In May, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility sued the U.S. Interior Department over the agency’s refusal to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request for documents on Freedom 250 funding and activities. Among the group’s inquiries are reports that federal workers were being used to promote a private entity, funds are being used to push a partisan agenda and access to Trump was being sold.
“All these decisions on what events, what money to spend, the money comes in, where it goes out, it’s all in a black box,” PEER senior counsel Aaron Lloyd said in a telephone interview. “I want the government documents that explain what money went where.”