As America Turns 250, a Trump Adviser’s Firm Rakes in Federal Cash

To celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Donald Trump has promised the July 4 fireworks display in Washington will be the largest in world history. There will be a parade, a 17-plane flyover, and a “spectacular Trump rally” featuring a lengthy speech by the president. The private company producing these festivities, Event Strategies Inc., is no stranger to massive gatherings on the National Mall. Five years ago, the same firm helped organize Trump’s January 6, 2021, rally at the Ellipse, which preceded that day’s attack on the US Capitol.

Since Trump returned to the White House, Event Strategies, sometimes known as ESI, has received tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts from government agencies to organize anniversary events, often without completive bidding. The company also has a large contract with Freedom 250, a semi-private entity that receives public funding. Working under Freedom 250, Event Strategies is managing events including the July 4 rally, the ongoing Great American State Fair, the “Rededicate 250” prayer event on the National Mall, and other gatherings.

“This is typical behavior from the Trump administration, where everyone feels they have license to do sleazy self-dealing.”

Event Strategies won those contracts while one of its partners, Justin Caporale, holds a second position. Trump in late 2024 announced that Caporale would work for his “external operation” as “Executive Producer for Major Events and Public Appearances.” In practice, that means that Caporale is Trump’s “events guy,” a person familiar with White House planing for the anniversary said. Caporale helps Trump plan 250th anniversary celebrations and other public events, often attending meetings in the White House, the person said. His work has reportedly involved drafting budgets for anniversary spending.

Caporale is not a government employee. But his advisory role for the president’s “external operation” means he has helped to plan the same Freedom 250 festivities that the administration is paying Event Strategies, Caporale’s private firm, to carry out. Government contractors often advise federal agencies, but it is highly unusual, at least until now, for them to have regular presidential access, and to wield influence over decisions that could affect their own bottom line.

Caporale and Event Strategies haven’t been accused of breaking any laws. But critics argue that the set-up is vulnerable to abuse at a time when the president and his allies are routinely profiting from government power.

“It is clear that such a backdoor arrangement for White House advisory personnel creates the opportunity for the appearance of impropriety, the avoidance of which is a bedrock principle of all federal ethics law,” said Toni Aguilar Rosenthal, a program director at the Revolving Door Project, a nonprofit group.

“It’s just unethical,” said Craig Holman of the watchdog group Public Citizen. “This is typical behavior from the Trump administration, where everyone feels they have license to do sleazy self-dealing.”

Caporale did not respond to inquiries. The White House press office has previously said that the White House had no role in federal agencies awarding contracts to Event Strategies. But the White House did not respond to questions from Mother Jones about what exactly Caporale’s events work for Trump entails, or whether he influenced Freedom 250’s hiring of Event Strategies under its separate contract for massive DC events related to the anniversary.

Danielle Alvarez, a spokesperson for Freedom 250, defended the group’s employment of Event Strategies, arguing the company is uniquely suited to organize semiquincentennial events. “There are few firms in the world that can do this,” Alvarez said. “ESI is one of those firms. They do an excellent job at executing events.”

Donald Trump reads a note that Justin Caporale handed on stage at a campaign town hall at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center & Fairgrounds, 2024.Alex Brandon/AP

Freedom 250 won’t say exactly how much it is paying Event Strategies or any other vendors. The person familiar with anniversary planning said the firm’s profit comes from receiving a small percentage, around 3.5 percent, of the money it gets from Freedom 250 to stage events. That gives the company, and Caporale, an incentive to push for big, expensive celebrations, on American taxpayers’ dime.

Trump aides set up Freedom 250 as a limited limited liability corporation operating through the National Park Foundation, a nonprofit partner of the National Park Service. Based on that structure, Freedom 250 has asserted that, even as it spends taxpayer dollars, it does not need to tell Congress how it is using those funds.

