Topic: American Liberty League

During the Great Depression, a group of Wall Street interests allegedly attempted to foment a fascist coup against Franklin D. Roosevelt known as the Business Plot. Gerald McGuire approached Major General Smedley Butler to lead an army of 500,000 veterans, modeled after European "brown shirts," to take over Washington D.C. The plotters sought to leverage veteran anger over unpaid bonuses and the "New Deal" policies they feared would erode their financial power.

The American Liberty League was backed by major corporations including General Motors, US Steel, and JP Morgan to oppose FDR's administration. Prescott Bush, father of George H.W. Bush, was linked to these interests through the Union Banking Corporation and the Hamburg American Line, which were involved in financing Nazi Germany. These connections persisted for decades, with Nazi war criminals reportedly surfacing in later Bush-era political campaigns.