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."This was a team of operatives using the Freedom 250 shell company, but it was also Donald Trump himself telling them what to do."The White House referred a request for comment to Freedom 250, though Freedom 250 told NPR that it does not speak for the White House.Freedom 250 is the public-private partnership behind some of the summer's most high-profile anniversary events, including a UFC fight outside the White House in June, a controversial state fair on the National Mall, a July Fourth fireworks show opening with a Trump rally, and the "Patriot Games," a high school athletic competition scheduled for August.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.Democratic critics and watchdog groups say Trump decided to forge ahead with his own gr...