When the American Conservative Union Foundation needed a venue for last month’s summit on “ending Christian persecution,” it rented out a stage at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.
The one-day event at what has long been viewed as the nation’s cultural stage was supposed to cost nearly $42,000, according to a copy of the Kennedy Center contract.
But the institution’s leadership — which President Trump has stacked with loyalists including Richard Grenell, the ambassador to Germany during the first Trump administration — brought down the total cost to $20,007.
The contract waived typical fees for recording and broadcast, lighting, audio and video — a substantial discount for the American Conservative Union Foundation, which is best known for organizing the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.
That decision followed another highly advantageous deal that Mr. Grenell’s office granted to international soccer’s governing body, FIFA, in August, when Mr. Trump said that the center would host the 2026 World Cup draw.
The Kennedy Center agreed to let FIFA use much of the space, with 24-hour-a-day access, for nearly three weeks beginning on Monday, a period that spans the beginning of the center’s highly lucrative holiday season. The decision required the center to move, cancel or reschedule holiday programming, including an orchestra performance to the movie “Home Alone,” which was moved to a different venue, and a performance by the opera singer Camilla Nylund, which was rescheduled to March. The center also canceled contracts that allowed groups to rehearse their holiday performances at the center.
Renting out the entire center during that period should have cost FIFA about $5 million, according to the contract. That $5 million amount included an estimated $2.7 million in “rescheduling expenses” and “potential lost revenue,” but the contract shows that the Kennedy Center waived the entire bill. That deal was reported earlier by The Washington Post.
The Kennedy Center is a public-private institution that has long operated as an apolitical venue to celebrate the arts. It receives some money from the federal government for building maintenance, and the rest of the budget is generated by ticket sales, renting out the space for private events and philanthropic giving. In the past it was governed by a bipartisan board, but Mr. Trump pushed out the trustees who were appointed by Democrats. Under Mr. Grenell, the center has turned into an event space that caters to the president’s friends and supporters, run by his allies.
As president of the Kennedy Center, Mr. Grenell has filled his leadership ranks with several Republican friends and associates, including Nick Meade and Rick Loughery, whose signature is on the FIFA contract. In addition to approving millions of dollars in special discounts to Mr. Trump’s supporters, receipts from catering services, hotels and restaurants show that aides in Mr. Grenell’s office approved tens of thousands of dollars in Kennedy Center funding on meals, champagne services and rooms at the Watergate Hotel — all while the Kennedy Center has faced serious financial troubles.
Roma Daravi, the spokeswoman for the Kennedy Center, did not respond to questions about the contracts and receipts.
The contracts with FIFA and CPAC are referred to in a cache of documents obtained by Democrats on the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, which has jurisdiction over all public buildings owned by the federal government.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the panel, said in a letter on Thursday that Democrats on the committee were investigating Mr. Grenell and his stewardship of the center’s approximately $268 million budget. They accused him of using the center to enrich friends and acquaintances and “dole out political favors.”
“The center’s leadership is strictly obligated to uphold rigorous financial stewardship and operational transparency,” Mr. Whitehouse said in the letter. “Any deviation for personal or political gain constitutes a profound betrayal of its mission and the public trust.”
The Kennedy Center did not respond to an email requesting comment on the investigation.
The investigation centers on an institution that Mr. Trump and Mr. Grenell have openly pushed into the White House orbit.
In February, Mr. Trump made himself the chairman of the board. He dismissed anyone appointed during the Biden administration and tapped Mr. Grenell to lead the Kennedy Center. The president also said he would renovate the center, whose maintenance and infrastructure are supported by taxpayers, as part of his larger push to overhaul the look and feel of the nation’s capital.
Mr. Trump has since used the Kennedy Center for official announcements, including in August, when he said the World Cup draw would take place there. (After Mr. Trump complained about not winning the Nobel Peace Prize, FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, said his association had created the FIFA Peace Prize and would announce the honoree during the draw this month.)
In early November, the Trump administration used the Kennedy Center as a site to sign more than a dozen deals with Central Asian nations who said they would team up with or purchase goods from American companies, including A.I. chips, John Deere tractors, Boeing airplanes and railroad construction services.
