Trump says Kennedy Center will stay closed without renovation unless his name is added back

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A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the Kennedy Center board's effort to return President Donald Trump's name to the center in some form, months after the same judge ordered his name removed from the facade of the Washington, D.C., performing arts facility.
Later Tuesday, the Kennedy Center's board, largely appointed by Trump, again voted to close the facility for renovations, amid what the board says are pressing financial concerns.
The board previously voted in March to shutter for renovations. Judge Christopher Cooper in May blocked that decision while leaving the door open for the facility to be closed for emergency or necessary renovations.
It is not clear whether Cooper will agree that the board's latest vote suffices to meet those conditions.
Trump, in a statement, said: "The closing will take place immediately."
But the president added that the renovations and reconstruction of the center will not begin unless and until a federal appeals court or the Supreme Court rules Trump's name can be restored to the center's official name.
Democracy Defenders Action, an advocacy group that is providing legal services to Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat and ex officio member of the center's board, said the Kennedy Center is barred from closing until Cooper lifts a preliminary injunction he issued in May in federal district court in D.C.
Beatty's lawyers said that Trump during Tuesday's board meeting "verbally berated" Beatty "for her efforts to save the center." In response, they said, "She strongly condemned his efforts to destroy the treasured American institution."
Beatty, in a statement, said, "For years, the Kennedy Center has planned to undergo phased renovations, in which we both renovate and maintain some performances."
"This is how major performing arts centers in the country operate. But donors, patrons, and artists all fled after the unlawful attempt to rename this sacred memorial after Donald Trump," Beatty said.
"Donald Trump only cares about the Kennedy Center for his vanity," she said. "That is wrong and it is a breach of his fiduciary duty as a trustee."
Beatty's lawyers, Norm Eisen and Nathaniel Zelinsky, in a statement said, "The Board's latest shutdown vote is more of the same failure and abuse that has characterized this administration's treatment of the Kennedy Center."
"The unlawful renaming drove audiences and artists away," the lawyers said. "Now the Board has voted to shut down yet again to hide the terrible mismanagement under its current leadership. We'll see the Defendants in court."
In his new court order Tuesday, Cooper said he agreed that inscribing Trump's name on the building to honor his role in renovating the center or renaming the grounds violated the terms of the permanent injunction he issued in May directing the president's name be removed from the facility's official name.
"Simply put, Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress's blessing," Cooper wrote in his order shortly after overseeing a conference in court on the issue.
"The board resolution bucks a federal court order and a statute Congress enacted," Cooper wrote.
Hours later, the Department of Justice appealed Cooper's ruling to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The center's board, in an Aug. 13 resolution, said it intended "to recognize and honor President Trump's future existential and unprecedented contributions to the survival of the Center."
The board said it would inscribe Trump's name on the center's building so that it would read, "The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts," with the words "renovated and restored by President Donald J. Trump" underneath.
The board also said it would name the center's physical grounds "The President Donald J. Trump Plaza."
Both actions were originally planned to be completed by Sept. 8, but the board later extended the deadline to Oct. 8.
The DOJ, in defending the board's actions, argued to Cooper that if he blocked the moves, donors would stop contributing to the center, leaving the facility short of funds while it badly needed renovation.
Cooper, in his order Tuesday, said the DOJ offered "no proof that current or future donations hinge on President Trump's being on the building" and "no competent proof that removing the Trump name would prevent the Center from fulfilling its artistic mission."
"Four months ago, this Court declared that Congress named the John F. Kennedy Center
for the Performing Arts for President John F. Kennedy alone," Cooper said.
"It came to this conclusion for a simple reason: The federal law that created the Kennedy Center permitted no other result," Cooper wrote. "In 1983, Congress amended that law to guarantee 'no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.'"
"Yet the drama at the Kennedy Center continues," the judge added, referring to the board's resolutions.
In his statement later Tuesday, Trump said, "The Board of The Kennedy Center today agreed, almost unanimously, to close the Building for Safety reasons, and so that it can begin the process of Reconstruction."
"The closing will take place immediately, however, the Renovation and Reconstruction, which is a very large and complex job, cannot begin until such time as the D.C. Circuit rules on the Board's approved name," the president wrote.
"If the ruling is a negative one, which it should not be, and is not overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place," Trump said.
"The attorneys from the DOJ will ask for an expedited appeal. In the meantime, 17 Million Dollars, raised by President Trump, has been put into The Kennedy Center account to keep it afloat."

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