Category: National

The only man ever charged in the notorious Las Vegas murder of rapper Tupac Shakur insists he is “innocent,” being railroaded by authorities and that he only confessed to his purported role in the crime because he was getting paid to lie.

In his first interview since being arrested in September 2023, Duane “Keffe D” Davis told ABC News in a jailhouse interview that he should be at home, watching his grandchildren grow up and tending to his garden. Instead, he said, he’s being forced to stand trial in a nearly three-decade-old case that’s devoid of concrete evidence.

“I’m innocent,” Davis said during a sometimes-tearful hour-long meeting at the Clark County Detention Center. He described himself as a “good man” long retired from the drug game he once excelled at.

“I did everything they asked me to do. Get new friends. Stop selling drugs. I stopped all that,” he said, referring to police and prosecutors. “I’m supposed to be out there enjoying my twilight at one of my f—— grandson’s football games, and basketball games. Enjoying life with my kids.”

Prosecutors say Davis, 61, was a longtime member and leader of a set of the infamous Crips street gang based in his hometown of Compton, California. Authorities say that, as the alleged “shot caller” on the night of Shakur’s killing in September 1996, it was Davis who orchestrated the drive-by shooting of the rap star off the Vegas strip. On their way from Mike Tyson’s fight against Bruce Seldon, Shakur was gunned down at a red light in the passenger seat of the BMW being driven by rap impresario Marion “Suge” Knight. Shakur was rushed to the hospital and died six days later from his wounds.

Though the killing occurred on the bustling streets of Sin City – it remained unsolved for nearly 30 years, mired in police scandals and turf wars, and a street code that frowns upon snitches.

Eventually, Vegas detectives built their case off Davis’ own account of the killing, retold in multiple police interviews, public media appearances before his arrest, and a 2019 self-published memoir with his own name on it.

Davis’ previous words copping to his role in the rapper’s killing are crucial in the case against him. Investigators say they spent years working to beef up Davis’ narrative of the events by using evidence and additional accounts to firm up their case – expected to be presented to a jury in 11 months.

Davis, sitting on a wooden bench under the harsh fluorescent lights of a jailhouse conference room and accompanied by corrections officers, now insists he didn’t write his own memoir – and hasn’t even read it. And so, he says, those confessions aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.

“I’ve never read the book,” Davis said of his memoir “Compton Street Legend,” on which he shares the credit as a co-author. The back of the book bears the tagline, “The last living eyewitness to Tupac’s murder is telling his story.”

Davis says his co-author took artistic liberties he had nothing to do with.

“I just gave him details of my life,” Davis said. “And he went and did his little investigation and wrote the book on his own.”

Not only does he say he had nothing to do with Shakur’s killing, Davis said he was hundreds of miles away from where it happened – asserting for the first time where he says he was that night: “in Los Angeles,” and at home.

Davis said he has “about 20 or 30 people going to come” to his murder trial corroborating that alibi – to say nothing of the “13,000 people who say they killed Tupac.” He did not name the people who he said woukld verify where he was the night that Shakur was killed.

“I did not do it,” Davis said of what had stood as one of the best-known cold cases in modern American history. Of prosecutors leading the case against him, he said “They don’t have nothing. And they know they don’t have nothing. They can’t even place me out here. They don’t have no gun, no car, no Keffe D, no nothing.”

Las Vegas prosecutors declined to respond directly to Davis’ comments but continue to insist they are confident in the case and expect to see the man convicted at trial.

In 2008, Davis confessed to his purported role in the Shakur homicide in an interview with detectives connected to a joint federal-Los Angeles task force that had set up a drug operation sting on Davis to extract information on fellow rap icon Biggie Smalls’ murder, which happened six months after Shakur’s. Davis at the time said he didn’t have information about Biggie’s murder — but did have other information that would be valuable. That time, according to police, Davis made his admissions as part of what’s known as a “proffer agreement,” so he could not be prosecuted for what he said.

The following year, Davis again confirmed his purported role in the Shakur drive-by this time in an interview with detectives from Las Vegas. Vegas authorities were not connected to the earlier sessions, and were not required to honor any agreement that might have been made with Davis, according to interview recordings and transcripts reviewed by ABC. The only thing Vegas cops agreed to was that the interview with Davis would be voluntary and he would not be arrested on the spot.

At the time, some Las Vegas detectives wanted to bust Davis and charge him with the Tupac murder, but prosecutors feared that both sets of alleged confessions could be thrown out of court because of the purported non-prosecution agreement in LA. If a judge were to side with Davis, the case would likely have been doomed.

Davis’ lawyers did make that argument earlier this year and the judge rejected it. But the issue was largely beside the point because, officials have said, Davis went on to publicly recount his purported role in the homicide repeatedly in the years since 2009, especially in a 2018 docuseries and on the pages of “Compton Street Legends.”

