this dropped thursday, one day before july 4th, and it's genuinely wild.
House Democrats on the Natural Resources Committee released a 55-page report titled "From Vanity to Insanity: How the White House Cheated the American People out of their 250th Birthday."
The core allegation: donors who wanted to give money to America250 the official bipartisan commission Congress created back in 2016 to organize the country's 250th birthday were allegedly given incorrect wire and routing instructions, redirecting their donations instead to Freedom 250, a separate Trump-backed group created last October.
Freedom 250 organizes the flashiest events: the UFC fight at the White House on Trump's birthday, the "Great American State Fair" on the National Mall, and tomorrow's July 4th fireworks show that opens with a Trump speech.
The money trail gets worse. Congress allocated $150 million for 250th anniversary events. America250 was supposed to get $100 million of that. They've received $25 million so far. Meanwhile Freedom 250, the newer Trump-aligned group, has more funding and way more visibility.
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA), who led the investigation: "I'm a lawyer, and I know better than to pronounce that a crime has been committed. But I do know the elements of fraud, and there is evidence of all those elements here."
The report also alleges Freedom 250's CEO personally solicited foreign government officials for funding at Davos in January, despite receiving federal support and operating as a subsidiary of the National Park Foundation, which normally has to follow transparency rules a private LLC doesn't.
Freedom 250's spokesperson called the report "a partisan smear from politicians who would rather manufacture division than celebrate America's 250th birthday."
Huffman's closing line: "I'm old enough to remember the bicentennial in 1976. No one cared about party labels. Donald Trump stole that. He took this unifying moment and made it all about himself."
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