Donald Trump is planning to celebrate America’s 250th birthday with hundreds of additional pardons.Some people in the White House have expressed concerns that Trump’s heavy use of his pardon authority could bode poorly for Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections, and that another batch could be even worse, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.The president is expected to announce the 250 pending pardons on either June 14—his birthday—or the Fourth of July.“A White House official said there are always conversations about how to best carry out the president’s priorities, but no decisions had been made,” the Journal reported. “Trump is the ultimate decision maker on any clemency-related actions, the official added.”Many of the pardons Trump has issued since returning to office have gone to his friends and allies. One went to Changpeng Zhao, who pleaded guilty to a money-laundering scheme that made him billions in cryptocurrency. Zhao worked to boost the Trump sons–backed World Liberty Financial crypto group, which many suspect played a role in his receiving a pardon.Trump also pardoned Trevor Milton, who was sentenced to four years in prison for defrauding investors in his electric truck company. Milton owed his victims millions of dollars in restitution, but it appears he’s now off the hook thanks to the presidential pardon.Congressional Democrats are investigating whether the pardons to the president’s friends also resulted in a payout for Trump. Lawmakers are looking into whether pardon recipients paid lobbyists, social media influencers, and lawyers, among others, to sway Trump in their favor.Trump has big, expensive plans for the county’s semiquincentennial. They include a $2 million project to clean the Washington Monument and repaint the Reflecting Pool, an expansive statue garden that will feature 250 life-size statues of American icons, and athletic competitions for high schoolers called “Patriot Games.”Elsewhere in Washington, Trump is building a $15 million “Triumphal Arc,” and is constructing a 90,000-square-foot ballroom at the White House that is likely going to cost taxpayers $1 billion (against his initial promises that it wouldn’t cost more than $200 million and that it would be entirely funded by private donations). Meanwhile, the cost of oil and gas is through the roof due to the ongoing war with Iran, which is costing the U.S. roughly $1 billion per day, according to initial estimates by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The average cost of gas nationwide is $4.53 per gallon, with large swaths of the country pushing $5 a gallon, according to the AAA’s price tracker. That’s about 50 percent higher than prices were before the war started. In some areas of California, such as Mono County, fuel costs are above $7 per gallon.