not need to jeopardize national security.”

In May 1966, Congressman Fulbright appeared on NBC’s The Today Show to explain the reasoning for placing three committee members on a Congressional board to oversee CIA activities:

“The principle [sic] argument, I believe, is that most of the least publicized difficulties that have appeared in the press in recent years regarding the CIA have almost always been in the field of foreign relations. A number of the Committee feels that this is the area which has caused considerable question and in some cases criticism –– that it would be the responsibility of the committee to be represented there. And some of us, including myself, feel that if such a committee was created that it would improve the relations of the Senate and the public with the CIA.

Rather than being a reflection upon the CIA, I feel that it would be an improvement in our relations and would tend to modify, if not eliminate, to a great extent, the criticisms that I think sometimes arise out of a feeling that there is not sufficient and not as careful supervision of this agency as there ought to be.”

Richard Helms –– the godfather of MK-ULTRA, the long-time friend of Helliwell’s business associate Billy Hitchcock, and CIA Director since March 1966 –– went so far as to pen a letter that July in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat “expressing pleasure at a newspaper editorial critical of Fulbright.” Needless to say, the Central Intelligence Agency was losing agency and gaining Congressional oversight, much to the dismay of Helms, and the major aspects of the intelligence agency were in dire need of a rebrand that would allow them to continue operating far beyond the reach of the public sector.

At the start of 1965, Hubbard arrived in Spain’s Canary Islands to begin research and writing on the advanced “OT levels.” In fact, it was during a lecture given on the Canary Islands by Hubbard that the first inkling of OT III was announced –– the level that introduced Xenu to the highest level of Scientology’s initiates. At the end of June 1965, Hubbard gave a lecture titled “The Well-Rounded Auditor,” in which he exclaims that the US government has been “trying to seize Scientology in the United States.” In July 1965, CIA agent E. Howard Hunt is selected by Richard Helms to travel to Spain on behalf of the agency. The month before Helms officially became head of the CIA, Hubbard once again returned to the Canary Islands, in February 1966. According to ABC Spain, Hubbard signed a contract with Helms and the CIA that year, although no direct record of any such contract exists.

Shortly after, in July 1966, the IRS informed the Church they will be recommending the revocation of their tax exemption status. On September 1, 1966, Hubbard officially resigned from all Scientology management positions. Three weeks later, on September 21, 1966, Hunt returns to Washington, D.C. “from a highly secret assignment he has been on in Spain for a little over a year.” Shortly thereafter, Hubbard officially creates the “Sea Project” in a Scientology policy letter dated November 10, 1966. On November 22 of that year, the Hubbard Exploration Company Limited was incorporated in London, and by the end of the year, the primordial “Sea Org” secretly purchased its first ship – the Enchanter.

The Sea Organization was formally established in August 1967 by Hubbard and was initially compromised of three large ships. Sea Org membership was available to only the most devout of the Church, during which training for the highest levels of Scientology were delivered. According to documents shown to a former Scientologist, as documented in Jon Atack’s 1990 biography on Hubbard, A Piece of Blue Sky, the Sea Org believed that “the governments of the world were on the verge of collapse,” and that “the Sea Org would survive and pick up the pieces.”

According to a document supplied by the group to the IRS in 1992, initiates of the Sea Org were asked to pledge a billion-year term of service to Scientology, in alignment with their belief that humans were immortal beings. Former Scientologist and aforementioned author of A Piece of Blue Sky, Jon Atack, stated that the treatment of Sea Org members was a “careful imitation of techniques long-used by the military to obtain unquestioning obedience and immediate compliance to orders, or more simply to break men’s spirits.” According to The Week, a former Sea Org employee claims to have “worked 15-hour days as a teenager,” and was only allowed to “see her parents just twice between ages 12 and 18.” Another stated that “he never earned more than $17 a week for his work,” and “lived in a room so barren it lacked a door knob.”