Davis’ own public words “reinvigorates the investigation,” the now-retired head of the Las Vegas homicide bureau, Jason Johansson, told ABC last year.

Sitting in jail, Davis said that version of events was totally fabricated for profit when he told his story in the media. As for making his purported confession to the authorities, he said, that was a play to keep others caught up in a drug case out of prison. He said he told police what they wanted to hear “if they let me go.”

“That’s the only way you’re walking free,” Davis said, recounting the choice he felt he had to make. “It would’ve been selfish to let everybody go down because of me.”

As for the similar versions of events recounted by him on camera, before his arrest, and in the book with his name on it, Davis says that was just a financial investment.

“They paid me to say that,” he said.

Davis insists the 2008 non-prosecution agreement should still hold and that any statements to law enforcement connected with it should not be presented to the jury next year.

“I’m not even supposed to be in jail,” he said. “A deal is a deal.”

Davis also pointed the finger at an altogether different suspect: the former cop responsible for running some of the security operations for Knight and Shakur on the night of the shooting. That man, Reggie Wright Jr., a former Compton police officer, who testified before the grand jury that indicted Davis for the Shakur killing, ran security for Knight’s Death Row Records back in the mid-1990s. Wright has said he spent most of that night of the killing working out logistics at the club that Shakur and Knight were planning to visit after the Tyson fight.

Echoing a recent accusation lodged in court papers by his attorney, Davis now accuses Wright and his security team of having orchestrated the shooting that killed Shakur.

“Prove that I orchestrated this,” Davis said. “Their top witness is the lead suspect, Reggie Wright Jr.,” alleging both Wright and his onetime security company were “mercenaries.”

Wright has denied any involvement in Shakur’s killing – and points out he was there for exactly the opposite purpose that night.

“I was in charge of possibly protecting this young man,” Wright told ABC’s Nightline last year.

“It’s heartbreaking they keep dragging in my name,” Wright said reacting to Davis’ attorney’s recent allegations. “I didn’t have anything to do with that. One of the worst days of my life when I heard that that happened.”

Davis has repeatedly tried to make bail since he was arrested outside his home in Sept. 2023 but the judge refused to accept the financing packages he has put together. He now faces an additional charge and trial connected with a jailhouse fight with another inmate, set for April.

According to jailhouse surveillance footage obtained by ABC News, the man who fought with Davis appeared to have been waiting alone and unattended in a common area when Davis came walking through with an escort. The second inmate can be seen lunging at Davis, who fought back.

Both Davis and the other inmate have pleaded not guilty to charges of battery and challenging each other to fight. Davis said he was only defending himself. He has also pleaded not guilty to the murder charge.

He insists that he will eventually beat the rap on both the murder and battery charge and that he knows how to fight his way through.

“God got my back, and God will see me through this,” Davis said. “He had my back with cancer, I survived the streets, and the FBI. That’s a big accomplishment for a man from Compton.”

ABC News’ Kaitlyn Morris contributed to this report.

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Lawyers for the man accused of killing four Idaho college students are asking the judge in his capital murder case to ban a key witness from using the phrase “bushy eyebrows” to describe the assailant she saw the night of the bloody attack.

That request was included in roughly 100 pages of court filings unsealed Tuesday as preparations continue in advance of the August trial of Bryan Kohberger, who’s charged in the November 2022 killings of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin.

A roommate of the victims, who lived at the off-campus Moscow, Idaho, home where the killings occurred originally told detectives that the masked male intruder she saw on the night of the killings had a singular physical attribute: “bushy eyebrows.” That phrase has rocketed around the world as the headline-grabbing case has moved slowly toward a trial in Boise, Idaho.

Kohberger’s defense attorneys argued the superficial description will unfairly point the finger at him and potentially bias the jury.

“The description provided by [the roommate] is unreliable and should be excluded,” defense lawyer Elisa Massoth wrote. “Although she has never identified Mr. Kohberger, testimony by [the roommate] from the witness stand, describing bushy eyebrows while Mr. Kohberger sits as the accused at trial, will be as damning as her pointing to him and saying, ‘he is the man that did this.'”

The roommate’s varying accounts and self-confessed sleepy intoxication that night make her memory fickle, Kohberger’s lawyers have argued. And, they argued, she seemed preoccupied with bushy eyebrows even before her friends were killed.

When police photographed the crime scene right after the killings, her room was found to have “many pictures of eyes with prominent eyebrows” on the walls in her room, Kohberger’s lawyers said.

“Many of which she had drawn. Some of the eyebrows are heavy, voluminous, puffy, or perhaps subjectively bushy,” and there was “artwork of human figures with an emphasis upon the eyes and eyebrows were pinned to corkboards,” they said.

Kohberger’s defense attorneys have also asked the judge to bar words like “murder,” “psychopath” and “sociopath” during the trial.

