The DOJ arrested and charged popular conspiracy theorist G. Edward Griffin on Tuesday for attempts to incite a bank run — attempts consisting, per the government’s own account, of explaining how banking works. Attorney General Merrick Garland stated in a press release: “G. Edward Griffin has been attempting to incite a bank run for years. His attempts to educate the public on the way the monetary system works in unacceptable and is a danger to its foundation. We are partnering with the Treasury Department to prevent further erosion of public trust.”

Garland warned that other educators are at risk of prosecution, and identified the main catalyst for the arrest as Griffin’s 1994 book The Creature from Jekyll Island. “There is no room for dollar fed and undermining the source of government funding,” Garland finished with.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen endorsed the arrest with characteristic warmth: “We should throw more conspiracy theorists in cages. The biggest threat to our democracy is for individuals to learn how money really works.” Markets rallied on the news.

The arrest is the opening beat of the defense of the dollar, the federal government’s coordinated campaign to protect the currency from people who describe it accurately.

irl: G. Edward Griffin is a real author whose The Creature from Jekyll Island (1994), a critical history of the Federal Reserve, is a staple of Bitcoiner reading lists. He has never been arrested for it; the Garland and Yellen quotes are invented. The article satirizes the sentiment that monetary education itself is treated as subversion.