In 2009, the FBI conducted an investigation of the Church of Scientology, specifically focusing on the Sea Org, due to human trafficking concerns. No charges were ever made as a result of their inquiries, which were conducted under the codename “Operation Overboard.” As for why no charges were filed, the Tampa Bay Times interviewed experts in 2013 who stated that the likely reason was a ruling in August 2010 by a federal judge in a civil case brought by two former Sea Org members. The judge had ruled in part that “the First Amendment’s guarantee of the free exercise of religion prevented the court from delving into whether the church’s discipline methods were reasonable,” and to do so would “entangle the court in the religious doctrine of Scientology and the doctrinally motivated practices of the Sea Org.”

Whatever the reason given by the Church for the formation of a paramilitary fleet of vessels predominantly stationed in international waters, public opinion has coalesced around the concurrent timing of Scientology’s loss of tax exemption status by the IRS earlier that same year. This action led author Stephen Kent to remark in his 2001 book, From Slogans to Mantras: Social Protest and Religious Conversion in the Late Vietnam War Era, that “the less lofty reason behind Hubbard’s establishment of the Sea Org was that he had encountered opposition in the United States from the Food and Drug Administration and the IRS, from the governments of Australia, the United Kingdom, and Rhodesia, and from various media sources around the world, which motivated him to set sail on the high seas and thereby escape the control of any nation-state.”

While the revoking of tax exemption status was surely a plausible forcing function for Hubbard’s personal navy setting sail, Helms, Helliwell, and the CIA were also simultaneously looking for a replacement for their off-the-books, off-shore shadow operation.

According to the CIA, Sea Supply founder Helliwell was “deeply involved” in the financing of “covert forays between 1964 and 1975” against Cuba by “CIA operatives working from Andros Island,” the largest island in the Bahamas. During this time, in April 1966, the US spent $130 million on the Atlantic Undersea Testing and Evaluation Center, an “antisubmarine base” on Andros Island to “experiment with new methods of seeking and destroying enemy submarines” with technology said to “surpase [sic] anything we know of in the entire world.” For known intelligence operatives like Helliwell, who were major players in the international maritime trafficking game, this type of naval research and technology could prove priceless. Further reports from the CIA describe the base as “important” to both the US and the United Kingdom, with another CIA report describing “the unrestricted ability of the US Coast Guard to operate in this area” which the agency notes is “largely taken for granted.” According to Guardian Order 1344 issued by Scientology’s intelligence branch, the Guardian’s Office, the Coast Guard began reporting on Scientology’s Sea Org ships, with reports dated July 1969 stating two of the Church’s ships were conducting “military drills” while “bearing Coast Guard insignia replicas.”

There is some significant evidence, in addition to the timeline provided above, that Hubbard was simultaneously helping fulfill the need of Helms’ CIA of escaping Congressional scrutiny –– creating an off-shore paramilitary intelligence fleet, staffed with fanatical seafarers –– while building the spiritual successor to Helliwell’s Sea Supply.

For starters, one of the vessels making up Hubbard’s fleet –– the Aries –– was previously owned by Scientologist and informant Jerry McDonald, and featured in a sting operation against BEL lawyer Michael Metzger. That operation resulted in the arrest of Nick Sand’s partner and fellow Scientologist, David Mantell. McDonald is mentioned numerous times in files put together by the Church’s Guardian’s Office which were released during the Clearwater, Florida Commission Hearings, including allegations that the Church was trafficking drugs:

“Exhibit XII –

February through July 1970 – JM [Jerry McDonald] is reported as working with Customs and LAPD as an informant of the cycle set up by Milner to remove X-Scientologist drug runners off Scientology lines.

February 1970 – Milner tells JM that US customs believed Scientology was promoting and smuggling drugs because some expelled Scientologists were engaged in drug trafficking. And further that a person had been picked up by customs while smuggling drugs and claimed that he was on a secret mission for the Sea Org.