“To label Mr. Kohberger as a ‘murderer,’ the alleged weapon consistent with an empty sheath as a ‘murder weapon’ or to assert that any of the four decedents was ‘murdered’ by Mr. Kohberger denies his right to a fair trial and the right to be presumed innocent,” the defense said.

Prosecutors allege that in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022, Kohberger broke into an off-campus home and stabbed the four students to death. He was arrested in late December, after a six-week manhunt, at his parents’ Pennsylvania home and indicted in May 2023.

He was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. At his arraignment, he declined to offer a plea, so the judge entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf.

If convicted, Kohberger could face the death penalty. But not if his lawyers get their way.

Defense attorneys cite autism in bid to strike death penalty

Among the flurry of new filings, the defense also argued his life should not be on the line — because he has been diagnosed with autism, and so his impairments in communication, problems with social skills and impulse control mean he is “insufficiently culpable to be executed.”

His diagnosis however should not be wielded against him, the defense said — arguing prosecutors should not be allowed to use it “by criminalizing his status as a disabled person.”

Even if this does not work to strike the death penalty, his diagnosis could resurface in the sentencing phase if Kohberger is convicted, where his lawyers will likely raise it again as a mitigating factor.

This is not the first time his lawyers have attempted to get the death penalty taken off the table.

In their argument about his condition now, Kohberger’s lawyers shed new light on what has been a heretofore little-known person to the public.

“Mr. Kohberger displays extremely rigid thinking, perseverates on specific topics, processes information on a piece-meal basis, struggles to plan ahead, and demonstrates little insight into his own behaviors and emotions” and “his tone and cadence are abnormal, his interactions lack fluidity, and his language is often overinclusive, disorganized, highly repetitive, and oddly formal,” they argued.

He “frequently shifts the topic back to himself even when it is inappropriate. He uses abrupt, matter-of-fact phrases that would be considered rude. He carries on about topics in a circular manner and perseverates about specific, non-essential details,” they said, adding his autism is “also accompanied by obsessive-compulsiveness, and an eating disorder. Since childhood, Mr. Kohberger has exhibited compulsions around getting things in his eyes, hand-washing and other germ avoidant behaviors.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Billionaire Elon Musk’s political action committee, America PAC, has placed its first-ever nationwide TV ad, a $1 million ad buy that touts President Donald Trump’s first few weeks in office following Tuesday’s joint address to Congress, a source familiar with the matter told ABC News.

The 60-second ad will run this week in the Washington, D.C., media market and across the country, the source told ABC News.

The ad begins by attacking former President Joe Biden, showing clips of him stumbling on the stairs while boarding Air Force One. A voiceover says, “After four long years of humiliation, of failure at home and embarrassment abroad, our long national nightmare is finally over.”

The ad then echoes some of what Trump highlighted in his joint address, saying the president has “delivered the lowest level of illegal immigration in history.”

Musk, who spent roughly $250 million supporting Trump during the 2024 election, has been leading the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency’s massive effort to slash federal spending by cutting government programs, laying off federal workers, selling off government buildings and attempting to close down numerous federal agencies.

Critics say Musk is carrying out his cuts without congressional authority, that his efforts are politically motivated, that DOGE is not being transparent about its work, and that it has unnecessarily accessed sensitive government data.

The America PAC ad does not mention DOGE or Musk by name, but it appears to allude to their work, saying of Trump, “He’s draining the swamp, slashing billions in waste at home, while closing the spigot of American tax dollars to foreign regimes.”

 

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(WASHINGTON) —  A former top FEMA official who was removed as part of the political blowback over payments to New York City for housing migrants in what critics called “luxury hotels” has sued the Trump administration, alleging she was “unlawfully terminated from her position” without due process.

Mary Comans, who served as the FEMA’s chief financial officer since 2017, claims in the suit that her firing led to her being “falsely condemned online” by prominent individuals including tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has been overseeing government cost-cutting measures as the head of the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency.

Comans’ lawsuit, filed in the District of Columbia on Tuesday, claims she was terminated “without any warning.” The suit says the government “failed to undertake any process to enable Ms. Comans to appropriately respond” to the allegations, and then put out a press release that she claims was in violation of the privacy act.

“Additionally, the defendants falsely, deliberately, and publicly portrayed Ms. Comans’ actions in such a manner that third parties have asserted her conduct to have been criminal, which is defamation per se, thereby further contributing to the damages she has suffered,” the filing states.

The lawsuit says the press release led to her action being “widely, publicly, and falsely condemned” by online influencers including Musk. The lawsuit includes a screenshot of one of Musk’s tweets replying to a post about Comans, in which he wrote she had committed “A criminal action.”

“Prior to her termination, Ms. Comans was an exemplary employee with absolutely no disciplinary history and had received “Achieved Excellence” ratings for every year that she served as an SES,” the filing states.