“They have done a very clever job of hiding where the money is going,” said Alan Zibel, research director for Public Citizen. “The opaque nature of this arrangement makes public scrutiny all but impossible.”

ESI was launched 26 years ago by political operatives with experience in campaign advance work, that is, organizing candidates’ campaign appearances and other events. The company hitched up with Trump in 2015, helping to arrange his “golden escalator” campaign launch. It has since won steady work from all three Trump campaigns, and it’s been paid more than $67 million by political committees backing Trump, the New York Times has reported.

In late 2020, Turning Point USA and Women for America First, right-wing groups that had received funding from Julie Jenkins Fancelli, a Publix grocery heir, hired Event Strategies to arrange a rally Trump had announced for January 6 in Washington. With his infamous “Be there, will be wild!” tweet, Trump summoned supporters to assemble to oppose the certification of Joe Biden’s victory. The president worked up the crowd with false claims that he had actually won the election, and he urged them to march “peacefully” on Congress. More than 2,000 of his supporters ultimately stormed the Capitol.

Event Strategies was paid about $688,000 for work that included handling lights, staging, trash, and other details for Trump’s Ellipse rally, Mother Jones has reported. The firm appears to have spent a bit over $500,000 of that money to pay subcontractors.

None of the company’s employees were charged with wrongdoing. In a subsequent deposition, Caporale distanced the firm from the riot, which he called “a disgusting display that should’ve never happened.”

The House January 6 committee, in its final report released late 2022, cited a December 29, 2020 text in which Caporale told an associate that the Ellipse rally would be “a call to action to march to the [C]apitol and make noise.” That’s an indication Caporale was aware that Trump planned to urge the assembled crowd to advance on the Capitol and pressure lawmakers to allow him to remain in office.

“There are few firms in the world that can do this.”

Event Strategies continued working for Trump after January 6. And following his victory in 2024, Trump credited Caporale with helping to arrange “viral” events, including an appearance in which Trump was photographed behind the wheel of garbage truck. Caporale was also reportedly involved in a controversial incident in which Trump filmed a campaign video at Arlington National Cemetery. During the incident, another campaign staffer allegedly pushed aside a female cemetery employee who tried to stop Trump from using what many Americans consider a hallowed ground as a campaign backdrop.

Trump’s second presidency has provided a bonanza for the company, allowing it to shift from campaign events to federal government work.

After receiving less than $200,000 in federal contracts over the last decade, Event Strategies since last January has received nearly $40 million from the government, according USA Spending, a database of federal contract awards. That includes a $15 million contract the State Department gave the group in June for “event planning.” The department did not answer questions about the contract.

Wired has reported that most of ESI’s federal contracts are for anniversary events. And many were awarded with limited competition. According to the New York Times, five of the firm’s contracts were awarded without the agencies seeking competing bids. The agencies instead signed so-called sole-source contracts with the firm, citing rules that allow doing so in cases where there is an urgent need, or where the government determines only one specialized vendor can do the work.

When Trump took office, America250, a congressionally chartered nonprofit, had already spent more than a decade planning events to mark the country’s 250th anniversary. By statute, America250 is bipartisan and reports to a commission that includes lawmakers from both parties.

Still, America250 last year attempted to appease the new president. It hired a slew of Trump-linked operatives, including former Trump co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita, former Fox News pundit Monica Crowley, and Caporale. As Mother Jones first reported, the group also tapped Event Strategies to stage events, including the June 2025 military parade on Trump’s 79th birthday.

Rather than agree to anniversary celebrations that Democrats could swallow, Trump aides created Freedom 250.

But those efforts were insufficient for Trump. As he pressed for increasingly partisan and garish events to mark the anniversary, America250’s board eventually pushed back hard enough to interfere with the president’s ambitions. Rather than agree to anniversary celebrations that Democrats could swallow, Trump aides created Freedom 250, an alternative entity that allowed Trump to stage events that resemble his self-aggrandizing campaign rallies.

