Letter to the editor: Reject antisemitic conspiracy theories, Brunswick Beacon

Brunswick Beacon, 08.07.25

“Expanding on Mike Walden,” James Cioe’s July 31 letter, contains several glaring falsehoods. Even worse, it perpetuates an antisemitic conspiracy theory about the Federal Reserve System (the Fed) that fact-checkers long ago debunked. 

Some of its falsehoods are harmless, like saying the Fed has 11 regional banks when there are actually 12. Others are disturbing, like claiming the Fed was created “in 1910, by a group of financiers” and “is owned by old money, European royal families. That is where our debt interest goes every year.” In fact, the Fed was created in 1913 by the Federal Reserve Act, which passed the House (298-60) and the Senate (43-25) and was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson. The Act requires the Fed’s regional banks to transfer net earnings to the U.S. Treasury. 

The letter falsely claims that “the President does not have the power to hire or fire the Chairman and never has.” In fact, the President selects the Chairman, subject to Senate confirmation, and can fire the Chairman for cause. In 1935, the Supreme Court ruled that “cause” means serious misconduct or abuse of power, not a disagreement over policy, as Trump suggests. Chairman Jerome Powell was selected by Trump in 2017. 

The letter’s most pernicious falsehood is that the secret group of financiers behind the Fed included “the American representative for the Rothschilds and Warburg’s (sic) of Europe,” two well-known German-Jewish banking families. PolitiFact rated this claim “Pants on Fire,” concluding: “The Rothschild family neither controls global financial systems nor is ‘behind’ the Federal Reserve. The antisemitic conspiracy theory has been repeatedly debunked.” 

Please inform yourself by Googling the Anti-Defamation League’s detailed debunking, entitled “Jewish ‘Control of the Federal Reserve: A Classic Antisemitic Myth.” It describes how “the agendas of otherwise opposing hate groups,” from Neo-Nazis to the Nation of Islam, “meet on common ground: the scapegoating of Jews.” It’s 2025. We should be better than this. 

Robert Bannerman 

Supply