×

Judge: Kennedy Center board broke law putting Trump’s name on building

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge ruled Friday that President Donald Trump’s name was illegally added to the Kennedy Center and blocked the administration from closing the cultural and arts venue for major renovations — the latest legal setback for Trump’s efforts to leave his personal mark on the landscape of the nation’s capital.

Trump said in response that he’s backing away from his proposed renovation and returning control of the arts institution to Congress.

“Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, bring this Institution back, physically, financially, and artistically, I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into ‘NEVER NEVER LAND,'” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C., ruled that the Kennedy Center board’s March 16 vote to close the facility was “ill-informed and seemingly preordained” with no regard for its legal obligations. The administration had announced the work would begin in July and last approximately two years, but Cooper’s ruling halts those plans for now.

“The trustees might have assessed the propriety of closure in a number of prudent ways. This was not one,” he wrote.

Cooper also concluded that the board “overstepped its statutory bounds” by unilaterally adding Trump’s name to the center. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it, he said.

The judge, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Barack Obama, ordered the defendants to remove Trump’s name from the institution’s facade and any “official materials,” such as digital or physical signs, within two weeks.

“May the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts be renamed absent Congressional authorization? The answer, plain from the face of the statute, is no. Nor can any other individual be memorialized on the front portico of the building,” Cooper wrote.

Trump said the judge “should be ashamed of himself” in a social media post hours after the decision was issued.

The Republican president said he instructed his administration to “make all necessary arrangements” to have the center transferred to Congress.

Starting at $3.23/week.

Subscribe Today