Americans have largely allowed the FBI to just do what it does, believing that the often-clandestine methods employed by the Bureau will be justified by the results of whatever project they’re currently working on.

In short:  The FBI will do the dirty work, and we’re betting that the ends will justify the means.

But this sort of carte-blanche allowance afforded to the agency does create a risk of abuse of power, and folks in Pennsylvania have long wondered if this was the case in the story of a secret cache of Civil War Gold.

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FBI agents were looking for an extremely valuable cache of fabled Civil War-era gold — possibly tons of it — when they excavated a remote woodland site in Pennsylvania three years ago this month, according to government emails and other recently released documents in the case.

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On March 13, 2018, treasure hunters led the FBI to Dent’s Run, about 135 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of Pittsburgh, where legend has it an 1863 shipment of Union gold was either lost or stolen on its way to the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia.

The FBI has long refused to confirm why exactly it went digging, saying only in written statements over the years that agents were there for a court-authorized excavation of “what evidence suggested may have been a cultural heritage site.”

Here’s where it gets a little sketchy:

But the father-son duo who brought a small army of federal agents to the site remain convinced the FBI uncovered something there — and their lawyer, Bill Cluck, is still pressing the case, successfully suing for access to government emails about the dig.

This Sept. 20, 2018 file photo, Dennis Parada, right, and his son Kem Parada stand at the site of the FBI’s dig for Civil War-era gold in Dents Run, Pennsylvania. (AP Photo/Michael Rubinkam, File)

Those documents, which Cluck provided to The Associated Press, show that federal law enforcement was indeed after buried treasure.

“We believe the cache itself is in the neighborhood of 3x5x8 (feet) to 5x5x8,” wrote K.T. Newton, an assistant U.S attorney in Philadelphia, in a 2018 email marked “Confidential.”

Alas, the FBI has stated that no gold was found at Dent’s Run – but they’re unwillingness to be forthcoming up to this point has some believers casting doubts on their story.

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