NOTUS reports: Trump’s Quietly to Give Part of Yosemite to a Private Developer.

Since the spring of 2025, the Trump administration has been looking into ways it could cede a roughly quarter-mile strip of land inside Yosemite to a company that, through a web of limited-liability companies, is operated by real-estate developer and investment firm Kingsbarn Realty Capital. 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 private developers own an 83-acre plot of land just outside the western boundaries of Yosemite, about five miles from one of the park’s defining ancient sequoia groves. Jeff Pori, the CEO of Kingsbarn, wants to build a short road connecting the property to one of Yosemite’s central thoroughfares. The new road would give the land exceptionally rare private access to a park that is otherwise almost entirely buffered by national forests.

The property’s current access road is more than 10 miles from an entrance to the park, and much further from Yosemite’s most iconic sights. Without a new road, visitors to the property — whether it be developed into a hotel, resort or private residence — would need to drive an hour and a half in a circuitous route to reach the popular Yosemite Valley.

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If the deal goes through, the Trump administration would be breaking with 150 years of American precedent at the birthplace of the national park system. The federal government has historically strived to expand the crown-jewel national parks, not give up land within them.

In basic terms, the developer owns a property that he wants to turn into a resort and wants a road connecting the resort to the park so that guests won’t have to drive over an hour to enter. Such a swap would not only require disturbing part of the park in contravention of long-standing policy, but it would also be a huge financial boon to Pori and Kingsbarn.

The previous owner had already tried to get a road and failed.

Historically the land was called Hazel Green Ranch. Its previous owner was a California developer named Lewis Geyser, who had tried for years to persuade the Bush administration, and then the Obama administration, to let him build a short private road in Yosemite. He planned to develop Hazel Green Ranch as a resort.

In the early 2000s, the Park Service appeared interested in the possibility of working with Geyser as part of a broader plan to dramatically reduce the development pressure on the Yosemite Valley. But that plan quickly collapsed, and the National Park Service in turn refused to allow any further development within the boundaries of Yosemite.

Geyser eventually sued in 2007 to try to force the issue, losing first in district court and again on appeal in 2012.

Both times, the judges ruled that Geyser did not have a claim to a private road. While the federal government has an obligation to provide an exit for private properties completely enclosed by federal lands, it doesn’t have to allow for new roads when one already exists. The land’s existing access road — albeit old, long and winding — runs through Forest Service lands.

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But whereas the Bush, Obama and Biden administrations said no, Trump’s Interior is pushing hard to say yes.

So why does this warrant comment?

I think first and foremost it is an excellent example of how this administration views itself and power. They do not see themselves as holding some public trust and needing to work for the public good. Instead, it is about connections and business, and the promotion of private interests.

Pori has had public business ties to people in Trump’s orbit.

In April 2025, Kingsbarn Realty Capital closed a deal to acquire the Los Angeles headquarters of Kim Kardashian’s lingerie company Skims, working with two companies with links to the Trump administration: the Newmark Group and Hankey Capital. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick chaired the Newmark Group before entering the Trump administration, and did not fully divest from the company until May 2025. Don Hankey, the chair of Hankey Capital, is also the chair of an insurance company that underwrote Trump’s $175 million bond in his appeal in 2024 of a New York civil fraud judgment.

Pori personally thanked both companies in the press release announcing the deal, which he said was made possible in part by Hankey Capital.

Between 2024 and 2025, Pori made monthly, largely small-dollar donations to the Republican Party committee, Trump’s campaign committee and associated PACs. Pori does not have a history of donating to national political campaign efforts before October 2024, according to a NOTUS analysis of the Federal Election Commission donor database.

Further, I find it objectionable that this is treating Yosemite as if it is the personal property of the administration to do with as it sees fit.

It is all some perverse combination of personalism and oligarchical maneuvering.

And, shockingly, I know, this is yet another illustration that we can’t trust what this administration says.

Interior’s advocacy for the deal is a significant reversal of a pledge Secretary Doug Burgum made in his 2025 confirmation hearing: “The national parks, absolutely we need to support and protect every single inch of those,” he said.

It also contravenes the presidential message Trump shared on Aug. 24 of this year, to announce the beginning of National Park Week: “My Administration is committed to protecting every acre of our lands and preserving the cleanest air and water in the world.”

Along those lines, let’s not forget the fight over border wall construction in Big Bend National Park. Here’s an update via Texas Public Radio: Federal judge extends pause on Big Bend border security construction. Further, the Trump administration has been using fees at national parks to fund projects in DC, as the NYT reported back in May, National Park Entrance Fees Are Funding Trump’s D.C. Projects.

Nearly $60 million in fees paid by visitors to national parks across the country is funding repairs to nine of the capital’s ornamental fountains, the analysis found. The government is putting another $7 million worth of entrance fees toward the renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which costs $13.1 million overall, according to an internal Park Service document reviewed by The Times.

See also the PBS News Hour: National parks under strain from Trump’s construction projects and political pressure from this week. It notes that the fee diversion number is now at $90 million, all the while there are $24 million in backlogged maintenance projects that are not being funded in the parks. Also: DOGE cut 25% of its staff.