Months after President Donald Trump’s massive White House ballroom project began, we only know a handful of the donors funding it. There has never been a full list made available of exactly who’s helping to cover the estimated $400 million price tag and how much each donor has pledged. But a newly revealed contract explains why it has been so hard to pierce the veil of secrecy the White House has maintained.
At the risk of being blunt, the contract covering the ballroom donations is extremely shady
The donors forking over the cash for the ballroom, including corporate titans such as Amazon, Google and Comcast, are not giving that money directly to the federal government. Instead, they are contributing to a nonprofit group, the Trust for the National Mall, which is passing the hat on behalf of Trump and the National Parks Service. A Freedom of Information Act request from Public Citizen resulted in the nonprofit group obtaining a copy of the contract between the White House, NPS and the Trust for the National Mall, governing how the collaboration works. Public Citizen then provided the document to The Washington Post, which published it Tuesday.
At the risk of being blunt, the contract covering the ballroom donations is extremely shady. Like the rest of the project, the deal was signed quickly and quietly, less than two weeks before wrecking crews began tearing down the East Wing in October. And as the Post noted, there are details within the terms that jump out immediately as red flags:
“The contract resembles templates used by the Park Service for more routine fundraising partnerships — with several notable differences: Provisions peppered throughout the agreement prevent the signatories from revealing the identities of anonymous donors, and a review process for detecting conflicts of interest with the Park Service and Interior Department makes no mention of doing the same for the president, other White House officials or the 14 other executive departments he oversees.”
The boilerplate provisions about the need to follow applicable laws are much less specific and stringent than the ones protecting donors from being identified — likely a reflection of the White House’s priorities. Taken together, the contract functions as a blanket nondisclosure agreement for anonymous donors that only the White House can approve breaking. And it makes it so that donors who would seek to curry favor with Trump can shovel cash toward his pet project with no fear of exposure.
The clearest loophole for potential corruption is the section that tasks the White House’s with identifying “ potential donors for the Project” and referring those donors to the Trust for the National Mall, “including whether the potential donor wishes to donate anonymously.” The provisions requiring a review of whether donations would entail a conflict of interest only cover the Trust for the National Mall and NPS. The White House and any other federal agency, like, say, the Department of Justice, are exempt. A company that wants Environmental Protection Agency regulations overturned, say, could easily be cleared to throw money at the Trump administration in hopes of boosting the chances of success.
From there, the Trust for the National Mall is required to “maintain the anonymity of Project donors to the extent provided by law and not publicly recognize any such donor unless explicitly authorized in writing” by the executive residence. The contract also requires that “any audit related to this Agreement must preserve the anonymity and privacy of any donor who wishes to remain anonymous, to the maximum extent practicable, consistent with law.”
The opacity of Trump’s fundraising is equally concerning across projects, even ones that don’t technically involve the government.
There are two areas where the contract loosens up the standard operating procedures for these sorts of fundraising projects. It specifically allows companies that produce alcohol and tobacco to donate to the ballroom project, overriding NPS’s normal donor restrictions. And the Trust for the National Mall, not NPS, is the one on the hook for vetting all the donations received for the ballroom. Normally, the NPS must be the one to vet donations over $1 million, with all the usual government ethics considerations that federal agencies must follow.
The opacity of Trump’s fundraising is equally concerning across projects, even ones that don’t technically involve the government. Democratic lawmakers are wondering where several million dollars earmarked for Trump’s presidential library have gone after the initial fund was dissolved last September. A second nonprofit group established in December said it has collected $50 million in contributions for Trump’s library, less than the roughly $63 million that was previously pledged.
The good news is the Trust for the National Mall makes the ballroom project at least slightly more above board. The group is traditionally diligent about posting its annual financial statements — but it will be interesting to see if the Trust for the National Mall is similarly forthcoming about its 2025 statement. Under the structure of its deal with the White House, the Trust for the National Mall is contracted to receive up to $5 million in “administrative fees” from the first $200 million of donations. It then receives 2% of any additional money raised, so roughly another $4 million with the current price tag. That’s not more than it pulled in via total contributions in 2023, but it’s still a major chunk of revenue.
For now, a federal judge has put construction of the above-ground portions of the ballroom on pause unless and until Congress gives its express approval for the scheme. The ruling only briefly addressed the actual funding component, but it noted that the legal groundwork for it is on shaky ground at best without congressional sign off. Even as work remains on hold, Trump is free to keep nudging potential donors toward his ballroom fund along with the promise that nobody will need to know just who has opened their wallets.
Hayes Brown is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He focuses on politics and policymaking at the federal level, including Congress and the White House.