President Donald Trump’s threat to demolish the Kennedy Center unless it is named after him has prompted a fiery new legal response.
Trump, 80, previously announced a plan to close down the once-prestigious arts venue for an extensive renovation.
On Tuesday, Justice Department attorneys warned in a court filing that the current facility was “structurally unsound, fundamentally unsafe, and embarrassing to the Nation’s Capital.” They also suggested it could be bulldozed and replaced with an outdoor amphitheater.
Democrat Joyce Beatty has accused her fellow trustees on the center’s board, which is strewn with Trump allies, of holding the iconic building hostage and potentially replacing it with a “new, but very different” kind of venue.
Beatty’s lawyers said on Wednesday, “In plain English, Defendants have not-so-subtly said: `What a nice Kennedy Center you have here. What a shame should something happen to it.’”
They added, “This is a breathtaking assault on the rule of law. It is delusional. And it must stop.”
Beatty filed an emergency motion last week to ask the U.S. District Court of Columbia to block the Kennedy Centre board from again allowing the venue to be defaced by returning Trump’s name to the building, after it was removed in June, following a court ruling.
The motion came after the board voted to return Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center, with their proposed new signage including his name to read “The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump. Additionally, a second Trump reference would also be added, ”Endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund,” once the endowment reaches $100 million.
“On May 29, this Court told Defendants they could not rename the Kennedy Center for President Trump nor memorialize him on the building’s façade,” the filing stated, referencing a judge’s order to remove Trump’s name from the iconic venue and block his plans to close it for renovations.
The filing added that the Defendants had made a “deliberate decision to defy” the Court. It continued: “On August 13, Defendants voted to reattempt their earlier abuse of authority—this time, by inscribing President Trump’s name onto the Center’s façade twice and rebranding the grounds after him too.”
Beatty’s lawyers said the Trump administration is “openly” threatening “to do further damage to this sacred memorial” if it is not allowed to add the president’s name to the building, citing the Justice Department’s threat to demolish the Center and build “a large outdoor amphitheater” as a “replacement.
The lawyers noted, “In plain English, Defendants have not-so-subtly said: “What a nice Kennedy Center you have here. What a shame should something happen to it’.” They added, “This is a breathtaking assault on the rule of law. It is delusional. And it must stop.”
The Wednesday filing also slammed Justice Department attorneys for claiming the “Center will continue to be in a financial and structural death spiral” unless Trump’s name was attached.
“This is not true,” Beatty’s lawyers claimed, referencing documents obtained by the Washington Post that show ticket revenue and fundraising actually plunged when Trump’s name was added to the facade of the building in December.
Citing the Post, the lawyers said, “The Kennedy Center is in serious financial distress because of Defendants’ effort to rebrand the institution.”
They referenced internal documents that confirmed “leaders knew” the ticket sales at the venue and funds from donors “were cratering even as they publicly portrayed Trump’s takeover as a financial rescue.”
“This doublespeak is unconscionable,” the filing noted, adding of the Trump administration; “their intolerable conduct must end—now.”
In a statement, Beatty said Trump’s “handpicked Board” was playing a “dangerous game” with the law.
“The Defendants have repeatedly ignored the law, flouted the Court’s rulings, and threatened the destruction of the Kennedy Center in the name of one man’s vanity. I’ll always stand up for the law and against the Trump administration’s unlawfulness and corruption,” her statement read.
Another court hearing is scheduled for Thursday, in front of U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, who initially ordered the removal of Trump’s name from the building, saying only Congress had the authority to change the Kennedy Center’s name.
Speaking on MSNOW, host Scott MacFarlane suggested Cooper will be after answers when the case returns to court on Thursday.
“Judge Cooper wants to know why that tarp is still there,” MacFarlane said of the Kennedy Center’s facade, saying the Trump administration need to convince the judge that “this place is gonna go down in flames, if not shuttered for two years,” if the president’s name is not restored.
The tarp, covering the removal of Trump’s name, went up on June 13 and has never been taken down.
Beatty previously said Trump-appointed board have kept the tarp in place to “hide their embarrassment.”
In his court filings this week, Justice Department attorney Brantley T. Mayer argued that Trump is the person most “uniquely qualified” to rebuild the Kennedy Center given his “unrivaled expertise and experience in real estate and construction, and prominence as President.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House, the Kennedy Center and reps for Beatty for comment.
