Trump Exploits 250th Anniversary of US Independence for Yet Another Grift
Jake Johnson for Common Dreams
The New York Times reported Sunday that donors who give at least $1
million to Freedom 250—a
group announced by Donald Trump in
December—have been promised a path to “gain access to, and seek favor with, a
president who has maintained a keen interest in fundraising, and a willingness
to use the levers of government power to reward financial supporters,”
including through his crypto scam and ballroom project.
Trump has described Freedom
250 as a “public-private partnership” dedicated to organizing “a celebration of
America like no other” later this year. Listed as official
corporate sponsors of the initiative are prominent corporate names,
including ExxonMobil,
Mastercard, and Palantir.
The Times obtained a donor solicitation document circulated by Meredith
O’Rourke, Trump’s top fundraiser. Donors who give at least $1 million to
Freedom 250 “will receive prominent logo placement at Freedom 250 events,”
which are expected to include UFC fights and an IndyCar race.
Freedom 250 appears to have been created to dodge oversight that applies to America250,
a bipartisan congressional commission formed to plan official celebrations of
the nation’s semiquincentennial.
“American history is being subordinated to Trump’s cult of personality,” Dan Friedman and Amanda Moore wrote in Mother Jones last week. “The president’s face is suddenly everywhere—next to George Washington on America250-themed National Parks passes; alongside Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt on giant banners hanging from federal buildings; on a $1 coin under consideration by the US Treasury.”
“Faced with sporadic pushback from a congressional
commission overseeing America250 and from career officials at various agencies,
Trump is now seeking to evade even these modest constraints,” they added,
pointing to the launch of Freedom 250.
Public
Citizen demanded a congressional probe of Freedom 250’s activities,
which the watchdog organization’s co-presidents described as a “potential
diversion of taxpayer funds for highly partisan purposes.” According to
the Times, roughly $10 million in taxpayer funds has “already been
redirected to Freedom 250 from America250 for a fleet of six mobile museums
called ‘Freedom
Trucks’ that rolled out last month.”
“ Donald Trump and
his henchmen have sabotaged what should be a unifying moment and appear intent
on instead creating a highly divisive, corporate-funded, ideologically
extremist exercise,” said Public Citizen’s Lisa Gilbert. “Once again, nothing
is sacred in the Trump administration, not even the 250th anniversary of the
Declaration of Independence. Everything is for sale to corporate and
potentially foreign interests.”