Freedom 250 soon tapped Event Strategies to function as its general contractor for anniversary events. That work has been is extensive. For instance, Freedom 250 has received $14 million in federal funds to dispatch a small fleet of so-called Freedom Trucks to travel the country, displaying AI-supported history lessons on the nation’s founders that were crafted by two conservative organizations, PragerU and Hillsdale College.

Critics argue the trucks offer a sanitized version of American history, ignoring Native Americans, women’s rights, and the impact of slavery. Freedom 250 didn’t directly hire staffers for the trucks. The people driving those vehicles, and interacting with visitors, work for Event Strategies, two of them told me at a recent event.

Event Strategies is just one of a host of firms and people with ties to the administration that appear to be benefitting from anniversary events. Public Citizen and the Revolving Door Project, in a June report, said that the administration has awarded more $100 million in grants and federal contracts “to a network of politicized entities” run by Trump allies for the celebrations.

Freedom 250 also employs Campaign Nucleus, a company run by Brad Parscale, a former top Trump campaign official, to provide a communications platform. Parscale’s work for the group comes while he also works as a registered agent for Israel. LaCivita and former Trump fundraiser Meredith O’Rourke also have key roles with Freedom 250, though Freedom 250 says they are unpaid.

Freedom 250 is paying contractors, at least in part, with federal appropriations. It has reportedly received at least $79 million in federal funds. But the group is also raising money from corporate donors, including many with interests before the administration.

United Airlines was added to a list of Freedom 250 donors in April, a few months after the airline reportedly pitched the Trump administration on supporting a United merger with American Airlines, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibly and Ethics in Washington has noted.

Various companies have also donated to Freedom 250 while mounting lobbying campaigns to influence federal officials. They include Palantir, the much-maligned federal contractor lobbying to boost its image; defense contracting giant Northrup Grumman; RTX, formerly known as Raytheon, another federal contractor; and mining giant Mosaic, which is seeking federal approval to expand a waste pile in Florida. Penske Corporation, the trucking and auto company owned by Trump ally Roger Penske, gave to Freedom 250 while it also stepped up its lobbying on trucking regulations and electric vehicle legislation.

Then there’s the UFC fight that Trump hosted on White House grounds on his 80th birthday, which was organized as part of the 250th celebration. That spectacle offered UFC chief executive Dana White, a Trump donor, and Paramount Skydance Corp, controlled by Trump backers Larry and David Ellison, a valuable benefit, a lawsuit by the Public Integrity Project charged. The sponsors received “unfettered access to the White House and Lincoln Memorial to stage a private, for-profit sports event, with all the promotional and branding opportunities that accompany such access,” according to the suit, which was dismissed by a judge.

Another Freedom 250 sponsor, ScottsMiracle-Gro, sells the weed-killer Roundup, which includes glyphosate, a chemical that the EPA says is safe but that lawsuits have alleged may cause cancer. The company is helping fund Trump’s anniversary events while its lobbyists push the administration to limit pesticide regulation. In February, Trump signed an executive order calling for boosting production of glyphosate, a move that could help ScottsMiracle-Gro.

After the UFC fight trashed the White House lawn, ScottsMiracle-Gro said it was donating $1 million worth of labor and materials to restore the grass. The White House promoted a gushing Fox News story about this pledge, providing what looked like free advertising for the company.

Last month, various performing artists, including Young MC, Martina McBride, and the current Milli Vanilli, backed out of Freedom 250’s Great American State Fair over concerns about the event’s partisanship. So Trump turned the fair’s opening night into a rally, featuring a speech in which he celebrated his own record. And Freedom 250 booked country music signer Alexis Wilkins, the girlfriend of FBI director Kash Patel, to perform the national anthem. Wilkins said she was not paid. But the televised event offered valuable publicity to Wilkins, whose music has so far won less notice than her relationship with Patel.

Happy birthday, America.