A federal judge is demanding an explanation for the tarp that now hides where President Donald Trump’s name once stood on the Kennedy Center’s façade.
U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper issued the order Tuesday in Beatty v. Trump, the lawsuit brought by Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH) over Trump’s illegal renaming of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Cooper ordered the parties to file a joint status report addressing “the purpose for and status of the tarp and scaffolding that Defendants have erected on the front portico of the Center.”
Workers put up the tarp on June 13 — the night Trump’s name came down under Cooper’s court order. It has not come down since.
The Kennedy Center says the covering is needed for marble maintenance. Beatty’s lawyers aren’t buying it.
“Willfully sabotaging Kennedy Center’s iconic façade to assuage Defendants’ vanity or massage broken egos is a clear breach of fiduciary duty,” her attorneys wrote.
Mallory Miller co-founded the activist group Hands Off the Arts and got behind the tarp to photograph the façade. She told NBC News the administration’s motive was plain.
“The Trump administration does not want to see that building without Trump’s name on the façade before they could go through all their appeals,” Miller said.
Beatty’s attorney, Nathaniel Zelinsky, was more direct. “It certainly seems like an attempt to hide embarrassment on Donald Trump’s part,” he told The Washingtonian.
Cooper’s order also rejected the administration’s bid to delay answering Beatty’s lawsuit while an appeal plays out. In a sworn court declaration, Kennedy Center Executive Director Matt Floca said the center has halted steps toward a full closure and will stay open past July 5. Cooper accepted that for now, but warned Beatty can return to court if the promise falls apart.
Defendants must answer Beatty’s complaint in full by June 29.
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