Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has taken a lead role in promoting President Donald Trump’s particular plans to mark America’s 250th anniversary. That includes helping fund Freedom250, an opaque, public-private partnership set up within Burgum’s department.

But how Freedom250 came about apparently is a mystery to the secretary—or so he said in congressional testimony on Wednesday.

Critics contend that the Trump administration is breaking laws, and dodging congressional oversight, by diverting funds appropriated for America250, a nonprofit organization set up by Congress to organize the country’s semiquincentennial, to Freedom250, a limited liability corporation that launched in December under the National Park Foundation, a nonprofit partner of the National Park Service, a federal agency that is part of the Interior Department.

At a House Natural Resources Committee hearing Wednesday on Interior’s budget request, Colorado Rep. Jared Huffman, the top Democrat on the panel, pressed Burgum, with little success, for information on the decision-making behind Freedom250.

Burgum said he did........

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