Follow the money. Just saying. It gives you that
feeling. Yeah, like you're wearing a trench coat
in a dim parking garage at two in the morning.
Exactly. It is arguably the most famous three
-word phrase in the history of political intrigue,
maybe even the history of investigative journalism.
Oh, absolutely. It has this punchy noir quality.
It sounds gritty and real, like it's the ultimate
insider tip to unlocking all the dark secrets
of the powerful. Right. It implies that if you
just pull this one single thread, you know, the
financial thread, the whole tapestry of lies
is just gonna unravel. And honestly, it makes
you feel smart just saying it. It really does.
But here's the thing. And this is exactly why
we are doing this deep dive today. We are looking
at the source material behind this phrase, the
actual history. And we are going to unpack something
that might genuinely surprise you. I mean, it
definitely surprised me when I first looked at
the notes. Because there is the movie magic version
of this phrase, and then there is the historical
reality. And they are not the same thing. In
fact, they are, well, they are almost completely
different. They are. And what is so fascinating
about this deep dive is that we aren't just looking
at a catchphrase. We are looking at how a phrase
traveled from a screenwriter's typewriter to
become a literal weapon in modern political warfare.
So we have got Hollywood myths. We've got the
2016 election Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton,
and even a Latin phrase from ancient Rome, we
have a ton of ground to cover. We really do.
Let's start with the elephant in the room, or
rather the informant in the parking garage. Picture
the scene. It is 1976. The film is All the President's
Men. Classic. You have Hal Holbrook playing deep
throat, the shadowy informant, he is standing
in the shadows smoking a cigarette because of
course you have to smoke in the 70s, and he is
talking to Robert Redford who is playing Bob
Woodward. It is cinematic gold, the lighting,
the tension. And he leans in and whispers that
iconic line, follow the money. It is the line
that launches a thousand investigations. Yeah.
Except it never actually happened. Right. This
is the huge twist right off the bat. Our source
material highlights this as a classic Mandela
effect. Because we all collectively remember
deep throat saying this in real life just because
the movie was so good. But if you look at the
non -fiction book All the President's Men, which
Woodward and Bernstein wrote before the movie
came out, that phrase is literally nowhere to
be found. Nowhere. It is not in the book. It
does not appear in any of the actual documentation
or notes from the entire Watergate scandal. That
is just wild to me. I mean, everybody knows Deep
Threat said follow the money, but you are telling
me this was basically just a dramatic invention?
It was entirely a dramatic invention. It was
created by the screenwriter William Goldman.
And if you think about it from a writing perspective,
it makes total sense. Goldman had a massive problem
on his hands. What was the problem? He had to
adapt a book that was essentially about forensic
accounting. Oh, right. Checking bank records
isn't exactly high -octane action. Exactly. The
real investigation involved tracing checks through
Mexican banks and slush funds in Florida. It
was complicated and dry and really tedious. So
Goldman needed a way to condense all that complexity
into a singular driving directive for the audience.
Right. Follow the money, simplifies the plot.
It tells the viewer, okay, this is the mission.
This is what the heroes need to do to win. So
he basically put words in the mouth of the most
famous anonymous source in history pretty much
But deep throat or mark felt as we now know he
was must have said something somewhat like that,
right? I mean they were chasing financial trails.
They didn't just guess Oh, they absolutely were
chasing the money, but real life is rarely as
snappy as a Hollywood script The source gives
us the actual quote that Bob Woodward said to
Senator Sam Ervin in the book. This is how they
originally described the strategy. OK, I have
it right here. Instead of the cool whispered
follow the money, the actual line was, and I
quote, the key was the secret campaign cash and
it should all be traced. The key was the secret
campaign cash and it should all be traced. It
really does not roll off the tongue. Not even
a little bit. Imagine putting that on a bumper
sticker. The key was the secret campaign tash,
and it should all be traced. You would need a
really wide bumper. It is so clunky. It is in
the passive voice. It should all be traced. It
sounds like an instruction manual for a mid -level
auditor. While follow the money is an imperative,
it is an action verb. It puts you right in the
driver's seat. Which perfectly explains why the
movie version survived in our cultural memory
and the reality just faded away entirely. Okay,
so we have established that Hollywood made the
phrase famous in 1976. But does that mean William
Goldman invented the concept completely out of
thin air? Was nobody saying follow the money
before the movie? Well, this is where it gets
a bit nuanced. While the movie popularized it
globally, the phrase was actually floating around
in the ether well before 1976. Oh, really? Yeah,
the source points out a couple of specific citations
that show it was already part of the lexicon
in legal and journalistic circles. OK, so who
was the hipster saying follow the money before
it was cool? That would be Henry E. Peterson.
