At least two former House staffers of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy are on the board of a nonprofit that paid for the production costs of Duffy’s controversial family road trip video series, according to a person familiar with their roles and a document obtained by POLITICO.

The reality-show-themed travel, touted by Duffy as a celebration of America’s grandeur, has sparked concerns among Democratic lawmakers, who have expressed alarm about how some companies his department oversees helped sponsor his cross-country excursion. The video series is set to be released on YouTube this month as the United States’ semiquincentennial approaches.

The latest disclosure about his ex-aides’ involvement reveals previously unreported ties between the nonprofit, Great American Road Trip Inc., and Duffy — connections that one government ethics expert called concerning. One of those former staffers also has a link to Duffy’s family: working for his son-in-law’s House campaign.

The document, a corporate filing that the state of Delaware provided to POLITICO, lists Mark Bednar and Maxwell Docksey as two of the organization’s six directors. The person, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, said Bednar and Docksey serve as unpaid volunteers on the board. Both worked for Duffy when he was a member of Congress representing a northwest Wisconsin district, the person said.

Bednar was a spokesperson for Duffy and Docksey was a constituent services representative, according to information from LegiStorm and congressional pay data reviewed by POLITICO.

Bednar referred POLITICO to the head of the nonprofit, Tori Barnes. Docksey didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Barnes, a former U.S. Travel Association executive, said in an email this week that neither Bednar nor Docksey “have had any role whatsoever in fundraising” for Great American Road Trip Inc., adding that she’s the one who’s been doing so.

Docksey also works for the campaign of Michael Alfonso, Duffy’s son-in-law, who is seeking to represent Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District, the person said. That’s Duffy’s old seat, which he resigned from in 2019 after serving in the chamber for almost a decade. Docksey is a spokesperson for Alfonso’s campaign.



Records released by the Senate show that Bednar this year and last lobbied for Peraton, a national security company in northern Virginia that won a contract worth up to $1.5 billion in December to oversee the Federal Aviation Administration’s ongoing modernization of the United States’ air traffic control system, a priority for Duffy.

The pair’s ties to Duffy raised a red flag for Kedric Payne, who was deputy chief counsel at the House congressional ethics office from 2009 to 2014 and is now senior director of ethics at the watchdog Campaign Legal Center in Washington. The “apparent involvement of his [Duffy’s] former staffers with the group funding the show, including a lobbyist for one of the agency’s contractors, is an ethical concern,” he said in a statement to POLITICO regarding the video series.

In a statement to POLITICO last month, Barnes said the nonprofit’s six directors include “both active organizational leadership and volunteer board members who provide governance and strategic oversight.” Barnes said they are “proud to support an organization that emphasizes Secretary Duffy’s leadership in promoting the celebration of our nation’s 250th birthday through travel, storytelling and community engagement across the country.”

Richard Painter, who served as former President George W. Bush’s chief White House ethics lawyer from 2005 to 2007, said that nonprofits closely tied to government officials and also connected to “regulated industry” is a “common problem.”

DOT spokesperson Nate Sizemore in a statement to POLITICO said the nonprofit’s staffing determinations are up to its leadership. At the department, “contracting and regulatory decisions are guided by dozens of non-partisan career professionals, the law, and the facts,” he said. Sizemore didn’t immediately respond to a request for an interview with Duffy.

‘If I were the ethics officer ...’

The department has said in a lengthy fact sheet that DOT ethics attorneys cleared Duffy’s participation in the road trip, and neither he nor his family got a salary or royalties. In a memorandum of agreement between DOT and Great American Road Trip Inc., the nonprofit acknowledged that it won’t receive “any favorable consideration for any future federal financial assistance, action, contract” or other award.

The organization says it’s a 501(c)(4); Barnes in mid-May told POLITICO that its initial Form 990 wasn’t due yet, so it hadn’t been filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

The nonprofit and Duffy have come under intense scrutiny since he announced on May 8 that he and his family participated in the reality-show-style video series.

DOT has said that Great American Road Trip Inc. paid for the production costs, including gas, car rentals and lodging. The organization’s website lists various sponsors, including companies that the department regulates, such as Boeing and Toyota. Neither company immediately responded to a request for comment.

The top Democratic appropriator in the Senate, Patty Murray of Washington state, has called on DOT’s inspector general’s office to investigate the travel, and a government watchdog group has as well. POLITICO previously reported that one would-be road trip sponsor balked at the ethical implications of seeming to buy access to Duffy and opted not to participate.

Painter, now a professor at the University of Minnesota who unsuccessfully ran in a Democratic House primary in 2022, said he would tell Duffy to have “nothing to do with the nonprofit.”

“They’re too close to regulated industry,” he said. “If I were the ethics officer in the Transportation Department, that’s exactly what I would say.”



The Delaware document, which Barnes signed off on in late February, lists six directors: herself, Bednar, Docksey, DeLisa Selwitz, Michele Lieber and Jackie Reilly. POLITICO was unable to confirm the exact identities of the final three people.

The nonprofit’s principal place of business is a row house in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington. A deed obtained by POLITICO and online property information from the city show it’s owned by Barnes. This address is listed next to each of the directors’ names in the Delaware paperwork, which is called an annual franchise tax report.

In late May 2025, DOT said Duffy and his family would kick off the “Great American Road Trip” that summer. (Filming on the road took place occasionally from September to this May.)

Barnes incorporated the nonprofit on June 23 last year as Great America Road Trip Inc. — and on Dec. 29 changed its name to Great American Road Trip Inc., saying there had initially been a typo “due to a clerical error,” two other Delaware documents obtained by POLITICO show.

These records say the organization’s “affairs and business are to be managed and conducted” by the nonprofit’s directors.

Who’s who?

After Bednar was a spokesperson for Duffy, he led media relations for then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, according to his online biography. He’s now a principal at Monument Advocacy, a lobbying and public affairs shop. Monument Advocacy didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The records released by the Senate show that Bednar in 2025 and 2026 has lobbied for Peraton; the U.S. Travel Association; and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, among other entities. The travel association is a sponsor of the road trip. Neither Peraton nor WMATA are.

Peraton acknowledged a request for comment from POLITICO but didn’t provide a statement. The U.S. Travel Association didn’t respond to a request for comment, nor did WMATA.

Docksey works at Foundation Strategies, a consulting firm. He wrote on X last year that Duffy “introduced me to my wife & has been our biggest cheerleader through marriage, parenthood, & our faith.” He previously was political director of the Ohio Republican Party and the Republican National Committee’s national paid voter contact director, his online biography says. Foundation Strategies didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Alfonso, whose campaign Docksey is a spokesperson for, appears in a trailer on YouTube promoting the road trip video series. Docksey didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry from POLITICO about whether Alfonso has any comment.



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