A Report Says Trump Is Trying to Give Away Part of Yosemite. The Feds Say It’s Fake News.

A bombshell report says the Trump Administration is trying to cede a quarter-mile parcel of land inside Yosemite National Park to a private developer.

But the Federal Government has pushed back on the story, calling it “simply not true.”

On August 28, NOTUS published a story alleging that the National Park Service (NPS) has been quietly working to arrange a land exchange inside Yosemite National Park with a Nevada-based real estate company. NOTUS cited four anonymous sources as well as documents that indicate the NPS was pursuing the project at the behest of officials within the Trump Administration.

“Officials are proposing the Park Service give up the land or interest in the land in the form of an easement, and in return receive land of equal value somewhere in California that has yet to be decided,” the story states.

But a spokesperson for the Department of the Interior pushed back on the report in a statement given to Outside. 

“This story relies on anonymous allegations to manufacture a political narrative that simply is not true,” the spokesperson wrote to Outside. “There has been no political pressure to reach a predetermined outcome, and claims suggesting the Department is secretly working to hand over NPS land to a private developer are false.”

Parceling Out NPS Land Requires a Rigorous Process

The federal government does have the power to swap public land with private owners or sell it off. Four primary public land agencies oversee the bulk of U.S. public land—NPS, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and U.S. Forest Service—and each agency must follow a different process for executing a land swap.

Of the four agencies, the NPS has the most stringent rules for selling off public land. Proposals must undergo a public notification process, as well as an environmental study under the National Environmental Policy Act. Then, both houses of the U.S. Congress must vote on the land sale or exchange.

“Although the Interior Secretary can, under specific conditions, make boundary changes that concurrently add and remove land within the boundary, minor boundary revisions solely to remove NPS acreage can be made only by Congress,” reads an explainer on the U.S. Congress website.

For example, a current land swap proposal between the NPS and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) would exchange 100 acres of land in West Virginia between the agencies and add a Civil War-era battlefield to Harpers Ferry National Historic Park. The swap was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Riley Moore (R-West Virginia).

In a statement, the DOI representative said that “any land exchange or access proposal involving National Park Service lands would be subject to all applicable federal laws, regulations, and departmental policies.”

“If a proposal advances, the Department will follow established procedures to ensure appropriate coordination, transparency, and public involvement consistent with federal law,” the spokesperson said. “Anonymous speculation does not change those facts.”

Swift Condemnation

According to the NOTUS report, the land swap would allow a private landowner to build a road that connects an 83-acre private land holding just outside the western boundary of the park with one of Yosemite’s main thoroughfares.

The private land holding is owned by real estate developer Kingsbarn Realty Capital, the NOTUS report said. The previous owner of the land holding had attempted a similar process in the early 2000s as part of a plan to open a private resort on the property, the report said. But district court shot down the idea in 2007 and 2012.

Former Yosemite superintendent Cicely Muldoon, who stepped down in 2025, told NOTUS that the new owners tried to revive the idea shortly before she left her post.

On August 28, several nonprofits and groups released statements condemning the project.

In a statement, Loren Blackford, the executive director of the Sierra Club, said the plan is “betraying that legacy by trying to hand parts of Yosemite to a private developer.”

“Yosemite is not Donald Trump’s to give away,” Blackford said. “This secretive deal betrays the purpose of our national parks and the promise of government has kept since Abraham Lincoln to protect Yosemite for the public and for generations to come.”

Senator Adam Schiff of California told NOTUS that his office will fight the proposal. “Yosemite is one of California’s natural wonders and must be protected from further development. The courts struck this project down once, but this administration appears hellbent on moving forward in the face of opposition from the public,” Schiff said.