House Democrats accuse Trump of 'hijacking' America's 250th birthday for his own gain

Summary

President Trump speaks at a rally kicking off the Great American State Fair last week, part of the anniversary celebrations organized by White House-backed group Freedom 250. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images hide caption As America's birthday celebrations kick into high gear, so too do criticisms of the preeminent national group organizing them, Freedom 250. Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee published a 55-page report Thursday accusing the group of aiding President Trump in turning America's milestone into a "hotbed of corruption and self-enrichment" through tactics that potentially amount to criminal fraud. It's titled "From Vanity to Insanity: How the White House Cheated the American People out of their 250th Birthday." Rep. Jared Huffman of California, the ranking Democrat on the committee, told NPR that the report was months in the making. It is based on interviews with unnamed whistleblowers, sworn Congressional testimony, internal Freedom 250 documents and other written responses. "We put it all together to really tell the story … of how Donald Trump hijacked what should have been a unifying national celebration and repurposed it for his own interests," Huffman said in a Zoom interview. It was created via executive order last year, and describes itself as "the national, non-partisan organization leading the celebration of our Nation's 250th birthday." But it's not the only one: Congress had created a nonpartisan commission called America250 for this same purpose in 2016. It is not clear where that directive came from: Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, who serves as ex officio director of the foundation's board, testified before Congress in May that he was "not aware of the final decision maker on Freedom 250." That same month, he told CNN the organization is "run out of the White House." In any case, Freedom 250 emerged with more visibility and more federal funding than America250. Alvarez, of Freedom 250, says it "stepped in to rescue our nation's 250th birthday from years of wasted time, wasted money, and failed planning." But the report argues it supplanted America250 "through a series of diversions and misrepresentations that drained the chartered Commission of the resources it needed to function." The report says Congress allocated $150 million in federal funds last year to the Interior Department for events celebrating the 250th anniversary, with the "understanding" that $100 million of that would go to America250.