WASHINGTON (AP) — Consultants tied to President Donald Trump may have engaged in financial fraud, tricking donors who wanted to support the nation's bipartisan 250th anniversary organizer into sending their money instead to a rival group set up by his administration, according to a report released Thursday by House Democrats.
The report draws in part on interviews by Democratic staffers of the House Committee on Natural Resources. Those interviews suggest that donors seeking to celebrate America fell for a bait-and-switch that, if true, could have violated various criminal statutes.
Donors who were intending to contribute funds to America250, a bipartisan committee created by Congress, were instead given the banking and routing numbers for a different but similarly named group, Freedom 250, the Democratic report says.
The key difference was that Freedom 250 was set up under the auspices of Trump's Republican administration to be "a vehicle for a Christian nationalist, partisan, and Trump-centered vision of American identity," according to the report.
Freedom 250, which has denied the report's claims, has focused on staging big splashy events largely held in Washington, such as the UFC cage fight at the White House on Trump's 80th birthday, the Great American State Fair on the National Mall and the upcoming July 4 celebration featuring a Trump speech and a fireworks extravaganza the president is touting as the "show of a lifetime."
Freedom 250 calls report 'partisan smear'
Freedom 250 spokesperson Danielle Alvarez dismissed the Democrats' report as "categorically false" and a "partisan smear from politicians who would rather manufacture division" than celebrate a national milestone.
"Freedom 250 remains fully committed to uniting Americans at this historic moment and giving all Americans a spectacular birthday they can be proud of — and we won't be distracted by those rooting for it to fail," said Alvarez, who previously served as a spokesperson for the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee.
Democrats allege in the report that this fits a broader pattern in which Trump hijacked the nation's 250th birthday celebration, redirecting tens of millions of dollars in both taxpayer money and private donations to boost "the President's ego, political ideology and pet projects." Much of the spending was directed to companies connected to Trump's political operation, including the event planners for the Trump rally that immediately preceded the Jan. 6, 2021, riot by a mob of his supporters at the U.S. Capitol.
"The American people are the big losers in this," said Rep. Jared Huffman, the ranking Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee. "I'm old enough to remember the bicentennial in 1976. No one cared about party labels or political agendas, religious agendas or anything else. Donald Trump stole that. He took this unifying America250 moment, and he made it all about himself."
The White House did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Report recounts Trump administration effort to control America250
The Democratic report recounts how the Trump administration sought to control America250, the nonprofit arm of the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission established by Congress in 2016 to plan celebrations for this year's anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
After the Trump administration faced pushback, Freedom 250 was created last fall as a limited liability corporation that is a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Park Foundation, the fundraising arm of the National Park Service.