Comans has asked a judge for a declaration that DHS and FEMA’s actions were illegal, and has requested monetary damages.

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(NEW YORK) — Two storms are targeting the country, with one bringing heavy rain to the East Coast and blizzard conditions to the Midwest, and the second dropping snow and rain in the West.

East Coast storm

The East Coast storm first tore through the South, with at least 10 tornadoes reported from Oklahoma to Florida.

The storm is now barreling up the coast, moving through Georgia and South Carolina on Wednesday morning.

Later in the morning and into the afternoon, a squall line with possible tornadoes will target the area from Charleston, South Carolina, to Raleigh, North Carolina, to Virginia Beach, Virginia.

A tornado watch is in effect in the Carolinas, where damaging winds could reach 70 mph.

In the early afternoon, severe thunderstorms could hit Washington, D.C., bringing heavy rain and damaging winds.

The storm will reach Philadelphia by mid-afternoon, and then bring heavy rain and gusty winds to the New York City area during the evening rush hour.

New York City could see up to 1 inch of rain and localized flooding, the city’s emergency management department warned.

“Plan ahead if you’re in an area prone to flooding,” the department said on social media. “If traveling, take extra care and time.”

In the Midwest and the Great Lakes, the same storm system is bringing a blizzard warning from Iowa to Michigan. A combination of heavy snow and wind gusts over 50 mph will create dangerous whiteout conditions on the roads.

Parts of Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan could see 1 to 2 feet of snow by the afternoon.

Up to 1 foot of snow fell just south of Minneapolis, while the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport recorded more than 7 inches, making it the biggest snowstorm of the winter season.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz declared a peacetime emergency and authorized the state’s National Guard to give support.

“Give plows room to work,” the Minnesota State Patrol said. “Slow down, buckle up and put distractions away.”

West Coast storm

Meanwhile, a second storm is hitting 11 states in the West, from California to South Dakota, from Wednesday through Friday.

One to 3 feet of snow is possible from California to the Rocky Mountains.

Rain is expected in Southern California, including Los Angeles. There’s not a major threat for flash flooding but there could be debris flow in wildfire burn scar areas.

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(TALLAHASSEE, Fla.) — Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said Tuesday he has ordered state prosecutors to execute search warrants and issue subpoenas in the “nowactive criminal investigation” into influencer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan Tate, after they arrived in the state from Romania.

The announcement was first posted to X, saying, “Last week, I directed my office to work with our law enforcement partners to conduct a preliminary inquiry into Andrew and Tristan Tate.”

It continued, “Based on a thorough review of the evidence, I’ve directed the Office of Statewide Prosecution to execute search warrants and issue subpoenas in the now-active criminal investigation into the Tate brothers.”

The brothers landed at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Feb. 27 after Romania lifted a travel restriction on them, despite its ongoing criminal investigations into the Tates for human trafficking and forming an organized criminal group with the goal of sexually exploiting women in two cases. Andrew Tate was also charged with rape.

The Tate brothers deny all charges against them.

The two had been confined to Romania since late 2022 and were charged in both 2023 and 2024. Romanian officials announced that court restrictions prohibiting the brothers from leaving Romania while awaiting trial had been lifted, but that the charges against them remained in force. The Tates also face another criminal case in the United Kingdom, where an arrest warrant has been issued on separate allegations of human trafficking and rape. The UK government has faced calls to demand the Tates’ extradition from the U.S.

The Tates’ release followed reports of lobbying by President Donald Trump’s administration. Trump denied any knowledge of it when questioned by reporters about their arrival in the United States. But Romania’s foreign minister has confirmed that Trump’s special envoy, Richard Grenell, raised the brothers’ case during a meeting in February, although he denied being pressured. Key Trump officials and allies, including Elon Musk and Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. have previously condemned the case against the Tates.

The charges against the Tates remain in force and they will be expected to return to Romania for court appearances, according to a statement from Romania’s Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT.) The agency warned that failure to observe the remaining judicial restrictions could result in harsher restrictions being instated.

Despite other Trump allies’ support for the Tates, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis expressed surprise and anger at their arrival in Florida, telling reporters on the day that the Tates were “not welcome” given the conduct they are accused of.

Uthmeier, the attorney general, said he had directed state law enforcement to investigate whether any of their alleged crimes relating to human trafficking and violence against women triggered Florida jurisdiction, and pledging to “hold them accountable” if so.

One of the alleged victims at the center of one of the Romanian cases against Tate is a Florida woman. The American citizen has accused the Tates of luring her to Romania under the pretence of romantic relationship and then pressuring her into working as a pornographic webcam model, according to court documents.

The Tates have denied the woman’s accusations.

It is unclear if the new Florida investigation involves the women’s allegations. Uthmeier declined to give details on Tuesday but pledged to use “every tool” to hold the Tates accountable.

