Catherine Austin Fitts

Catherine Austin Fitts (born December 24, 1950) is an American investment banker and former public official who served as managing director of Dillon, Read & Co. and, during the Presidency of George H. W. Bush, as United States Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Housing. She has widely written and commented on the subject of public spending and has alleged several large-scale instances of government fraud.

Early life and education Catherine Austin Fitts was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After graduating, she briefly worked as a bartender until one of her customers, who was director of admissions at the Wharton School, encouraged her to pursue graduate studies. She received her MBA from Wharton in 1978. In 1986, Fitts became the first woman promoted to managing director of Dillon, Read & Co. in the investment bank's then 156 year history. The reforms she announced included a plan to sell government-foreclosed homes at a 50-percent discount to non-profit organizations to operate as rentals. Previously, the government had sought to sell residential properties at the highest possible value, which resulted in a glut of real estate in its portfolio that had to be managed at great expense, as well as in shortages of housing stock in some high-density markets.

She resigned her post in 1990, following a report that her relationship with Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Jack Kemp had soured, a report Kemp denied. Fitts' departure prompted criticism of Kemp; she had been – according to Neal Peirce – "widely regarded as the best manager he brought in".

According to Fitts, she was offered an appointment to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors after her departure from HUD but declined, preferring to return to the private sector instead.

Hamilton Securities and Solari After leaving government, Fitts founded Hamilton Securities, an employee-owned brokerage house, which she ran until 1998. In 1993, Hamilton Securities won a contract with HUD to manage its $500 billion investment portfolio.

In 1997, HUD canceled the Hamilton contract over what it claimed were accounting errors involving the program; an investigation into Hamilton Securities was launched by the HUD Inspector-General, the FBI, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to Fitts, the investigation was undertaken as retribution against her; she claimed that Community Wizard data revealed that some federally guaranteed mortgage securities may have been fraudulently issued.

Writing and commentary

Fitts has researched and commented on government spending. In a 2004 study published in World Affairs: The Journal of International Issues, she purported to find "evidence that a very large proportion of the nation's wealth is being illegally diverted since several decades into secret, unaccountable channels and programmes with unspecified purposes, including covert operations and subversions abroad and clandestine military R&D at home. Public institutions have been infiltrated and taken over by shadowy groups in the service of powerful private and vested interests, often at the expense of the common good."

In 2017 Fitts co-authored a report, with Michigan State University economist Mark Skidmore, that claimed to find $21 trillion in "unauthorized spending" by the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development over a 17-year period.

Fitts has claimed that HUD's mission of spurring economic growth is secondary to what she contends is its use as a fundraising mechanism for military and intelligence agencies involving a complex securities scheme using HUD-backed Ginnie Mae investments. On December 8, 2020, Trump retweeted one of Fitts' tweets which linked to an article on Breitbart. She has donated to political campaigns of Democrats Cynthia McKinney and Marcy Kaptur, and Republicans Rand Paul and Thomas Massie.

According to The Washington Post, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Fitts "worked with anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to promote unfounded claims about the pandemic and to oppose lockdown measures put in place to slow the spread of the virus" and recorded a lengthy interview as part of the 2020 film Planet Lockdown which The Washington Post reports parroted "false claims about the pandemic". She has given interviews in alternate media, such as kla.tv, alleging fraud in the US central banking system and US government ("21 trillion dollars have been stolen") and "massive fraud" in the 2020 election and Electoral fraud in US elections for many years before 2020.