Judge hits DOJ lawyers with barrage of questions on Kennedy Center renovation and Trump renaming

The judge in a court battle over efforts to add Donald Trump’s name to the front of the Kennedy Center peppered the administration’s lawyers with questions Thursday on their rush to put his name back on it.

The Trump-appointed board at the performance venue voted this month to add the words “renovated and restored by President Donald J. Trump” to the building and to rename the property “President Donald J. Trump Plaza” by Sept. 8.

“What’s magic about that date?” U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper asked Justice Department attorney Brantley Mayers, noting that it seems “expedited.”

Mayers said that was the date the board had voted on and a timetable it plans to stick to.

Cooper then asked why adding Trump’s name to the building — the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts — would not violate federal appropriations rules that prevent aggrandizement, promoting a specific individual within a federal agency.

Mayers said it would not be in violation because it would be honoring Trump in his role as president, not as chairman of the board of the Kennedy Center.

“That’s cutting it a little fine, isn’t it?” Cooper asked.

Mayers said he was being true to the statute.

Cooper did not rule on any of the issues at the hearing but said he was considering a temporary pause on the Sept. 8 date so he can fully weigh the legal issues.

“There may be a temporary holding pattern while we can give the issues the attention they deserve,” he said.

A Justice Department lawyer suggested in a court filing this week that the center may have to be demolished if Trump’s name isn’t allowed to be added to the site.

“The Board also underscores, and the undisputed evidence demonstrates, that without the prominent recognition of The Trump Administration, and President Trump’s efforts, the donors will not contribute, and the Center will continue to be in a financial and structural death spiral,” the filing said.

“Without those efforts, the Center will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down, with a determination to follow on what to build on the site, such as a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River that has been proposed, by some, for many years,” Mayers wrote in the filing .

Attorneys for ex officio board member Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, argued in court filings that the financial problems were the result of Trump’s name’s being added to the building in the first place. Now, they said, the defendants “openly threaten to do further damage to this sacred memorial if they do not get their way in emblazoning that historic marble with Trump’s name once again and renaming the grounds for him.”

“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.’ This is a breathtaking assault on the rule of law. It is delusional. And it must stop,” the filing said .

Mayers said Thursday that the new addition isn’t a renaming — it’s just a recognition. Beatty attorney Nathaniel Zelinsky said additional names are banned from being displayed on the outside of the building and can be displayed only in certain areas inside the facility.

He said the board’s move shows “outright defiance” of Cooper’s earlier order to remove Trump’s name from the front portico. The center is appealing that ruling.

Meeting minutes the Kennedy Center submitted to the court showed that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told board members that Trump — who threatened to walk away from the center after his name was removed from the facade — wanted the recognition.

“Secretary Lutnick introduced a discussion regarding recognition of the Chairman, stating that if the Chairman is to complete the renovation in two years for $257 million, and has further committed to help raise money to endow the institution, it is appropriate that he be recognized. It is important to President Trump that if he’s going to put his time and effort into the building and fundraising, that he be recognized,” the minutes said.

Trump then addressed the meeting virtually, and after “commenting on prior management and spending at the Center, the condition of the building including the parking structure, and the White House ballroom project,” he “stated his commitment to complete the renovation within two years with the building closed, and to reopen it in a substantially improved condition,” the minutes said.

The board, including Trump, then voted to pass a resolution honoring his “current and future existential and unprecedented contributions to the survival of the Center” by adding his name to the front of the building — twice.

Beatty said in a court filing that Trump was putting the cart before the horse.

“I find it particularly galling that President Trump is seeking to be recognized in this manner when the funds were appropriated by Congress and paid for by the American people, and when President Trump has not successfully renovated the Kennedy Center,” she wrote.

Lutnick told reporters before the hearing that the message is designed to “induce” and “entice” Trump.

“The idea, when you have the greatest philanthropist, the guy who’s going to raise you $500 million, you just need him to agree. And whatever the terms are, since you know he is the most credible person in the world, when he says, ‘I’m going to raise the money,’ you know he’s going to raise the money,” he said.

Lutnick, who said he’d gotten involved with the center at Trump’s request, told reporters: “There are two things that he does for enjoyment: He plays golf on the weekend, and he builds. He loves to build. So why are we talking about this? This is what he enjoys.”

“It’s fun for him,” Lutnick said. “I’m helping so he can enjoy constructing the Kennedy Center.”