“These guys have themselves publicly admitted to participating in what very much appears to be soliciting, trafficking, preying upon women around the world,” he told a local reporter. “People can spin it however they want, but in Florida this type of behaviour is viewed as atrocious. We’re not going to accept it.”

“If these guys did criminal activity here in Florida we will go after them with full force of law and hold them accountable,” he said.

A lawyer representing the Tates, Joseph D. McBride, condemned the investigation, accusing Uthmeier of making “inflammatory, biased” comments and claiming the case was politically motivated.

“Today, Attorney General James Uthmeier threw ethics law out of the window when he publicly took a side in an ongoing Florida lawsuit where Andrew and Tristan Tate are suing a Florida woman,” McBride, wrote on X, challenging the attorney general to present evidence.

McBride blamed the new investigation on DeSantis, calling him “an angry, vertically challenged imp who hates Tate and Trump for being actual men. Attorney General Uthmeier is his pathetic lap dog.”

The Tates brought a defamation lawsuit against the Florida woman in the state in 2023, accusing her and her family of conspiring to damage their reputations by participating in the Romanian case. Last month, the woman brought her own countersuit against the Tates, accusing them of using the defamation lawsuit to try to silence victims. Both cases are currently pending.

A lawyer for the Florida woman in the Romania case praised the attorney general’s move to criminally investigate the Tates.

“Florida AG Uthmeier is right to criminally investigate the Tate brothers who have publicly boasted about exploiting women yet have continuously sought to undermine the Romanian investigation into these crimes,” Dani Pinter, senior vice president at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation said in a statement. “Over 40 victims have been identified across Romania, the United Kingdom, and the United States. They deserve justice. Florida’s investigation is a positive step towards justice realized.”

One of the women who is an alleged victim at the center of one of the Romanian cases is an American woman who lives in Florida.

It’s unclear from Uthmeier’s statement what the investigation is examining right now or how it might proceed.

ABC News’ Meredith Deliso and T. Michelle Murphy contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Like a radioactive hot potato, a solution to America’s growing stockpile of nuclear waste keeps getting passed around.

The issue lands before the Supreme Court on Wednesday in a dispute from Texas over the federal government’s authority to allow temporary storage of spent nuclear fuel at privately owned facilities far from reactors.

The justices are being asked to reject the arrangement, even though it’s far from clear where the highly toxic waste would go.

Congress remains at an impasse over plans first approved more than 40 years ago to hold all of the country’s nuclear waste at a single permanent, underground federal facility, which has never been completed.

There are more than 91,000 metric tons of radioactive waste from U.S. commercial nuclear power plants, according to the Energy Department. The waste remains dangerous for thousands of years and must be carefully managed.

Plaintiffs in the high court case, including the state of Texas and a group of landowners, are seeking to block Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval of a private nuclear waste storage facility in the Permian Basin, an area rich with oil deposits and limited sources of safe drinking water near the New Mexico border.

Congress in 1954 gave the commission near exclusive control over the possession and transfer of nuclear material in the U.S., including the ability to issue licenses to private entities to store it in its various forms.

In 1982, lawmakers authorized creation of a federal nuclear waste site, later designated as Yucca Mountain in Nevada, and encouraged interim waste storage by private energy companies at power plants while construction moved forward.

Texas argues that because neither law makes explicit mention of storing nuclear waste at private facilities, far from the reactors where it was generated, the commission lacks the authority to issue a license.

A federal appeals court agreed, blocking construction.

“What to do with the nation’s spent nuclear fuel implicates a host of difficult technological, environmental, and political considerations. Thankfully, that policy debate is not this Court’s concern,” Texas argues in its brief to the high court. “Because Congress has decided how to handle spent nuclear fuel, all that matters is that Yucca Mountain is not in Texas and [a private storage company] is not the federal government.”

The commission insists its broad power includes a clear right to authorize temporary, privately run nuclear storage sites and that they are an imperative for the nation.

Roughly 20% of the energy consumed in the U.S. is nuclear powered, resulting in more than 2,000 metric tons of radioactive waste every year. It all has to go somewhere.

“Such storage is essential to continued operations because no currently available or reasonably foreseeable reactor and fuel cycle technology developments have the potential to fundamentally alter the waste management challenge this nation confronts over at least the next several decades,” the government argues in court documents.

The contested site in Texas, which would be run by Interim Storage Partners, had been approved by the commission to accept up to 5,000 metric tons of nuclear waste per year for 40 years.

The company told the justices in its legal brief that invalidating government authority to send nuclear waste to privately owned sites would be “destabilizing and potentially devastating to a critical industry at a critical time.”

“Utilities are forced to deal with spent nuclear fuel storage issues on a larger scale than anyone would have liked or anticipated,” the company wrote.

A ruling in favor of the government would allow the Texas storage facility to move forward. A decision in favor of the state could scuttle the plan and upend previously approved licenses for at least a dozen other privately owned nuclear waste storage locations.

