Veteran Sues Over ‘Deeply Corrupt’ Trump UFC Birthday Plan
A military veteran has filed a lawsuit over President Donald Trump’s planned birthday UFC fight, calling it “deeply corrupt.”
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The suit, brought Sunday by Virginia military veteran Paul Romano and Virginian political organizer Susan Douglas, argues that the “America 250″ spectacle is more about celebrating Trump’s 80th birthday—which falls on June 14th—than America’s, which is on July 4.
Brendan Ballou, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs, told The Daily Beast the suit came together after reports last week that laid out “the extent to which the government played no role in the actual financing, planning, and execution of this, and the extent to which private parties stand to gain from the deal.”
Ballou, a former Justice Department attorney, specializes in corruption cases.
“As the corruption of this deal became increasingly apparent, that’s when we got involved,” he said.
“This lawsuit is not about MMA or about sport, it’s about corruption. And the concern here is that our most sacred national monuments are going to be used for private personal gain, the gain of Donald Trump and essentially, his business allies.”
The suit names the National Parks Service and Department of Interior, and their directors, as the defendants, hinging on the laws governing the use of national monuments.
“Federal law tightly restricts private use of the national capital’s most sacred monumental spaces, which are national parklands. Under the National Park Service’s…usual permitting regime, no special events of any sort, including any sporting events, may be held on the South Lawn or at the Lincoln Memorial. Nor may structures be erected on the South Lawn without express authorization from Congress and a thorough environmental review,” the filing says.
The suit hinges on the argument that the UFC event is not a government-organized birthday celebration, and is therefore not exempt from the regular rules relating to national monuments.
It goes after Trump for treating public lands as his own.
“Despite its name, President’s Park does not belong to the President, and may not be exploited as his whims dictate,” the legal filings say.
The suit argues that UFC, Paramount and Trump all stand to gain financially from the spectacle.
“The hallmarks of a for-profit sporting spectacle pervade the event: private financing of the buildout, private receipt of the (potentially very lucrative) proceeds, VIP access at premium prices, an exclusive broadcast expressly aimed at ‘acquiring’ new paying subscribers, and corporate sponsors paying to have their brands on prominent display,” the filing says.
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And, the suit points out, it’s very unusual to hold MMA fights on a Sunday night, suggesting that the event is more about celebrating an octogenarian milestone for one man, than a semiquincentennial for a country.
“A review of past event dates suggests that the UFC overwhelmingly holds its domestic events on Saturday nights, not Sunday nights. This is not surprising—UFC events often end well after midnight Eastern time. Accordingly, the UFC has not held a Sunday night event in the United States in nearly seven years,“ it says.
“Notably, July 4, 2026—America’s actual ’250th birthday’—is a Saturday on a holiday weekend, yet the UFC is holding no event that day, at the White House or anywhere else.“
The documents also point to statements by UFC boss Dana White that the event was long-time friend Trump’s idea. And they highlight that UFC fights are licensed to Trump ally-owned Paramount, with the premium fights on June 14 behind the Paramount+ paywall.
Ballou says there’s new case law—relating to the demolished East Wing—that supports their suit, and allows citizens to seek legal recourse against “the sort of aesthetic or dignitary harms of having national monuments and veteran’s memorials misused for personal profit.”
The suit outlines the harm caused to each plaintiff in detail, saying that “for Douglas, the erection of those structures, particularly the Claw, is disfiguring the iconic memorial landscape of downtown Washington, DC…Douglas finds the Claw aesthetically hideous, and its erection next to the White House grotesque, particularly when juxtaposed with the now-ruined East Wing.”
For Vietnam veteran Romano, the staging MMA weigh-ins at the Lincoln Memorial—adjacent to the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial—is “a grave desecration.”
“Romano considers the Lincoln Memorial’s use for a private, for-profit sporting event to be both an aesthetic travesty, and an offense to his dignity, that of other service members, and the monument itself.”
A White House official dismissed the suit as “obstructionist, baseless, and dilatory.”
“This iconic event is no different than the various other White House-hosted events on the South Lawn and properly permitted events on the Ellipse and National Mall throughout the year,” they said in a statement identical to one issued by the Department of Interior.
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The National Parks Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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