Overview of Catherine Fitts: Epstein, CIA Black Budget, the Control Grid, and the Banks’ Role in War
This interview (Tucker Carlson Network) features Catherine Austin Fitts — investor, former public official, and founder of the Solari Report — describing what she calls the “digital control grid”: an integrated global system of programmable money, digital identity, and pervasive surveillance hardware that, in her view, enables unprecedented social, spatial and financial control. She connects this infrastructure to geopolitics, black‑budget finance, private actors (including networks she links to Epstein and old central‑bank families), and the shift of power from legislatures to financial and intelligence institutions. The conversation mixes technical claims (stablecoins, FASB‑56, data centers/AI), historical context (black budgets, post‑WWII finance), policy fights (stablecoin/CBDC legislation), and practical advice for individuals and communities.
Main thesis — What is the “control grid”?
- The control grid = three integrated pillars:
- Programmable money (all‑digital, rule‑enforced currency that can be surveilled/turned on/off).
- Interoperable digital IDs and biometrics (to link identity to transactions and movement).
- Local and global hardware/infrastructure (cameras, dense cell towers, satellites, data centers, AI for tracking and enforcement).
- Together these allow surveillance, spatial control (movement limits, “15‑minute city” restrictions), targeted kinetic or non‑kinetic force, and automated enforcement of policy (a de‑facto social‑credit system).
- Programmable money shifts fiscal power to bankers/issuers (who can enforce rules directly through money), undermining representative institutions.
Key topics and claims discussed
- Programmable money and stablecoins
- Stablecoins (collateralized crypto tokens) and digital asset/token frameworks are being legislated and could function as private CBDCs; regulators and industry fights (House “Genius Act”, House/Senate “Clarity/Responsible Financial Innovation” drafts) matter.
- Stablecoins could route retail money into treasuries and globally prop up sovereign debt, while draining local banking/credit markets and consolidating financial control.
- Digital ID & biometrics
- Fingerprints, facial recognition and other biometrics are essential to making programmable money enforceable at the individual level (e.g., merchant purchases, automated sanctions on spending).
- Surveillance hardware and AI
- Examples cited: neighborhood license‑plate cameras (e.g., Flock), denser cell towers, satellites beaming connectivity, data centers/AI systems for tracking spatial and financial behavior.
- AI excels at math‑expressible phenomena (financial transactions, spatial movement), making enforcement scalable.
- Black budget & hidden finance
- Administrative changes (she cites FASB‑56, enacted in 2018 as an example) enable large swaths of federal and related budgets to be classified/removed from public financial statements, producing an opaque “black budget”.
- Historical pools of secret finance (wartime seizures, exchange stabilization fund, CIA appropriations, 1981 executive orders enabling classified contractor work) have created mechanisms for huge flows of money outside ordinary transparency and oversight.
- Epstein, Rockefeller/Rothschild networks
- Fitts links Jeffrey Epstein’s activities to development of crypto/programmable money and describes a broader network of elite financial actors she associates with central‑bank coordination and protection from intelligence agencies.
- Geopolitics and BRICS/Iran
- She suggests conflicts (and leader targeting) relate to controlling central banking, payments infrastructure, and preventing “leakage” of alternate payment channels — e.g., Iran/BRICS creating independent payment and energy relationships.
- Cultural, spiritual, and practical responses
- Emphasizes local resilience, faith, cultural renewal (art, music), health, and individual choices about money and attention as primary defenses.
Notable examples and claims
- Pandemic example: programmable rules could have made money refuse to work if you left your home; governments actually deployed many surveillance/censorship measures during COVID.
- Spatial control: tech can theoretically restrict cars, set distance limits on spending, or lock people into “15‑minute cities.”
- Targeted killings: she speculates assassinations (e.g., Iranian scientists/leaders) could be achieved by integrated digital tracking + weaponry rather than only human intelligence.
- Banking behavior and “nudging”: banks restricting large cash withdrawals (example at Wells Fargo) and pushing digital payments as part of a strategy to reduce cash use.
- Central banks buying physical gold (not ETFs) — an indicator, she says, that elites are hedging against dollar weakness.
