A week ahead of an event the promotion says is not political and not transactional, an effort is being made to shut down UFC Freedom 250.
A lawsuit has been filed by, in part, a military veteran from Virginia that says the UFC’s show at the White House is “deeply corrupt,” in part because Donald Trump is giving his friend, UFC CEO Dana White, and the UFC “unfettered access to the White House and Lincoln Memorial to stage a private, for-profit sports event, with all the promotional and branding opportunities that accompany such access.”
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In essence, the UFC and White, along with its Paramount broadcast partner, are likely to experience an influx of revenue from the event — an illegality given the event is being staged on federal land and laws are in place to prevent such things from happening unless run by the government. But the event is being put on by the UFC.
The suit was filed by Paul Romano of Virginia, a Vietnam veteran, and Susan Douglas, also of Virginia, who is credited as “a longtime civic activist and organizer.”
“The President arranged to hand two of America’s most cherished monuments to a private corporation so he and his allies could profit from them. That is corruption,” Douglas said in a news release from the Public Integrity Project, which is backing the suit. “These monuments belong to all of us Americans, not to Dana White, not to advertisers like Crypto.com, and not to Donald Trump. We’re asking the court to enforce the law because the administration refuses to.”
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The full lawsuit full document is available online, as is the Public Integrity Project’s formal news release on the suit.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Lawsuit seeks to shut down UFC White House event