February 16, 1970 – US Customs official calls JM in Salt Lake City, Utah “to inquire about the Aires and JM’s involvement in Scientology”. He asks questions like – Why is Scientology going back and forth between Mexico and the US, is Scientology running dope? He also indicates that Scientology is under investigation by several gov’t agencies, including customs.

February 17, 1970 – Jack Enoch, US Customs, calls JM and tells him that the Scientology investigation is just local now but should soon be widespread. JM tells Enoch that he is no longer involved in Scientology but that his wife and kids are.” [emphasis added]

Other Guardian Office documents from October 1974 released by the FBI make direct note of McDonald’s ship in relation to the aforementioned Hitchcock-linked BEL, referred to simply as Brotherhood:

“Undated, unsigned note in US Coast Guard files – ‘owned by Scientology group – paramilitary’. McDonald – marijuana smuggling – followers almost military. Arrested couple of them from time to time. Hopkins boarded Makaira. Scientology founded by multi-millionaire who lives – L. Ron Hubbard. Brotherhood at Laguna – marijuana. (Brotherhood was a drug ring.)”

The Makaira was McDonald’s boat at the time, and was boarded in July 1970 by DEA agents, who found few drugs but loads of weapons, including 40 pistols and 10 long arms, onboard. Agents believed that the weapons cache “had been taken in trade for marijuana…from Mexico.” Another report ear-marked the weapons to be worth around $6000 at the time, and speculated many were stolen in recent burglaries targeting pawnshops in Garden Grove, CA. Yet another report quoted state narcotics agent Garrett Van Raam that he believed the Makaira “had entered San Francisco Bay in late May with as much as 2,200 pounds of Mexican pot.” In November 1970, McDonald was reported missing, having failed to report to preliminary hearings regarding charges on “possessing stolen property,” “possessing a tear gas gun” and “a sniper scope,” and “having a concealed weapon in a car.” Despite his failure to appear in court and the multitude of serious criminal allegations, McDonald was cleared of all charges the following month, in December 1970, alluding to suspicions of working on behalf of intelligence, in addition to his known informant position with U.S. customs.

In January 1972, Customs agents made their way upon the Sea Org vessel Asia –– later named Excalibur –– which was anchored in the harbor at Los Angeles, with McDonald being recognized by an agent and served a subpoena. The next month, in February 1972, the same ship was again boarded by Customs and Secret Service agents looking for drugs, confirming law enforcement inquiries into Scientology’s Sea Org as a trafficking enterprise. According to historian Chris Owen, published on author Tony Ortega’s The Underground Bunker, “the UK and US authorities were suspicious of the sealed packages that were regularly being couriered to the Sea Org fleet.”

The arms-for-drugs trade exemplified in McDonald’s work for Scientology was a key pillar in the CIA’s Operation Paper, in which Helliwell’s Sea Supply had played a major role in facilitating. CIA Director Helms commented on these agency’s operations, stating “this was a major operation” that “took specially qualified manpower” due to being “dangerous” and “difficult.” Helms further contended that the CIA did “a superb job.” Further testimony from former Church members alludes to McDonald being “specially qualified manpower,” as it relates to their new, apparent trafficking ring.

Former Sea Org Captain Scott Mayer provided an affidavit in the case of the “Church of Scientology International versus Fishman and Geertz,” in which Mayer spoke upon being given “instructions to kill” alongside McDonald:

“While I was in the Sea Org, I was instructed to kill another human being by the Scientology organization. At the time Scientology had an office on Beacon Avenue in Los Angeles, very close to McArthur Park. I was called in for a briefing by Alex Sibryski. At that time, Scientology had a ranch at Rosarito in Mexico which was being used as a nursery, a place for overflow kids that could not be housed in Los Angeles and a place to grow fruits and vegetables. Mexican bandits were allegedly harassing and hustling the ranch and stealing produce from it. Jerry McDonald and I were asked to put together a mission to go down to Mexico, take some infrared optics and some guns and rifles, wait for the Mexican bandits to attack the ranch again and then take care of them. We were told to kill them if necessary…