The Supreme Court is expected to hand down a decision by the end of June.

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(FORT KNOX, KY) — President Donald Trump is casting doubt — without providing evidence — over whether much of the nation’s store of gold still exists at the famous United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky, raising questions about whether somebody “stole” it.

What’s more, he’s said he wants to go to Fort Knox to see for himself.

The ultra-secure facility holds approximately 147.3 million ounces of gold, according to the U.S. Mint.

In raising questions, Trump is echoing Elon Musk, who has repeatedly questioned the whereabouts of the gold.

Their expressed skepticism comes despite Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent saying that there is an audit every year and that “all the gold is present and accounted for.”

It’s also despite Trump’s treasury secretary in his first term, Steven Mnuchin, personally visiting the reserves and confirming that the gold was there.

Still, both Musk and Trump continue to raise questions without evidence.

In an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast released Friday — one of Musk’s first comprehensive interviews since becoming a “special government employee” — Musk repeated this suspicion.

“A live tour of Fort Knox would be awesome … is the gold there or not? They say it is — is it real? Or did somebody spray paint some lead?” he asked.

In fact, these concerns appear to be brought to Musk’s attention recently. On Feb. 15, he reacted to an X post that asked him to look into the gold supply, in which he responded, “Surely it’s reviewed at least every year?”

Fort Knox is a military base that has stored U.S. gold since 1937, according to the U.S. Army’s website.

What do Trump and Musk believe?

Last week, Trump brought up the gold supply after being asked about Musk’s most recent DOGE efforts.

“We have found hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud so far. And we’ve just started. We’re actually going to Fort Knox to see if the gold is there, because maybe somebody stole the gold. Tons of gold,” Trump said.

He raised it again at his recent meeting with the nation’s governors at the White House on Feb. 21, saying that they plan to “open the doors to Fort Knox.”

“You grew up hearing about Fort Knox. You can’t get in. You can’t even see it. Nobody sees it. You go there and the place is dry,” Trump said.

Trump also referred to the site as the “fabled Fort Knox” while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One last week.

Musk — who has been tasked to eliminate government waste and fraud — has repeatedly expressed suspicion about the gold bars.

“This gold is the property of the American people. I sure hope it’s still there!” he wrote on X last month. He has also repeatedly touted that the gold could have been stolen, asking on X, “who is confirming that gold wasn’t stolen from Fort Knox?”

Musk floated the idea of live-streaming a walkthrough of Fort Knox, responding to conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ coverage of his comments by suggesting he’d like to film inside the vaults.

He repeated this idea during the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, in addition to saying, “part of this is also, you know, let’s have some fun.”

During Musk’s podcast appearance with Joe Rogan on Friday, Rogan asked the billionaire to think about his DOGE findings in relation to the gold.

“Think about all the other stuff that you pointed out. All the checks that just go out, the NGO payments, the social security people … now apply that to the gold,” Rogan said, to which Musk replied, “absolutely.”

Not all members of Trump’s administration share the same doubts.

“I think the gold is probably there. It’s probably almost certainly there,” David Sacks, Trump’s crypto czar, told Fox News last week, though he still agreed with the president’s calls to investigate the matter.

“Nobody thinks this is a crazy idea to go check because we don’t know,” Sacks added, arguing that “we cannot fully trust that our gold is still in Fort Knox” because of the “corruption” in Washington.

When was the gold last seen?

According to the U.S. Mint, “the only gold removed has been very small quantities used to test the purity of gold during regularly scheduled audits,” and no other gold has been transferred to or from the depository “for many years.”

The building was constructed using 16,000 cubic feet of granite, 4,200 cubic yards of concrete, 750 tons of reinforcing steel, and 670 tons of structural steel, the U.S. Mint says.

The gold is located at Fort Knox because it is “far from either coast, adjacent to a military installation for added security and close to a rail head for transportation,” according to a fact sheet from the U.S. Mint.

The depository has a strict no-visitors policy, as Trump alluded to, and even the president is restricted from accessing the vault. Former President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the only non-authorized person to obtain access.

However, it first opened it in 1974 for journalists and a congressional delegation to view the reserves after rumors swirled surrounding the gold’s whereabouts.

“We’ve never done this before and we’ll probably never do it again,” then-Director of the U.S. Mint Mary Brooks said after displaying the gold supply, according to a New York Times report following the visit.

The second viewing came over 40 years later in 2017 during Trump’s first administration. Then-Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell were members of a delegation invited to view the gold.

“The gold was there when I visited it,” Mnuchin said in Feb., adding that he’s “sure” nobody’s moved it and emphasizing the “serious security protocols in place.”

Former Republican Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin — who was present during this visit — also attested to the gold being at Fort Knox.

