As of this writing, Donald Trump’s name is still on the side of the Kennedy Center. MSNOW set up this helpful livestream, that shows scaffolding and a cherry picker ready to effectuate Judge Christopher Cooper’s order to take it down today, but so far, it’s still up.
On May 29, the court issued partial summary judgment in favor of Rep. Joyce Beatty, an ex officio member of the Center’s board, who sued to block the name change and to prevent the planned two-year shutdown. The Center had 14 days to effectuate the name change, and on June 4, the general counsel sent a memo to the remaining staff instructing them to “immediately change email signatures, letterhead, and other documents to reflect the name as ‘The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,’ or ‘Kennedy Center.’”
But at the eleventh hour, the Center’s board — packed with such luminaries as Maria Bartiromo, Lee Greenwood, and Dan Scavino, Trump’s caddy-turned-deputy chief of staff — had a change of heart. They noticed an appeal to the DC Circuit and filed a motion to stay the judge’s ruling.
“Absent a stay, Defendants will be forced to squander time and money—by both removing the signage and then potentially returning it after appeal—that cannot be recovered when Defendants prevail on the merits,” they argued. “That is the very definition of irreparable harm.”
This might be more credible if they hadn’t spent the past 18 months arguing that burning down entire federal agencies, such as the US Institute for Peace and the US African Development Foundation, was not the type of irreparable harm that could be enjoined.
“Additionally, removal of the name threatens to impede the Center’s fundraising efforts and contribute to the financial decline of the Center,” the continued. “This loss of fundraising time and potential is also definitionally irreparable, and the public interest weighs in favor of an economically viable Center.”
This rests on the implicit assumption that having Trump’s name on it will bring in donor money, which, as Rep. Beatty points out in her opposition to the stay, contradicts Judge Cooper’s own finding that there “is no proof that current or future donations hinge on President Trump’s name being on the building.”
That fundraising may take something of a hit thanks to the Center’s own actions, according to a breach of contract complaint filed this morning by the Washington National Opera. WNO has been affiliated with the Center for 15 years and most of the opera’s development is handled by the Center — or it was until 2025, when Trump fired the old board, installed himself as chair, and made professional shitposter Ric Grenell the executive director. According to the complaint, the Center fired all of the employees running development for WNO as per their affiliation agreement and more or less ceased processing donations for the opera. Grenell removed the agreed-upon subsidies and support for WNO, and then, when the parties agreed to sever their relationship, abruptly cut them off from their own records.
Later that day, the Kennedy Center cut off WNO’s access to its electronic data stored on the Kennedy Center’s systems, including WNO’s emails, donor information, meeting minutes, and Board of Trustees records dating back to 2011. The Kennedy Center also locked WNO out of its workplace locations and, soon after, sent termination letters to WNO employees.
Worse still, the Center refused to return WNO’s endowment funds, totaling an alleged $17 million.
“Five months have now passed since the termination of the affiliation, and the Kennedy Center still has not returned the funds to WNO,” they argue. “To the contrary, according to the Kennedy Center’s Chief Financial Officer, the Kennedy Center has put a significant portion of WNO’s money at risk by using it to collateralize the Kennedy Center’s line of credit.”
This will likely make it more difficult for the Center to raise money, particularly since the suit alleges that the organization couldn’t even be bothered to process donations, resulting in the loss of a $50,000 gift when the Center failed to run a donor’s credit card.
And BREAKING, Judge Cooper denied the motion for stay, “given both the de minimis resources that would be required to restore the Center’s current name in the event of a successful appeal and the lack of record evidence linking increased donations to the current name.”
Let the chiseling begin!
Liz Dye produces the Law and Chaos Substack and podcast. You can subscribe by clicking the logo:
The post Kennedy Center Loses Trump Name, Still Hopes To Keep Washington National Opera’s Endowment appeared first on Above the Law.
As of this writing, Donald Trump’s name is still on the side of the Kennedy Center. MSNOW set up this helpful livestream, that shows scaffolding and a cherry picker ready to effectuate Judge Christopher Cooper’s order to take it down today, but so far, it’s still up.
On May 29, the court issued partial summary judgment in favor of Rep. Joyce Beatty, an ex officio member of the Center’s board, who sued to block the name change and to prevent the planned two-year shutdown. The Center had 14 days to effectuate the name change, and on June 4, the general counsel sent a memo to the remaining staff instructing them to “immediately change email signatures, letterhead, and other documents to reflect the name as ‘The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,’ or ‘Kennedy Center.’”
But at the eleventh hour, the Center’s board — packed with such luminaries as Maria Bartiromo, Lee Greenwood, and Dan Scavino, Trump’s caddy-turned-deputy chief of staff — had a change of heart. They noticed an appeal to the DC Circuit and filed a motion to stay the judge’s ruling.
“Absent a stay, Defendants will be forced to squander time and money—by both removing the signage and then potentially returning it after appeal—that cannot be recovered when Defendants prevail on the merits,” they argued. “That is the very definition of irreparable harm.”
This might be more credible if they hadn’t spent the past 18 months arguing that burning down entire federal agencies, such as the US Institute for Peace and the US African Development Foundation, was not the type of irreparable harm that could be enjoined.
“Additionally, removal of the name threatens to impede the Center’s fundraising efforts and contribute to the financial decline of the Center,” the continued. “This loss of fundraising time and potential is also definitionally irreparable, and the public interest weighs in favor of an economically viable Center.”
This rests on the implicit assumption that having Trump’s name on it will bring in donor money, which, as Rep. Beatty points out in her opposition to the stay, contradicts Judge Cooper’s own finding that there “is no proof that current or future donations hinge on President Trump’s name being on the building.”
That fundraising may take something of a hit thanks to the Center’s own actions, according to a breach of contract complaint filed this morning by the Washington National Opera. WNO has been affiliated with the Center for 15 years and most of the opera’s development is handled by the Center — or it was until 2025, when Trump fired the old board, installed himself as chair, and made professional shitposter Ric Grenell the executive director. According to the complaint, the Center fired all of the employees running development for WNO as per their affiliation agreement and more or less ceased processing donations for the opera. Grenell removed the agreed-upon subsidies and support for WNO, and then, when the parties agreed to sever their relationship, abruptly cut them off from their own records.
Later that day, the Kennedy Center cut off WNO’s access to its electronic data stored on the Kennedy Center’s systems, including WNO’s emails, donor information, meeting minutes, and Board of Trustees records dating back to 2011. The Kennedy Center also locked WNO out of its workplace locations and, soon after, sent termination letters to WNO employees.
Worse still, the Center refused to return WNO’s endowment funds, totaling an alleged $17 million.
“Five months have now passed since the termination of the affiliation, and the Kennedy Center still has not returned the funds to WNO,” they argue. “To the contrary, according to the Kennedy Center’s Chief Financial Officer, the Kennedy Center has put a significant portion of WNO’s money at risk by using it to collateralize the Kennedy Center’s line of credit.”
This will likely make it more difficult for the Center to raise money, particularly since the suit alleges that the organization couldn’t even be bothered to process donations, resulting in the loss of a $50,000 gift when the Center failed to run a donor’s credit card.
And BREAKING, Judge Cooper denied the motion for stay, “given both the de minimis resources that would be required to restore the Center’s current name in the event of a successful appeal and the lack of record evidence linking increased donations to the current name.”
Let the chiseling begin!
Liz Dye produces the Law and Chaos Substack and podcast. You can subscribe by clicking the logo:
The post Kennedy Center Loses Trump Name, Still Hopes To Keep Washington National Opera’s Endowment appeared first on Above the Law.
