Mystery mires Sean Duffy road trip as IRS has no record of non-profit funding it
The IRS has no public record of a lobbyist-run nonprofit raking in millions of corporate dollars to fund a July 4th-themed reality show starring a member of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy's newly released "The Great American Road Trip" — in which he takes luxury vacations funded by companies his department regulates — has hidden its finances behind a Delaware-based nonprofit run by lobbyists whose clients benefit from Duffy's department and a spokesperson for his son-in-law's campaign.
Brendan Glavin, of the transparency watchdog group OpenSecrets, told Raw Story Great American Road Trip, Inc. is part of an alarming trend.
“Nonprofits are being hijacked for political activity,” he told Raw Story. “It’s certainly concerning.”
Months of determined reporters' searches for financial information about Great American Road Trip, Inc. — the 501(c)(4) that funded the series featuring Duffy, his reality-star alumna wife and their nine children — are limited to a two-page tax report filed in Delaware and a filing correcting a typo in the nonprofit’s name.
The nonprofit does not appear in the IRS database of tax-exempt organizations, nor does it appear on Candid, an online database of nonprofits, nor a nonprofit database maintained by ProPublica. It does not appear in the IRS’s business files in Delaware, where it is incorporated, nor in Washington D.C., where it is located.
Media requests for access to finance documents have not been heeded.
Tori Barnes, the former General Motors lobbyist who runs the nonprofit, didn't respond to an NPR request for an identification number, and told Politico in May that the nonprofit hadn’t filed an initial Form 990 because it wasn’t yet due.
It could be months before the IRS publishes the Great American Road Trip, Inc.’s financial filings because 1) the agency is “notorious” for delay and 2) the nonprofit has the right to request an extension on its deadline, according to Glavin.
What’s more, the IRS — the agency with the most access to information about such nonprofits — has a strong incentive not to investigate them.
“If you get involved, you’re putting your career at risk for potential political blowback,” Glavin said. “It’s in the IRS’s best interest in some cases to not actually go after these groups.”
Despite these roadblocks, Politico managed to unearth a corporation tax filing in Delaware dated June 23, 2025 that lists the corporation's address as Barnes’ $2 million home in Washington, D.C.
That document lists Max Docksey — campaign spokesperson for Duffy’s son-in-law Michael Alfonso’s congressional campaign in Wisconsin — as a director.
Alfonso’s campaign has received at least $1,000 from General Motors’ PAC.
Another director, Mark Bednar, successfully lobbied Duffy for a national security contract worth $1.5 billion for his client, Peraton, to modernize the nation’s Air Traffic Control System in December.
When, in June, the Transportation Department released a four-page response to mounting scrutiny over the yet-to-materialize show, it admitted it paid for Duffy’s flights when he also conducted official business.
Examples of official business included “meeting with air traffic controllers.”
Politico also unearthed a corrected certificate of incorporation — changing the name from Great America Road Trip to Great American Road Trip —that includes a promise from the directors.
“No part of the Corporation's net earnings may inure to the benefit of or be distributed to any director,” the document states.
Whether or not they have kept that promise remains unclear because so little information has been released.
The show itself only aired on Aug. 19, despite the department’s and the nonprofit’s stated mission to encourage family road trips during the summer of the nation’s 250th anniversary.
Pew Research analysis shows about half of U.S. public school students have already returned to class.
“Summer is nearly over and the American people haven’t seen a single episode of this reality TV show,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), told Forbes earlier this month. “So what did the corporate sponsors who helped fund this road trip actually pay for?”
Murray is not the only person to raise concerns that Duffy was gifted hotel rooms, a cruise, white-water rafting and ski trips from corporate sponsors regulated by his department.
Those sponsors include United Airlines, Royal Caribbean, Shell, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Lyft, as well as Boeing and Toyota, both of whom the Wall Street Journal reports donated $1 million each.
Barnes refused to disclose the nonprofit’s budget for the show to the Journal, but Forbes estimated sponsors could have spent as much as $5 million.
Barnes told The Atlantic that Duffy had “absolutely nothing to do” with nonprofit fundraising.
These denials did not prevent Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, from accusing Duffy of an ethical violation and requesting the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General investigate potential violations of federal gift and travel rules.
Specifically, CREW raised concerns Duffy had violated federal law banning executive branch officials from accepting gifts from businesses they regulate and using taxpayer funds to support his trips.
CREW’s thorough investigation included multiple sources — news reports, social media commentary, federal law citations and press releases — but no financial records.
"Secretary Duffy may have used government resources to promote the project," the watchdog group wrote in a recent demand to the federal government for more information.
"And accepting travel from companies with business before DOT potentially implicates even more significant corruption and misconduct concerns."
Six Democratic U.S. senators called on the Transportation inspector general to open an official investigation in June, accusing Duffy of accepting “gas, lodging, and other travel expenses from a non-profit funded by the very companies the Secretary regulates.”
When Forbes asked for comment, Duffy’s assistant Nate Sizemore said in an email, “career ethics officials cleared every aspect of the Secretary’s participation in the Great American Road Trip.”
Allan Lichtman (Photo Credit: Sam Lichtman, used with permission)
Book cover (Credit: Christine Van Bree Design)
Preston Harp (provided photo)