“The reality is, there is an extraordinary amount of gold that is in there,” Bevin told Fox News Business last week. He added that he agrees in transparency and that “the people’s wealth should be known and accounted for, no question.”

“Is it possible that through the years things could be taken? It is,” he admitted, before arguing that the building “is so ridiculously secure that it is not possible to sneak anything out of there.”

Bevin also floated the possibility that Musk, as the world’s richest man, may want to see what his riches look like “in physical form.”

“It is almost equivalent to how much his net worth is,” Bevin said, admitting that he would want to see the gold, too, if he were Musk.

There are “restrictions on sharing any information related to the facility’s security,” according to documents detailing the 2017 visit’s schedule and security measures published by CNN.

“Access to the USBD is limited, as the facility exists solely for the storage of gold,” the document said. “To prevent compromise of security, photographs will be subject to review by the U.S. Mint Police.”

“The Treasury Secretary allows the visit when rumors persist that all the gold had been removed from the vaults,” the U.S. Mint said in a statement.

After affirming that “all” of the gold was present, Bessent said last month, “any senator, they call the Treasury, we’re happy to arrange a visit. They can do an inspection.”

According to the Treasury’s monthly status report tracking gold owned by the Treasury, 147.3 million ounces of gold were recorded in Fort Knox as of Jan. 31, 2025.

Fort Knox has also been utilized to temporarily store valuable historical items, such as the Declaration of Independence and Constitution during World War II, as well as the Magna Carta.

The urgency to locate the gold comes despite the U.S. dollar no longer being linked to the value of gold. In 1971, Roosevelt ended the gold standard and switched to a fiat money system.

However, the traditional belief that the U.S. dollar and gold have an inverse relationship still prevails. When the dollar weakens — especially during times of inflation — the value of gold is believed to increase.

Conspiracy theories surrounding Fort Knox

Rumors of the gold being missing or stolen have been a decades-long conspiracy theory.

In 1971, Peter Beter, a lawyer and financial adviser to former President John F. Kennedy, alleged that British spies informed him that the gold in Fort Knox was secretly removed, the Washington Post reported.

Beter’s book, The Conspiracy Against the Dollar, continued to make such allegations that gold was missing. The 1974 visit, inviting journalists and congressmen to view the vault, followed soon after.

The 1964 James Bond film, “Goldfinger,” also centers around a gold smuggler who is being investigated for scheming a break in of Fort Knox in an attempt to contaminate its gold supply.

In 2010, then-Rep. Ron Paul of Texas was outspoken in his suspicions regarding the gold’s whereabouts. He introduced the “Gold Reserve Transparency Act of 2011” which called for a full audit of U.S. gold reserves.

When asked during an interview last month if he thinks the U.S. government has all the gold it claims to have, Paul said “no, I don’t. But I don’t have evidence to prove it.”

“Even if they showed us the gold, maybe the gold has been loaned out,” Paul said, citing ways that the government can “deceive the people.”

Musk has expressed support for Paul, even throwing his support behind calls for the former congressman to audit the gold.

Last month, in response to X posts asking Paul to audit the Federal Reserve, Musk responded “good idea” and “this will be great.”

Ron Paul’s son, Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, weighed in with a similar position to his father. Responding to Musk’s tweet asking whether the Fort Knox gold supply is reviewed every year, Rand Paul responded, “Nope. Let’s do it.”

On Feb. 21, Rand Paul penned a letter to Bessent requesting to audit the gold reserves at Fort Knox.

Appearing on “Fox and Friends” last month, Rand Paul acknowledged that the treasury secretary attested that the gold was there but emphasized the need for it to be audited, arguing “the more transparency, the better.”

Musk appears to not mind that his claims are perceived to be tied to conspiracy theories.

During The Joe Rogan Experience, the podcast episode opened with Rogan and Musk attempting to ask Musk’s Grok AI machine if all the gold is still in Fort Knox. While Grok AI did not provide an answer, she asked if Musk was a “conspiracy theorist” to which the two shared bouts of laughter over.

“These conspiracy theories don’t really spread per se on their own, beliefs in these conspiracy theories are instead a product of politicians and media elites sharing these ideas to trusting audiences who are already disposed toward believing them,” Peter Uscinski, professor at University of Miami that specializes in conspiracy theories, told ABC News.

“Trump and his allies have shared numerous conspiracy theories over the past eight years; there is nothing new about this, and it ties in closely with Trump and Musk setting themselves up as people who are uncovering fraud in the government,” Uscinski added.

ABC News’ Will Steakin contributed to this report.

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(TUKWILA, WA) — A postal employee was shot and killed at the United States Postal Service Processing and Distribution Center in Tukwila, Washington, on Tuesday, according to reports from the Tukwila Police Department and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service of Seattle.

Officers responded to the scene shortly after 4 p.m. local time and found an adult male with a gunshot wound and “immediately began rendering aid until fire and medic personnel arrived and took over life saving efforts,” according to Tukwila police.