Jerry McDonald was widely rumored to have been a former mercenary and a paid assassin in Europe. He was known throughout the Sea Org for taking care of difficult problems. If someone was giving a problem in some area Jerry McDonald would just appear there. Because of his reputation as having been an assassin, if he came on the scene, people would fear for their lives. They believed that he was working totally for Scientology and that he would do anything for Hubbard. Additionally, he was also the kind of guy who would have people over to his house every now and then and would get out his automatic weapons, clean them and put them together in front of people. In this way, he would let people know that he was really conversant with his craft. He carried a 9 mm pistol on him all the time and he was always talking about arms sales and deals that he was doing. As things turned out, he and I were not required to carry out the instructions to kill that we had received. However, if the orders had not been canceled I have no doubt that he could have performed the task.”

Mayer additionally testified that “at various times” he was “responsible for preparing mission orders and briefing couriers that would smuggle money out of the United States.” He was hardly the only former Scientologist who gave testimony about moving large sums of money for the Sea Org. In the 1987 book, Messiah or Madman, former Sea Org member Hana Eltringham stated there was “lots of money aboard,” making note of a time when she helped “courier 7 or 8 million dollars in cash to Switzerland,” and “a later trip” in which “much more than that was couriered.” Eltringham referred to Hubbard as “really like a squirrel with nuts, stashing it,” before revealing that he “stashed gold bullion, too.”

Another Sea Org member, Mary Maren, recalled being given “about £3,000 in high-denomination notes to take out to the ship,” which she hid in her boots. Another Church member, Mike Goldstein –– the Banking Officer aboard the Apollo –– noted there “were drawers full of money everywhere and more than a million dollars in the safe, but no proper accounts.” Goldstein claimed the Sea Org “paid for everything in cash” and “were working with three different currencies –– Spanish, Portuguese and Moroccan.” Goldstein further explained “that if anyone wanted money for something they just asked for it.”

In Messiah or Madman, another ex-Church member under the alias Elena Lorrel described her time spent during the young Sea Org as “James Bond stuff” that was suggestive of intelligence-adjacent work:

“There are some missing chapters in the story of this period that are completely unknown even to many veteran Sea Org members. These missing chapters have enabled lots of myths to develop. They have to do with what the ships were really doing as opposed to what we proclaimed to Scientologists we were doing. What we were doing was James Bond stuff in all these different countries. Some of the missions that we undertook were real intelligence missions: to the U.N., and to the World Federation of Mental Health, for example, as well as to almost every government of the countries we visited. We were infiltrating these groups….trying to covertly back one political candidate versus another. All kinds of political manipulations like you’d never imagine were going on, and it was all being pulled off by very few people. Most Sea Org members were robotic, rigidly following Scientology think. Put under pressure and duress, they would just blab everything. So there was only a very small group of us that had to do it all over a period of 10 or 12 years. We’d been out on scenes where we had to break into presidential palace grounds, con our way past guards, and so on.”

An August 1978 report on the Sea Org hosted on the CIA’s Reading Room alludes to suspicions of the Apollo –– the Sea Org’s flagship vessel –– being associated with intentions that went far-beyond those of a simple religious sect. For starters, the Los Angeles Times article notes a State Department letter that quotes an officer from the Apollo, who stated that the “organization backed by money and friends in high places ‘would cause a nosy vice consul severe problems,’” before threatening “accidents could easily happen to people” inquiring about the Sea Org. The article correctly associated the Apollo with a Panamanian company titled the Operation and Transport Corp, Ltd. –– a Scientology front –– before describing a regular triangular course that Sea Org vessels followed between ports in Spain, Portugal, and Morocco. According to the Times, the Apollo “transmitted coded radio messages to New York and points unknown,” while establishing “land bases in Casablanca and Tangier.” Despite being registered in Panama, the Panamanian Consul General was unable to schedule a meeting with Hubbard, leading to a rather telling comment upon the ship’s “gimmicks”:

“It is possible that Commodore Hubbard and his wife are philanthropists of some kind and/or eccentrics, but if one does not accept this as an explanation, there has to be some other, ‘gimmick’ involved in this operation. What this gimmick might be is unknown here, although people in Casablanca have speculated variously from smuggling to drug traffic to a far-out religious cult.”

