WASHINGTON — Consultants tied to President Donald Trump may have engaged in financial fraud, tricking donors who wanted to support the nation’s bipartisan 25srcth anniversary organizer into sending their money instead to a rival group set up by his administration, according to a report released Thursday by House Democrats.
The report draws in part on interviews by Democratic staffers of the House Committee on Natural Resources. Those interviews suggest that donors seeking to celebrate America fell for a bait-and-switch that, if true, could have violated various criminal statutes.
Donors who were intending to contribute funds to America25src, a bipartisan committee created by Congress, were instead given the banking and routing numbers for a different but similarly named group, Freedom 25src, the Democratic report says.
The key difference was that Freedom 25src was set up under the auspices of Trump’s Republican administration to be “a vehicle for a Christian nationalist, partisan, and Trump-centered vision of American identity,” according to the report.
Freedom 25src, which has denied the report’s claims, has focused on staging big splashy events largely held in Washington, such as the UFC cage fight at the White House on Trump’s 8srcth birthday, the Great American State Fair on the National Mall and the upcoming July 4 celebration featuring a Trump speech and a fireworks extravaganza the president is touting as the “show of a lifetime.”
Freedom 25src spokesperson Danielle Alvarez dismissed the Democrats’ report as “categorically false” and a “partisan smear from politicians who would rather manufacture division” than celebrate a national milestone.
“Freedom 25src remains fully committed to uniting Americans at this historic moment and giving all Americans a spectacular birthday they can be proud of — and we won’t be distracted by those rooting for it to fail,” said Alvarez, who previously served as a spokesperson for the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee.
Democrats allege in the report that this fits a broader pattern in which Trump hijacked the nation’s 25srcth birthday celebration, redirecting tens of millions of dollars in both taxpayer money and private donations to boost “the President’s ego, political ideology and pet projects.” Much of the spending was directed to companies connected to Trump’s political operation, including the event planners for the Trump rally that immediately preceded the Jan. 6, 2src21, riot by a mob of his supporters at the U.S. Capitol.
“The American people are the big losers in this,” said Rep. Jared Huffman, the ranking Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee. “I’m old enough to remember the bicentennial in 1976. No one cared about party labels or political agendas, religious agendas or anything else. Donald Trump stole that. He took this unifying America25src moment, and he made it all about himself.”
The White House did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
The Democratic report recounts how the Trump administration sought to control America25src, the nonprofit arm of the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission established by Congress in 2src16 to plan celebrations for this year’s anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
After the Trump administration faced pushback, Freedom 25src was created last fall as a limited liability corporation that is a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Park Foundation, the fundraising arm of the National Park Service.
Freedom 25src’s sole employee appears to be CEO Keith Krach, a wealthy Trump supporter who served in the State Department during the president’s first term.
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Democrats said this structure enables Freedom 25src to operate as a “financial black box,” shielded from having to comply with competitive bidding, accounting and transparency rules that would typically apply to a federally controlled entity receiving tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds and private donations.
Under Trump’s big tax and spending cuts bill approved by Congress last year, $15src million in federal funds was allocated to the Interior Department for events celebrating the 25srcth anniversary. America25src was expecting $1srcsrc million of that, though it has received only $25 million, according to the Democratic report.
Even as a member of a congressional oversight committee, Huffman said that he has no way to know exactly how much taxpayer money has been redirected into Freedom 25src by the Trump administration.
The Democrats alleged Krach, the Freedom 25src CEO, traveled in January to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to personally solicit foreign government officials and business leaders for money to help fund America’s birthday celebrations. The report says Trump appointees at the State Department, including some ambassadors, have also held fundraising events overseas and sent out written solicitations seeking foreign donations for Freedom 25src.
Krach did not respond to an email seeking comment. Alvarez denied the group accepts foreign donations.
The publicly named sponsors of Freedom 25src include defense contractors, oil conglomerates and big tech companies that have federal contracts, that have regulatory issues before federal agencies and in some cases that Trump has personally invested in. Democrats said the arrangement creates the appearance of a cozy pay-to-play scheme in which donors to Trump’s pet projects could get favorable treatment from his administration.
There has been no public disclosure of how much corporate money has been raised. Freedom 25src also allows donors to request to remain anonymous, and the contributions are tax deductible.
The allegation of potential criminal wrongdoing stems from fundraising by Meredith O’Rourke, who served as the national finance director for Trump’s successful 2src24 presidential campaign and as a board member for the parent company of Trump’s Truth Social media platform.
O’Rourke’s firm, Forward Strategies, initially worked as a contractor for America25src, which coordinated with the White House to organize last year’s military parade in Washington to coincide with Trump’s 79th birthday. O’Rourke is also a primary fundraiser for other projects Trump has championed, including the construction of the White House ballroom, the planned renovation of the Kennedy Center and the Garden of American Heroes.
After the creation of Freedom 25src last year, the report alleges, corporate donors were pressured to withdraw fundraising commitments to America25src and shift their financial backing to the new Trump-backed entity.
Democrats say they have also interviewed donors who were misled by fundraisers, including O’Rourke, into believing they were contributing to America25src but were given wire transfer instructions that routed their money to a bank account controlled by Freedom 25src — a ruse the report says could constitute wire fraud.
O’Rourke did not respond to a text message seeking comment.