However, the victim succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. His identity has not been released.

The shooter fled the scene and has not been located as of 7 p.m. local time, according to police.

Tukwila police said they have reason to believe the victim and suspect were acquainted, but the motive for the shooting remains unknown.

The Tukwila Police Department’s Major Crimes Unit is actively investigating the incident.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(WASHINGTON) — It’s been a lofty goal America’s leaders have set their sights on for generations, and President Donald Trump kicked off his second term by restating his goal of reaching the Red Planet.

“And we will pursue our Manifest Destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars,” he said during his Jan. 20 inauguration speech.

Elon Musk — the CEO of space technology company SpaceX — has the president’s ear this time around, suggesting we’ll see an even harder push to make the 140 million-mile journey to Mars.

“Can you imagine how awesome it will be to have American astronauts plant the flag on another planet for the first time?” Musk said on Inauguration Day.

It will take a herculean effort from NASA to make a mission to Mars a reality, experts told ABC News. It must build on the Artemis program — which Trump established in 2017 to build a human presence on the moon — to get people setting foot on Mars, according to NASA.

“NASA’s current moon to Mars exploration approach calls for using missions on and around the moon under the Artemis campaign to prepare for future human missions to Mars,” an agency spokesperson said in a statement sent to ABC News. “We’re looking forward to hearing more about the Trump administration’s plans for our agency and expanding exploration for the benefit of all, including sending American astronauts on the first human mission to the Red Planet.”

However, the mission can’t simply launch whenever the crews and technology are ready. Scott Hubbard ran the agency’s Mars program from 2000 to 2001, served as director of its Ames Research Center for 4 years and was in executive management at NASA for 20 years.

He noted that there are specific windows for when to launch the mission. When Earth and Mars align in their orbits around the sun, the distance and energy required for a spacecraft to travel to Mars are minimized.

The next window is just a year and a half away.

“Even with the most powerful rockets we have, there is a window of 20 days every 26 months,” he told ABC News. “And that’s it. I mean, it’s literally be there or forget about it.”

Whenever the mission takes off, it will be an incredibly challenging endurance test filled with problems never encountered before, requiring a crew of astronauts daring enough to make the journey.

Astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams have been getting a taste of that. The pair have been in space for nine months, with their planned 8-day trip to the International Space Station (ISS) getting an unexpected extension for safety reasons.

“So once we transitioned from not returning on our spacecraft, we transitioned into being a crew member, on the international crew, members on the International Space Station,” Wilmore told ABC News. “And that’s what we’ve been doing since we’ve been here.”

Williams noted that this kind of flexibility will be key for anyone hoping to go to Mars.

“I’d say nothing goes as planned and be ready for that,” she told ABC News. “You know, a little challenge, a little adversity brings out the best in us.”

This experience may one day be useful to astronauts making the 7-month journey to Mars, their fellow ISS crew member Nick Hague told ABC News.

“You know, being up here, it’s not about a singular mission. It’s not about a singular trip to Mars,” he said. “We’re part of a long legacy of exploration, of human exploration, of space, and we’re doing our little part to try to advance that.”

The ISS crew is researching some of the logistical challenges that the long journey to Mars would present.

“How do we sustain ourselves? We can’t pack all the resources we need on a trip to Mars and sustain a long mission,” Hague said. “So we’re going to have to figure out how to grow the food that we’re going to need.”

The astronauts would also need to be able to replace equipment that breaks during the trip.

“So you cannot take every single spare part with you,” Wilmore said. “You’re going to have to have some way of additive manufacturing — 3D printing.”

The trip would also expose astronauts to conditions that could lead to multiple health problems, including the potential risk of cancer and mental health issues, along with bone and muscle problems, space physiologist Rihana Bokhari told ABC News. Getting messages back to Earth could take a while as well, she noted.

“That communication delay is going to be quite large when it comes to Mars, about 20 minutes each way at the furthest,” she said.

Setting foot on the fourth planet from the sun may be the goal, but it’s only half the battle. A round-trip mission would take at least three years.

“In addition to transportation, you need a habitat. We have not yet built a place for astronauts to live for the 6 or 7 months it would take to get there and have a really reliable life support,” Hubbard, the former NASA Mars lead, told ABC News.

Hubbard believes NASA should be thinking longer term for its first manned mission to Mars.

“Not all opportunities are equal,” he said. “And if you were to look out to 2033, you see an opportunity that comes only once every 15 years. You can get the most mass to Mars of any of these other 20-day windows.”

Considering the length of time for the window from now, Hubbard noted that the Apollo missions followed a similar timeline — from the first tests in 1961 to Apollo 11 landing on the moon in 1969.

“And it’s going to take not just technological advancement but political will,” he said. “It’s going to take people to see that this is part of what we do as human beings.”

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