The US Consulate in Tangier dispatched a “lengthy cable” to Washington, DC, as noted in the article, including mention of “rumors in town that the Apollo is involved in drug or white slave traffic,” with the former “undoubtedly stem[ming] from the fact that included among the crew of the Apollo are a large number of strikingly beautiful young ladies.” The article concludes with mention of a Trinidad tabloid, The Bomb, that speculated the ship was “linked to the CIA and Sharon Tate murders in Los Angeles.” (Charles Manson, whose followers were linked to the murder of Tate, has long been associated with both the CIA and MK-ULTRA and also listed himself as a Scientologist in July 1961 upon incarceration.)

In October 1974, the Apollo was meant to port in Charleston, South Carolina, when “a welcoming party consisting of agents from the Immigration Office, Drug Enforcement Agency, US Customs, Coast Guard, and US Marshals” was tipped off by the early arrival of the ship’s band, the Apollo All Stars. A Charleston newspaper reported there were “enough U.S. Customs Service agents in Charleston Wednesday to keep each of the crew members of the vessel Apollo under surveillance for possible drug smuggling,” and that “customs agents had gathered here from as far away as California to keep watch on the Apollo” due to suspicions “of carrying large quantities of narcotics.” Hubbard’s Guardian’s Office noticed the gathering of law enforcement, and his wife Mary Sue was able to warn the Apollo, which reversed course back to the Bahamas.

Jane Kember, the Deputy Head of Scientology’s Guardian’s Office, issued Guardian Order (GO) 1344 that same month, which ordered the intelligence branch of the Church to begin a large-scale operation against Customs and the Coast Guard. Specifically, GO 1344 called for “penetration of and theft of documents from the 11th District Coast Guard Intelligence and the National Headquarters of Coast Guard Intelligence, Washington, D.C.” GO 1344 built off the previously issued GO 732 from April 1973, in which Hubbard approved and first described the “Snow White Program.”

The escalation of the Guardian’s Office’s GOs quickly developed into a full-blown paramilitary intrusion of numerous departments of the United States government, in what is now considered the largest infiltration of the government in US history –– Operation Snow White.

Operation Snow White

The policy of Scientology’s Snow White program, now commonly referred to as “Operation Snow White,” simply states “Attack is neccessary [sic] to an effective defence.” The “plan” seemed rather innocuous enough, detailing the Church’s intention “to engage in various litigation in all countries affected so as to expose to view all such derogatory and false reports” against Scientology. This would culminate in efforts “to engage in further litigation in the countries originating such reports” in order to “exhaust resources in those countries.” At first, the Church mostly stuck to legal attempts at upholding Hubbard’s Snow White, including numerous requests made under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). By the start of 1974 however, Hubbard and his then-wife, Mary Sue Hubbard, were overheard discussing infiltrating the IRS by Scientologist Kenneth Urquhart, according to Atack’s A Piece of Blue Sky.

Evidence released in the case of The United States of America vs Mary Sue Hubbard et al from October 1979 suggests that Snow White developed into an extensive espionage operation that infiltrated “more than 30 countries” in addition to numerous US government agencies. Charges including “burglary, obstruction of justice, wiretapping, harboring a fugitive and conspiracy” eventually resulted in 11 church leaders, including Mary Sue Hubbard, serving prison terms.