He was an assistant attorney general. In 1974,
so that is two full years before the movie, he
used the phrase at the Senate Judiciary Committee
hearings. 1974. Okay, so that is deep in the
Watergate era, but definitely pre -movie. Right.
This was regarding the nomination of Earl J.
Silbert as U .S. Attorney. Peterson explicitly
used the phrase, follow the money. during those
hearings. Which suggests that investigators and
prosecutors were already using this shorthand
to describe their strategy behind closed doors.
Exactly. It wasn't just a Hollywood invention.
It was professional slang. That makes perfect
sense. It is like how cops or doctors have their
own internal lingo. It eventually bleeds into
pop culture, but it starts in the field. Precisely.
And it wasn't just happening in the U .S. either.
The source notes a 1975 book titled Crime in
Britain Today. By Clive Borrell and Brian Cascinella,
right? Yes. And they also use the exact phrase,
follow the money, in that book. Crime in Britain
Today sound like a light beach read. I'm sure
it was a real page -turner. Yeah. But it proves
that the concept and the specific phrasing was
appearing in print on both sides of the Atlantic
before Robert Redford ever said it on screen.
And our source also mentions that CBS reports
had an entire series called Follow the Money.
Yes. So investigative journalists were already
framing their major stories this way. So William
Goldman didn't invent the phrase out of thin
air, but he gave it the massive platform that
made it legendary. Yeah, that's a great way to
put it. He elevated it from basic procedure to
pure mythology. OK, let's fast forward a bit.
We have gone from the 70s through Watergate and
the movie. And now the phrase is fully embedded
in our brains. Follow the money means find the
corruption. It is the gold standard. Right. Now
we jump to the modern era. And this is where
the deep dive gets really interesting. Because
this phrase stops being just a cool movie quote
and starts being deployed as a literal weapon,
specifically in the 2016 U .S. election. This
is a huge pivot for the phrase. You have to remember
the context of 2016. The political rhetoric was
incredibly sharp and follow the money was dusted
off and deployed specifically by the Donald Trump
campaign. Now, to be clear for you listening,
we are not taking sides here or endorsing any
political views. We are just impartially reporting
on the content provided in the source to show
how the phrase was utilized. Absolutely. We are
strictly looking at the rhetorical strategy.
And what stands out to me here is the irony.
You have Trump, who is often seen as this anti
-establishment figure, using a phrase associated
with bringing down a Republican President Nixon
to attack his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
It was a very deliberate strategic choice. In
September 2016, the Trump campaign explicitly
urged voters to follow the money to criticize
Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. They
were using the underlying implication of the
phrase that money trails always lead to corruption
to frame their attacks. Exactly. And the source
gives us some very specific details on what they
were alleging. It wasn't just a vague claim that
she was corrupt. They were trying to draw very
specific lines between point A and point B. So
what were the specific claims? The source outlines
three main allegations. The first one involved
a highly controversial uranium deal. Right. The
uranium one deal. I remember this dominating
the news cycle for quite a while. The Trump campaign.
allegation was that this uranium deal which involved
the sale of mining rights was approved by the
U .S. State Department while Hillary Clinton
was Secretary of State. And where does the money
come in? The follow the money argument was that
this approval happened after the Clinton Foundation
received large donations from people who had
direct financial stakes in that uranium deal.