Industry executives and government officials from Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan mingled to the sound of smooth jazz and waited their turn to shake hands with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who pronounced that America was “open for business.”
This week, corporate executives and state leaders headed back to the Kennedy Center for the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum, an event that coincided with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to Washington. The top focus for many of the executives in attendance was signing deals that would help U.S. artificial intelligence companies build data centers in the kingdom.
After the event, the Ministry of Investment of Saudi Arabia said in a news release that the kingdom and the United States had pledged $267 billion worth of investments at the forum. Among the deals announced from the Kennedy Center stage were that Nvidia and Elon Musk’s xAI will team up with the state-backed Saudi company Humain to build a data center in the kingdom.
Mr. Grenell has also used the Kennedy Center to maintain and cultivate relationships with foreign governments. And as part of its deal announcement earlier this month, Kazakhstan also said it would donate to the Kennedy Center. Ms. Daravi said Kazakhstan’s donation contributed to the $58 million that the center has raised in the past 35 days.
Many longtime Kennedy Center supporters canceled their memberships and stopped donating and attending shows after the Trump administration takeover.
Over a typical week in October, ticket sales fell by about 50 percent over the previous year, according to internal sales figures obtained by The New York Times. And The Post reported that ticket sales for the Kennedy Center’s three largest performance venues are the worst they have been in years.
Early after the Trump administration takeover, Mr. Grenell’s aides bandied about an idea to bundle Kennedy Center subscriptions and political contributions to Mr. Trump, according to four people who were part of or briefed on those discussions. The idea never gained traction.
During the spring, Mr. Grenell’s aides wanted to sell a special lounge for the exclusive use of the buyers, according to three former employees who worked in the development office, and they initially focused on Arab nations.
Employees generally supported the idea of using the space, a defunct jazz club that had also been used for storage, to generate revenue. But they pointed out that some of these nations, like Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, may not want to co-sponsor a private clubhouse space as they have had diplomatic disputes. During the first Trump administration, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other regional allies severed relations with Qatar and blockaded the nation’s airspace and shipping channels.
And the big pitch to representatives from these embassies was supposed to happen during a cocktail party that was scheduled during Ramadan. Employees said that the turnout was disappointing.
Ms. Daravi said the Kennedy Center’s fund-raising plans were “clearly working,” including a “fund-raiser for America’s cultural center at a Yankees game and one to extend a hand to the international community to be more involved.”
Contracts show that the Kennedy Center hired a firm called Gelles Inc., a business registered to a former chief of staff to Mr. Grenell, and paid it $15,000 for a month of policy research and speech writing. This summer the center hired Jeff Halperin, who is married to Kari Lake, an election denier whom Mr. Trump tapped to run the Voice of America. The center paid Mr. Halperin $10,833.33 a month to make social media videos.
Lisa Dale, who was a campaign adviser to Ms. Lake during an unsuccessful Senate run, stayed at the Watergate Hotel for $4,771 for two weeks after becoming the Kennedy Center’s head of fund-raising. Receipts show that the Kennedy Center picked up the tab.
Over eight days in May, June and July, Mr. Grenell’s office spent more than $11,000 on meals for himself and his friends, according to restaurant receipts and bills from the Kennedy Center’s catering company. This included a birthday party for one of Mr. Grenell’s associates as well as champagne services and other meals.
The steep discounts, the spending by Mr. Grenell’s office and other instances of perceived financial mismanagement prompted multiple employees to come forward to the Senate committee as whistle-blowers.
Mr. Whitehouse called the discounts offered to administration allies and internal expenses for Mr. Grenell’s top lieutenants “an unprecedented pattern of self-dealing, favoritism and waste.”
He asked Mr. Grenell for all contracts that the Kennedy Center had signed since the Trump administration takeover in February, and the center’s policies on expenses, conflicts of interest, and hiring contractors and consultants.
Mr. Whitehouse also asked whether the Kennedy Center’s general counsel or any of its trustees had expressed written or oral concerns about conflicts of interest or misuse of funds. He asked Mr. Grenell to fulfill the committee’s request by the end of the month.
Ana Swanson and Lauren Hirsch contributed reporting.
Katie Benner is a correspondent writing primarily about large institutions that shape American life.
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