In the summer of 1974, Cindy Raymond –– Collections Officer of the US Information Bureau of the Guardian’s Office –– sent “a directive” to Michael Meisner –– Assistant Guardian for Information, Washington, DC –– to “recruit a loyal Scientologist to be placed as a covert agent at Internal Revenue Service” for “the purpose of taking from that agency all documents which dealt with Scientology,” including “pending litigation initiated by Scientology against the United States Government.” By that September, the Church had found its man –– Gerald Bennett Wolfe –– to infiltrate the IRS on behalf of Scientology. In October 1974, Jane Kember, the aforementioned Head of GO issued Guardian Order 1361 to clarify the “operating targets” to include:

“10. Immediately get an agent into DC IRS to obtain files on LRH, Scientology, etc. in the Chief Council’s [sic] office, the Special Services staff, the intelligence division, Audit Division, and any other areas.

16. Collect data on the Justice Dept. Tax Division for the org board, the current terminals, and the people handling Scientology.

17. When the correct areas are isolated, infiltrate and get the files.

[GO 1361] also called for the placing of “an agent, trustworthy and well grooved in, to infiltrate the IRS LA office” (target 2). That “agent” was “to obtain any files on LRH, Scientology”, etc. from both the Intelligence Division (target 3) and the Audit Division (target 4) of the Los Angeles IRS Office. It also called for the location (target 20) and infiltration (target 22) of the IRS London Office in order to “obtain all documents” (target 22). 12/ Guardian Order 1361 directed that once documents had been obtained clandestinely, the designated bureau and official would create “suitable cover” to disguise the manner in which “the data was obtained” so that they may be released to “PR [Public Relations] for dead agenting,” that is, for possible use in impeaching those perceived as enemies of Scientology.¨

On November 1, 1974, Michell Hermann –– the Guardian’s Office’s Information Branch I Director –– successfully planted a radio transmitting bug in a conference room at the IRS’ Chief Counsel. This was to be the meeting place for a confidential discussion concerning the tax exemption status of Scientology, leading to the entire meeting’s recording and transcriptions being sent to the GO. A few weeks later, Scientologist Gerald Wolfe gained employment at the IRS as a clerk typist. From December 1974 through June 1976, Hermann, Wolfe, and Meisner stole tens of thousands of documents from the IRS in order to realize Mary Sue Hubbard’s “IRS Strategy,” which was described in a letter to Kember as “us[ing] any method at our disposal to win the battle and gain our non-profit status.

By July 1977, 150 FBI agents raided the Scientology headquarters in Washington, DC and Los Angeles. According to a report hosted on the CIA’s Reading Room, the raid revealed “an astounding haul,” including “lock picks, pistols, ammunition, knockout drops, a blackjack, bugging and wiretapping equipment,” and “even a small vial labeled ‘vampire blood.’” Over 23,000 documents were impounded by the FBI, alleged to have been “taken from the private files of federal prosecutors, correspondence between U.S. Cabinet members, and church memoranda on producing false identification papers, tailing people, laundering money and committing blackmail” including documents stolen from “the Federal Trade and Atomic Energy Commissions; the National Security, Defense Intelligence and Central Intelligence Agencies; the Departments of Labor, the Army and the Navy; the U.S. Customs Service; Interpol, and numerous U.S. police departments.”

While a US Judge ruled the raid unconstitutional later that month, eleven Scientologists, including Mary Sue Hubbard, were “convicted of conspiracy and imprisoned for between two and six years.” The Church’s founder and leader, L. Ron Hubbard, then went into hiding in California and stayed hidden until his death in January 1986. It was in his absence that David Miscavige, the Church’s current leader, seized control of Scientology.