So the narrative they were building was donors
give money to the foundation and then the State
Department approves the deal. cause and effect.
Right. Follow the money from the donors to the
decision. Whether or not you accept the premise,
the rhetorical structure itself is very powerful.
Very. And what else? The source mentions in Irish
billionaire. Yeah, Dennis O 'Brien. He is an
Irish telecom billionaire. The Trump campaign
pointed to Clinton's relationship with him as
another area where they claim financial ties
were influencing access or policy. And the third
major allegation. The third one involved the
Swiss bank UBS. This actually goes back to 2009.
There was a diplomatic deal regarding the disclosure
of the identities of American account holders.
The State Department under Clinton concluded
this deal with UBS. The Trump campaign highlighted
the fact that UBS was a donor to the Clinton
Foundation. Again, heavily connecting the policy
decision directly to the donation. Right. And
looking at this purely as analysts of the phrase,
it is a highly effective use of language. Oh,
absolutely. It takes incredibly complex international
dealings, uranium markets and Swiss banking regulations
and telecom networks, and simplifies them into
that one single instruction. All of a many. It
is brilliant branding. It is taking a complicated
web and saying to the public, you don't need
to understand the nuances of the global... uranium
market, you just need to watch the cash. Exactly.
It empowers the voter to feel like an investigator.
It tells them the truth is simple, even if the
details are messy. But here is the twist that
I think makes this entire story so compelling.
Weapons and politics have a funny way of getting
turned right back around. They almost always
do. So we move from the 2016 election to just
a few months later, February 2017. The election
is over. Trump is president. And suddenly, Follow
the Money makes a massive reappearance. But this
time, it is not coming from Trump. It is coming
at him. And you have to look at who is saying
it. It is Carl Bernstein. Literally one half
of the original Woodward and Bernstein duo, the
guys who the movie was about. The very same.
In February 2017, Carl Bernstein went on air
and used the phrase, Follow the Money. to encourage
reporters to dig into President Trump's potential
conflicts of interest. So you have the man who
helped make the concept famous, effectively reclaiming
it to target the very person who had just used
it to win a national election. It is incredibly
poetic. It is like the phrase went full circle
in the span of six months. It really did. And
the investigation that followed the literal following
of the money actually yielded legal results according
to the source? Yes. The source details the investigation
into the Trump Foundation. Now, just to distinguish
this for everyone listening, this is separate
from the Trump campaign, right? This is his charitable
foundation. Correct. This was an investigation
strictly into the charity itself, and the findings
were significant. The Trump Foundation was found
guilty of illegal campaign contributions and
other financial crimes. Financial crimes. That
is a pretty heavy outcome. What was the actual
penalty mentioned in our source? According to
the source, in November 2019, Donald Trump was
ordered to pay a $2 million settlement. $2 million.
Yes. The court found that he had misused the
foundation for his own business and political
purposes. So if we just look at this timeline
from a bird's eye view, in 2016, follow the money
is the hammer used to attack the Clinton Foundation's
donors. But by 2019, follow the money is the
methodology used to expose the Trump Foundation's
misuse of funds. And that really underscores
the raw power of the concept. It is technically
neutral. Money leaves a trail doesn't care if
you are a Democrat or a Republican He doesn't
care about your ideology at all exactly if you
transfer funds There's a record and if someone
has the patience to follow it the truth or at
least the transaction comes out It is the ultimate
equalizer You can spin a speech, you can spin
a press release, but you can't really spin a
bank transfer record. It just is what it is.
Precisely. That's why the phrase endures. It
cuts right through the noise. Now, speaking of
enduring phrases, the source mentions that follow
the money isn't the only way we talk about motive.
If we zoom out a bit, does this concept exist
elsewhere in history? Like, were the Romans walking
around in togas saying, follow the denarius?
Maybe not exactly follow the denarius, but they
had something very similar. The source brings
up the Latin phrase quibono. Quibono. I feel
10 times smarter just hearing you say it. What
does it translate to? It literally translates
to to whose benefit or for whose benefit. To
whose benefit. OK, so how is that different from
following the money? It's the broader philosophical
ancestor. It suggests that if you want to find
the culprit, you shouldn't look for the person
holding the weapon necessarily. You should look
for the person who gained the most from the crime.
