A company with deep ties to President Trump is organizing some of the biggest events in Washington this weekend, including the Great American State Fair and the record-breaking fireworks display planned for Saturday.
Those events will be funded, in part, by $68 million in taxpayer money. But because the Trump administration has routed those funds through an opaque nonprofit, it is unclear how much the company close to the president will receive.
Event Strategies, Inc., a Virginia-based company, is run by former Trump campaign aides and veterans of what is informally called the political advance industry, meaning they set up speeches and rallies for candidates.
The firm helped organize Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign kickoff in 2015, and handled logistics for the rally on Jan. 6, 2021, where he urged supporters to march on the Capitol. When Mr. Trump was re-elected in 2024, he gave Justin Caporale, one of the firm’s partners, the title of executive producer for major events and public appearances. Mr. Caporale did not join the White House payroll, but performs that role at Event Strategies.
Now, the company has been given a high-profile — and potentially lucrative — task.
It is organizing major events for Freedom 250, a nonprofit effort that was set up by the White House to carry out Mr. Trump’s ambitious plans for the country’s 250th birthday. In a statement to The New York Times earlier this year, the firm said its duties included “production planning, logistics, vendor coordination and on-site execution.”
A spokeswoman for Event Strategies declined to say how much the company had been paid by Freedom 250, but said this week that the firm was making a profit of 3.5 percent on those payments.
In a planning document written early last year, Event Strategies estimated that the two biggest events in Washington this weekend — the Great American State Fair and the July 4 festivities — would cost a combined $45 million to stage, according to a copy of the estimate seen by The Times.
Freedom 250 did not respond to questions about the actual cost of those events, or about its contract with Event Strategies.
The Great American State Fair drew sparse crowds after it opened on June 25, though Mr. Trump said in a social media post that it was “packed with happy people.” More people are expected to visit the area Saturday for a day of concerts, military flyovers and a fireworks show that is planned to be twice as long as usual, with 850,000 pyrotechnics.
Though Freedom 250 has received taxpayer funds, it does not have to disclose details of this contract — or any other — because it is not a government agency. Legally, the group is a subsidiary of a nonprofit called the National Park Foundation, which received at least $68 million in grants from the Interior Department to fund 250th celebrations. Freedom 250 says it has also received private donations to pay some of the costs.
The arrangement has drawn criticism from Democrats in Congress. Representative Jared Huffman of California, the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee, said the administration should not be able to funnel money to the firm without more disclosure.
“Public dollars are involved. Public agencies are involved,” Mr. Huffman said in an interview. “That’s something the public has a distinct interest in knowing about.”
The White House was not involved in selecting Event Strategies for this role, a spokesman said.
The full amount that Freedom 250 paid the company could be revealed next year, in annual public filings from the organization’s parent nonprofit.
In addition to the undisclosed payments from Freedom 250, Event Strategies has also received a sharp increase in contracts from federal agencies since Mr. Trump returned to office, as The Times first reported in March.
The firm has received roughly $39 million in federal business since the start of last year. More than $13 million of that was through no-bid contracts that Event Strategies was guaranteed to win. The Pentagon, for instance, gave the firm no-bid contracts worth more than $10 million last year to stage celebrations for the Navy’s 250th anniversary.
The White House has said that Mr. Trump did not influence those contracts.
Eileen Sullivan contributed reporting.
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