SHAPING HISTORY

Jan. 6 Rally Organizer Cashes In With No-Bid Deals Under Trump

Event Strategies helped stage Trump’s Ellipse rally and then landed contracts that its rivals never got to bid on.

The Trump administration has reportedly steered more than $13 million in no-bid contracts to a firm that organized President Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 rally.

Event Strategies Inc. had been a small federal player before Trump’s return to the White House. Now, according to a New York Times review, it is out-earning every other event-planning contractor for the government.

The Virginia company handled logistics for Trump’s Ellipse rally on Jan. 6, 2021, and has taken in about $22 million in federal work since his return to office.

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The striking part is how much of that money came through carve-outs that left rival firms on the sidelines. According to the Times, five of the company’s newest contracts, together worth more than $13 million, were issued through exceptions that shut out rival bidders.

Four were Navy contracts—one for a Virginia Beach concert and cookout tied to the service’s 250th birthday, two $5.2 million Norfolk event contracts, and a $2.1 million Annapolis deal.

The Treasury supplied the fifth. The department gave Event Strategies a $740,000 contract on Jan. 27, one day before a Washington kickoff for the new “Trump accounts,” a high-profile event featuring Trump, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and rapper Nicki Minaj.

The Navy told the Times the company, which received $186,000 for federal contracts during Trump’s first term and none during Joe Biden’s presidency, was the only vendor able to execute the work inside the available window. The Treasury said it was operating on a condensed timeline.

Procurement specialists quoted by the newspaper said those loopholes are supposed to be narrow exceptions, not a handy way to fast-track expensive public events. Retired Pentagon contracting expert Lorna Tedder put it even more plainly to the Times: “It’s not meant to be a shortcut.”

Trump’s ties to the company run deep. The firm has been in Trump’s orbit since his 2015 Trump Tower campaign launch and, the Times reported, has received more than $67 million from pro-Trump political committees since then.

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On Jan. 6, the firm worked on the Ellipse rally before rioters overran the Capitol. No one at the company was charged.

One of the firm’s partners, Justin Caporale, later became one of Trump’s go-to event hands and served as an aide to Melania Trump. He helped produce the 2024 campaign’s attention-grabbing stops, including Trump’s McDonald’s drive-through stunt and his garbage-truck appearance.

After the election, Trump named Caporale his “Executive Producer for Major Events and Public Appearances,” even though he stayed with Event Strategies.

The windfall may grow still larger. WIRED reported on March 10 that Event Strategies also landed a GSA schedule agreement that could run through 2045 and be worth up to $100 million, though only part of that total has been awarded so far.

Event Strategies did not address any financial matters when reached for comment by the Daily Beast, with president Tim Unes instead touting the firm’s experience.

The U.S. Navy directed the Beast’s inquiry to the White House, whose spokesman Davis Ingle told the Beast that the West Wing was not involved in the awarding of the contracts and expected agencies to follow normal federal rules.

A Treasury spokesperson said that the department “adhered to all standard processes and procedures for federal contracting and procurement.”

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Tom LatchemLead Global Correspondent

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