Trump-tied organization's diesel spill on National Mall cost taxpayers $1.8 million

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Trump Caused Millions in Damage After Freedom 250 Oil Spill

Publication Date: 2026-07-17

The government spent nearly $2 million on an emergency no-bid contract to clean up a diesel spill that occurred under the supervision of Freedom 250, the shadowy organization through which President Donald Trump is managing the nation’s semiquincentennial celebrations.

In May, Freedom 250 and Event Strategies Inc., a Trump-linked event management company, installed temporary lighting while setting up the Great American State Fair on the National Mall. On May 20, fuel lines on the lighting equipment spilled at least 30 gallons of fuel onto the Mall. The fuel seeped underground, contaminating rainwater reservoirs used to irrigate the area. A second spill of an unknown quantity occurred shortly afterward.

The government awarded a “rushed, no-bid contract” worth $1.8 million for the cleanup, according to a report by Anna Kramer of NOTUS on Friday. The contract, awarded to Maryland-based Custom Lawn Service Inc., took two months to be posted publicly. Officials told Kramer the delay was due to the “emergency nature of the situation.”

Government records reported in May by The New York Times suggest the spill resulted from negligence, originating “from event-related equipment that lacked required secondary and tertiary containment measures.” However, the Trump administration has attributed problems with the 250th celebrations to left-wing saboteurs. This time, the administration alleged that vandals had slashed the fuel lines.

The government does not typically cover the cost of such cleanups. Permit holders are usually held “liable for the environmental mitigation after a spill of such magnitude,” NBC News reported last month. Hundreds of concerned citizens petitioned for Freedom 250—not taxpayers—to be held financially responsible, but their calls were apparently ignored.

The $1.8 million price tag is also significantly higher than initial estimates. According to The Times, the National Park Service was seeking a contractor for $1.1 million in May, and an Interior Department spokesperson said the cleanup “could end up costing far less.”

Read more about Freedom 250:

• How Trump Lied to People Trying to Donate to America250

Trump Administration Threatens to Jail State Officials Over Election Demands

The Trump administration has promised to withhold federal grants unless states “scrub” their voter rolls and to imprison state officials who refuse to comply.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced during a press conference in Washington on Friday that state officials who defy the administration’s new election demands could face jail time.

“If the states choose not to participate with the state program, and they choose not to participate in securing the elections, we will make sure that we make those states a priority to look at who voted in their states, and hold them—the election officials—accountable. If the election officials, once we gave them the information they need to secure their elections, and they chose not to, then those individuals can also be held accountable by fines, by penalties, and even—depending on how far it goes—prison time.”

The pledge came hours after Donald Trump delivered a national address that included numerous factual inaccuracies and vast exaggerations about his 2020 loss to Joe Biden, and weaponized those conspiracies to undermine trust in future elections.

“Working with [Commerce] Secretary [Howard] Lutnick, we are going to make our security enhancements mandatory. Meaning that if these states want a grant, and they want to be reimbursed to run federal elections, they are going to have to implement security issues,” Mullin said. “Just security issues. We’re not trying to get into anything else, but we’re saying that the machines have to be s...”