A federal judge in Washington on Saturday ordered that Representative Joyce Beatty, Democrat of Ohio, be granted more information and be allowed to participate in a planning meeting about the future of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, temporarily resolving a minor standoff with President Trump.
The ruling gave Ms. Beatty a window into the president’s goals for remaking the center in his own image, after dozens of performers canceled shows in protest and patrons worried about a proposed multiyear closure of the performance space.
Ms. Beatty was designated an ex officio member of the board of the Kennedy Center and has used that role to fight against changes to the institution as Mr. Trump asserts more control over its governance.
The center’s board is scheduled to meet on Monday, though Ms. Beatty argued that the purpose of the meeting had not been explained, and that she had been kept out of the loop.
On Saturday, Judge Christopher R. Cooper of the Federal District Court in Washington agreed that Ms. Beatty needed to receive a more thorough accounting of plans and be allowed “a meaningful opportunity to lodge her dissent” at the meeting, “and not be categorically barred from speaking.”
She has said that she plans to attend and voice her opposition to Mr. Trump’s proposals to overhaul the performing arts center.
Judge Cooper wrote that the secrecy surrounding the project and the agenda on Monday appeared hard to square with the scale of the president’s stated ambitions.
“These are exceptional circumstances, both in the potential immensity of the announced work on the Kennedy Center and the manner in which most of its trustees have been sidelined from one of the more consequential decisions in the institution’s life span,” he wrote.
Ms. Beatty has also asked the court to issue an order barring Mr. Trump from redeveloping the site, arguing that her job on the board was to be a steward of the center. Judge Cooper has not yet considered that request.
Mr. Trump has told performers and staff that he intends to transform the space into a “new and spectacular Entertainment Complex.”
In a 37-page opinion, Judge Cooper laid out a list of documents — including budgets and planning reports — that had to be sent to Ms. Beatty within 24 hours, “to the extent they exist.” He added that the government’s claims in the lawsuit that no plans had been finalized, just four days before the board could meet to approve them, “borders on preposterous.”
Ms. Beatty sued in December, objecting to Mr. Trump’s decision to add his own name above John F. Kennedy’s on the theater’s facade. Mr. Trump also overhauled the center’s board, which then named him chairman of the group in February.
In March, she expanded her lawsuit after Mr. Trump abruptly announced plans last month to close the center for two years beginning on July 4. Mr. Trump said the closure would allow for a “complete rebuilding,” after referring to the facility as “a tired, broken, and dilapidated center.”
Ahead of the meeting, Mr. Trump also announced that Ric Grenell, one of his close allies and advisers who was serving as president of the center, would leave the role.
Ms. Beatty’s lawyers have argued the center could be taken down at the president’s whim, after he similarly moved without warning last year to demolish the East Wing of the White House and build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom in its place. Another judge in Washington is considering whether the East Wing project also unlawfully exceeded Mr. Trump’s authority.
“The shell game here has been a pretense,” Nathaniel Zelinsky, a lawyer representing Ms. Beatty, said in court on Thursday. Like with the East Wing, he said “the next thing you know, the bulldozers are at the door.”
At an emergency hearing on Thursday, Judge Cooper stressed that the only questions he would address immediately centered on the upcoming board meeting.
He limited arguments to the narrow issue of whether Ms. Beatty was entitled to participate and vote, and if so, what he could realistically order the board to do about it without “micromanaging” their work. In earlier filings, Ms. Beatty’s lawyers contended that she had been excluded from the meeting entirely, though they later acknowledged that she had missed an emailed invitation when it landed in her email spam folder.
On Thursday, they argued that Ms. Beatty had nevertheless been unable to properly prepare for the meeting because details had not been shared about what was to be discussed, including whether the board would be asked to vote to approve Mr. Trump’s vision for its future.
Mr. Zelinsky argued that the center was built as a living memorial to John F. Kennedy and as a “national landmark institution,” meaning its board had to follow rules that go beyond those followed by average nonprofit organizations.
Judge Cooper expressed some doubt that Ms. Beatty was automatically entitled to a vote on Monday. On Friday, her lawyers filed a tax form indicating that the I.R.S. counted ex officio members among the board’s “voting members,” suggesting she was entitled to vote on any possible redevelopment plans.
In the ruling on Saturday, he stopped short of ordering that Ms. Beatty be allowed to vote on Monday, writing that “at this very early stage” she had not established that right.
But the judge reserved equally pointed questions for William Jankowski, a Justice Department lawyer, who argued that there were no laws dictating how the board should conduct business.
“Why not just give her the info?” Judge Cooper asked. “How is the government harmed?”
“I’ve got to say, this is a pretty big deal,” Judge Cooper told Mr. Jankowski. “A major renovation of the nation’s premier performing arts center would strike me as something you need advance notice on.”
Zach Montague is a Times reporter covering the federal courts, including the legal disputes over the Trump administration’s agenda.
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