During the 1980s, the Church hired former CIA agent and former Chief of Special Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Kennedy, L. Fletcher Prouty, to produce an affidavit on the US government’s attacks against Scientology. Notably, Prouty was previously the “Pentagon’s chief briefing officer assigned to the White House during the Eisenhower administration” who “worked closely with CIA Director Allen Dulles in coordinating military support for the clandestine political operations undertaken by the agency.” In his report, Prouty explained that “copies of intelligence messages about Scientology activities throughout the world were frequently routed to the state department, National Security Agency. Army, Navy, and defense department’s Office of Special Operations,” and that specifically “the CIA routinely received 16 copies of each message.” Prouty explained that this was “a very rare order of distribution for messages of this type and indicates a very high classification and security handling of what is otherwise unclassified information,” leading him “to believe that the government is hiding its activities behind a cloak of secrecy.”

According to reporting from the New York Times, records on file at the IRS demonstrate that “the church was earning about $300 million a year” by the early 1990s. In October 1991, now-Scientology leader Miscavige and Marty Rathbun, another senior Scientology official, held an unscheduled meeting with IRS Commissioner, Fred T. Goldberg Jr. Miscavige offered to cease Snow White’s operations and to “drop all the suits against the IRS” if Scientology was once again “given tax exemption.” For reasons unknown, not only did Goldberg agree to the Church’s demands, the IRS went so far as to create “a special five-member working group” in order “to resolve the dispute” –– an “exceptionally unusual arrangement” that bypasses the agency’s exempt organizations division, which normally handles those matters. As part of the settlement, the IRS even “agreed to distribute a fact sheet describing Scientology and Hubbard.” “It is very complete and very accurate,” Miscavige recalled. “Now, how do I know? We wrote it! And the IRS will be sending it out to every government in the world.”

Goldberg left the IRS only a few months after the decision, in January 1992, to join the Treasury department. Goldberg cited privacy laws which “prohibited him from discussing Scientology or his impromptu meeting with Miscavige.” The now-infamous meeting never appeared on Goldberg’s appointment calendar, which was later obtained by The New York Times through the Freedom of Information Act. His predecessor at the IRS, Lawrence B. Gibbs, called it “a very surprising decision.” Gibbs added that “It was even more surprising that the service made the decision without full disclosure, in light of the prior background.”

The War Is Over

While Miscavige and the Church declared “the war is over,” in reality, the battle for Scientology had barely begun. The proliferation of the internet drastically pushed forward the front of the information war. For example, public releases of top-secret Church literature, including the Xenu story present in OT III, was published in a Calgary, Canada newspaper as early as December 1974. But due to the difficulty of distribution innate to physical publications, the Church was able to mostly keep access to such secrets locked-up within the hierarchy of the organization. This all changed with the July 1991 founding of the Usenet newsgroup, alt.religion.scientology, as Scientology secrets –– once costing thousands and thousands of dollars –– were suddenly flooded all over the internet, available to millions of readers for the low price of a monthly subscription to an internet service provider.

Naturally, Scientology’s Office of Special Affairs (OSA) –– the name of the Guardian’s Office since 1983 –– sprung into action, leading to a memo from OSA’s Elaine Siegel that detailed plans to handle both electronic criticism and the proliferation of Church secrets. Ironically, Siegel’s letter was later published “more than a dozen times on Internet,” including the details of the OSA’s newly-formed internet strategy. The memo, dated May 11, 1994, stated that “as a group, we will NO longer put up with our religion being criticized, harassed and denigrated on the Internet,” in addition to “some legal actions, which you will be further briefed on.” She furthered “It will be quite simple, actually,” including plans to have “40-50 Scientologists posting on the Internet every few days,” which would “run the SPs [suppressive persons] right off the system.”

After calling the Church’s critics, “jerks,” Siegel told The Tampa Bay Times that “Scientology is going to get its own link to Internet.”

Founded by second-generation Scientologist Sky Dayton, with funding sourced from Scientologists, and with a management and board of directors featuring Scientologists, the pioneering internet service provider EarthLink was registered on June 6, 1994 –– less than one month after the circulation of Siegel’s memo.