Report details alleged voter data harvesting through anniversary site
A congressional investigation released Thursday alleges that President Donald Trump orchestrated a takeover of the United States’ 250th anniversary celebrations to enrich political allies, harvest voter data, and promote Christian nationalist ideology, according to an interim report from House Democratic investigators.
The report, titled “From Vanity to Insanity: How the White House Cheated the American People Out of Their 250th Birthday,” was produced by Democratic staff of the House Natural Resources Committee’s oversight and investigations subcommittee. It has not been officially adopted by the committee.
The report states that Congress established the U.S. semiquincentennial commission, operating as the nonprofit America250 Foundation, in 2016 to plan the 2026 celebrations on a nonpartisan basis. According to the report, the White House launched a sustained pressure campaign to take over the commission after America250 leadership resisted demands to shift focus toward partisan, campaign-style spectacles.
When America250 resisted, the Trump administration created Freedom 250 as a wholly owned subsidiary of the congressionally chartered National Park Foundation (NPF), the report alleges. By taking control of the NPF board and installing key campaign operatives Meredith O’Rourke and Chris LaCivita, the White House secured an opaque vehicle that enjoyed the NPF’s nonpartisan credibility and tax-exempt status while operating outside standard government transparency laws, according to the report.
The interim report alleges that Freedom 250 surreptitiously diverted resources intended for America250, leaving the congressionally created nonprofit scrambling for funds. Sources interviewed by committee staff said fundraisers including O’Rourke misled prospective America250 donors by providing them with Freedom 250’s banking and routing numbers instead, which the report says could constitute wire fraud and charitable solicitation fraud under federal and District of Columbia law.
Investigators also allege that Freedom 250 put a price tag on presidential access, circulating sponsorship packages starting at $500,000 and climbing above $10 million for tiered recognition culminating in a “historic photo opportunity” with Trump.
The report points to a June 14 event when the White House hosted a massive Ultimate Fighting Championship event on the South Lawn to celebrate the president’s 80th birthday. According to the report, the event was heavily sponsored by corporations facing impending federal regulation and used vast government resources for security marshaled by the Department of Homeland Security. Fighters received bonuses in “USD1,” a cryptocurrency issued by World Liberty Financial, a trust run by the president’s children, and Trump personally bought up to $50,000 in stock in the UFC’s parent company weeks before the event, the report finds.
Freedom 250 also functioned as a conduit for steering federal funds to Trump campaign loyalists, the report alleges. Event Strategies — the same firm that planned the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the U.S. Capitol attack — was awarded 18 federal contracts totaling roughly $40 million, along with an indefinite delivery master contract worth up to $100 million.
The report alleges that the administration built a partisan political database disguised as a government domain. Freedom 250’s website, initially managed by former Department of Government Efficiency employees known for past data leaks, extensively logs user data, according to the report. Event registration is powered by Campaign Nucleus, a firm founded by Brad Parscale, a veteran of Trump election campaigns. Campaign Nucleus openly boasts about using artificial intelligence to analyze personal data and target “persuadable” voters, the report states. Unsuspecting visitors, such as attendees of a free FIFA World Cup Fan Zone on the National Mall, unwittingly fed their personal information directly into this Republican campaign apparatus, according to the report.
The investigation also focuses on what it alleges was an ideological overhaul of the semiquincentennial. Freedom 250 replaced America250’s civic engagement focus with overt Christian nationalist programming, operating in tandem with the Religious Liberty Commission, the report says. A central feature was “Freedom Trucks” — a federally funded fleet of mobile museums dispatched to schoolchildren across the nation. Supplied with content from the conservative PragerU and Hillsdale College, these exhibits recast the founding of the U.S. as an exclusively Christian project, embracing demonstrable falsehoods, the report alleges. Exhibits include an AI-generated George Washington claiming that “our rights are a gift from God,” a statement the first president is not documented as having made, alongside antisemitic tropes suggesting that Jewish merchants financed the Revolutionary cause while omitting that they also fought and died for it.
Concurrently, the administration aggressively moved to erase historical realities, removing national park signage detailing slavery, forced removal of Indigenous peoples, and climate change, according to the report.
Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat who is the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee, said: “I can’t, in my time here in Congress, remember anything even remotely like this: watching this trusted, venerable charity organisation, the National Parks Foundation, literally be hijacked for a craven political agenda that tries to steal the celebration of America’s 250th anniversary and turn it into something that’s all about Trump, advancing this very divisive agenda and even enriching Trump and those around him.”
Huffman acknowledged that Freedom 250 is likely unstoppable as the Fourth of July approaches, with another Trump speech and a massive fireworks display planned for the National Mall. “The one thing we can do is make sure the American people know what they’re doing in our name and with our tax dollars,” he said. “We should do that because what they have pulled off here is a potential template for other betrayals of public trust that they and maybe future generations will attempt if we don’t challenge them.”