That makes perfect sense. Because usually the
biggest benefit is money. Exactly. If a building
burns down, you look at who collects the insurance.
Quibono. It's a concept of hidden motive. Follow
the money is really just the modern capitalist
version of Quibono. The source also throws in
a French phrase that I have definitely heard
in old black and white detective movies. Chercher
la femme. Yes, Chercher la femme. It means look
for the woman. Which, I mean, that feels a little
dated. and probably a little sexist. It is definitely
a product of its time. The phrase comes from
a pulp fiction novel back in the 1800s. It assumes
that if a man commits a crime, there must be
a woman involved as the core motive, a lover,
a mistress, a jealous wife. So Cherche La Femme
assumes the motive is romance or passion, but
Follow the Money assumes the motive is greed.
And Quibono sort of safely covers both. It just
asks who wins. I think follow the money is probably
the most reliable in modern politics, though.
Passion fades, but greed is forever. Sad, but
often very true. And the source actually points
to a modern digital equivalent of this concept.
It lists open secrets in the see also section.
Oh, open secrets. That is the website that tracks
campaign finance, right? It is. Think about the
crazy progression here. We went from a Latin
phrase about motive to a screenwriter's fictional
line about a parking garage to a massive digital
database. OpenSecrets is basically follow the
money automated. It tracks lobbying data campaign
contributions and the net worth of politicians
all in one place. It is the tool that lets you
do from your laptop what Woodward and Bernstein
had to do by knocking on doors for months. Exactly.
But the core principle remains exactly the same.
The data is there. The money moved. You just
have to be willing to look. It is pretty incredible
when you step back and look at it. We started
this deep dive thinking we were just talking
about a cool movie line. Right. But we found
out the line was fake, yet the concept was very
real. It was used to attack Clinton. It was used
to investigate Trump. It has been used by prosecutors
since the early 70s. It really is a journey.
And I think what stands out to me the most is
how a screenwriter, William Goldman, managed
to crystallize something so complex. He took
the dry, boring reality of forensic accounting.
The key was the secret campaign cash, and he
turned it into a literal call to adventure. He
really did. Follow the money. It is an instruction.
It tells you that the truth is out there. You
just have to have the stamina to track the transfers.
And that leads to a great point. We often think
of corruption as these secret smoky room deals
that leave no trace. We think it's totally invisible.
Right, the classic smoke -filled room. But the
lesson of follow the money, whether it is Watergate
or the Clinton Foundation or the Trump Foundation,
is that corruption almost always requires a transaction.
It requires the movement of value. And in our
modern world, every movement leaves a footprint.
Which means? Which means the truth isn't usually
invisible at all. It is just buried in data.
The challenge for us today isn't finding a deep
throat to whisper secrets in a garage. It is
having the patience to look at the spreadsheets,
the tax returns, and the donation lists. The
truth is hiding in plain sight in the numbers.
It puts the power in the hands of anyone willing
to look. Which brings up a final provocative
thought for you listening to Chew On. We have
been talking a lot about politicians and billionaires
today. We're the big players. But the concept
of following the money doesn't just apply to
them anymore. Think about your own life. Every
time you swipe a credit card, use a digital wallet,
or even click on a targeted ad, you are leaving
your own personal money trail. You really are.
A massive digital footprint. So if following
the money is enough to expose presidents and
topple empires, just imagine what your own daily
transaction history exposes about you to the
companies tracking it. It is not just a political
weapon anymore. It is the reality of our digital
privacy. That is a chilling thought, but absolutely
true. Well, there you have it. The next time
you watch all the presidents men, you can lean
over to your friend and totally ruin the moment
by telling them. Deep Throat never actually said
that. You will definitely be the hit of the party.
Exactly. Thanks for joining us for this deep
dive into the currency of corruption. Stay curious
and keep following those threads.