Policy and legal mechanisms explained (brief)
- FASB‑56 (administrative policy): described as enabling classified exclusions from federal financial disclosures, thereby masking “missing money” and enabling unaccountable budget flows (Solari cites $21 trillion in unexplained adjustments found in audits).
- Stablecoin & digital asset legislation: “Genius Act” (stablecoin framework) & House “Clarity Act” / Senate “Responsible Financial Innovation Act” drafts — central battlegrounds where private versus central bank digital issuance authority is being negotiated.
- The danger she warns of: leave programmable money and tokenized asset trading unregulated or captured by the wrong parties and the entire financial ecosystem (stocks, bonds, treasuries) can become programmable and controllable.
Risks & societal implications she emphasizes
- Loss of personal autonomy: digital money + ID + infrastructure can enforce compliance on food, medicine, travel, education, and family life.
- Democratic erosion: fiscal power shifted to unelected financial/international actors undermines legislatures and representative accountability.
- Economic concentration: stablecoins and asset tokenization could centralize savings into treasuries and large trading platforms, hollowing out local credit and community economies.
- Weaponization and secrecy: black‑budget mechanisms plus classified contracting can create incentives for corruption, secrecy, and security risks.
- Cultural and spiritual erosion: the fight is also moral/ cultural; restoring trustworthy institutions and civic culture is part of defense.
Practical steps and recommendations (what individuals and states can do)
- Financial choices
- Use cash and analog means where possible; retain and normalize cash use to slow full digital conversion.
- Bank locally (credit unions, community banks) instead of large systemically complicit institutions.
- Review 401(k)/investment allocations — avoid overconcentration in firms building/benefiting from the control grid.
- Consider physical assets (she mentions gold/silver providers and Battalion Metals).
- Civic & legal actions
- Support state model legislation to prohibit or limit programmable money misuse; “put the bridle on the horse before it leaves the barn.”
- Back transparency/audit efforts: audit federal accounts at the New York Fed and exchange stabilization funds to track missing money.
- Personal & community resilience
- Invest in health (nutrition, alternatives to harmful medical pathways); learn practices that enhance resilience (examples: Wim Hof method).
- Cultivate community: support local businesses, farmers, and enterprises that strengthen local economies.
- Strengthen culture: engage with art, music, and local civic institutions — she argues culture enforces norms better than legal coercion.
- Spiritual dimension
- Fitts emphasizes faith, integrity, and community as enduring sources of protection and power beyond material controls.
Select notable quotes from the interview
- “Programmable money allows the bankers…to control fiscal policy and essentially replace legislatures.”
- “If we wind up with a 100% digital system…you are no longer in a democracy or a democratic republic, you are in a slavery system.”
- “Put the bridle and the saddle on the horse before you leave the barn.”
- “The greatest power we have is how we use our time, our attention, and our money in our daily lives.”
- “The universe is alive and intelligent…there’s no way you can control the entire universe.”
Sources, organizations and resources mentioned
- Solari Report (Catherine Austin Fitts’ organization) — commentary on the “Fast Approaching Digital Control Grid,” Missing Money briefing papers, model state legislation, Young Builders program.
- Books / authors mentioned: A New Science of Heaven (Robert Temple); writings by ESC (anonymous Substack on Epstein and programmable money); Richard Warner’s The Princes of the End (on central bank influence); Christopher Simpson (on wartime seizures and finance).
- Practices and programs: Wim Hof Method; Battalion Metals (gold/silver provider referenced).
- Legislative items referenced: “Genius Act” (stablecoin framework), “Clarity Act” / “Responsible Financial Innovation Act” (digital asset regulation) — ongoing debates.
Bottom line / Takeaway
Catherine Austin Fitts argues that an integrated system of programmable money, digital identity, and pervasive surveillance (the “control grid”) is being built and could shift power away from democratic institutions into financial‑intelligence networks. She links legal, historical and financial mechanisms (black budgets, classified accounting rules, private contractors, stablecoin/token frameworks) as enablers of this trend. Her prescribed response mixes legal/political pressure (state laws, audits), practical financial and lifestyle choices (use cash, bank locally, support local economy), cultural renewal (art, community), and spiritual resiliency. Whether one accepts all her assertions, the interview highlights real policy fights (stablecoin vs CBDC, transparency of government financials) and practical choices individuals and states face today.