Inset: President Donald Trump speaks outside the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, April 13, 2026, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon). Background: Workers stand on scaffolding near the signage for the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on June 12, 2026. (Photo by Olivier Douliery/Abaca/Sipa USA – Sipa via AP Images).
The sitting president of the United States appointed himself as chairman of a nonprofit entity, illegally placed his name on the Kennedy Center, threatened to demolish the building after his name was ordered removed, and is now resisting discovery on "blanket" executive privilege grounds, a lawmaker's court filing alleges.
Rep. Joyce Beatty, a Democrat from Ohio and the lone member of the Kennedy Center board of trustees to sue over President Donald Trump's plans for the arts and culture hub, told U.S. District Judge Christopher "Casey" Cooper that the DOJ's "unprecedented" assertions of executive privilege show that the Trump administration is stacking the discovery deck.
Weeks earlier, the Barack Obama-appointed jurist allowed Beatty to "seek discovery regarding" a "placard" that appeared to read "'Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED,'" which Trump was photographed looking at on Air Force One.
Additionally, the plaintiff has sought discovery of a "construction plan" and a PowerPoint presentation that board members were sent 48 hours before a meeting resulted in another "temporary" closure to address "significant safety hazards."
Those efforts have run into a "stone wall of executive privilege," Beatty said in a Monday filing.
"Chairman Trump personally announced the decision to shutter the Kennedy Center on February 1; the Board's initial vote to close was obviously a mere formality, as Trump himself made clear at the time. Thus, even by Defendants' account, Chairman Trump was intimately involved in making that decision. And he has continued to closely control the Kennedy Center since," the filing said, recounting the series of events. "It is extremely difficult to plumb the prudence of the Board's decision—and evaluate whether Defendants again improperly curated a stacked deck or acted in bad faith—without knowing what input and instructions management received from Donald Trump."
Because the DOJ has taken the position that those details are off-limits in discovery, Beatty said she "does not bring this motion lightly" but felt that "absent court intervention," the Kennedy Center defendants "will be allowed to curate the record and hide the truth from the Court."
"The Department now refuses to provide any documents held by the Kennedy Center even touching on communications between the Chairman and management and intends to block all inquiry into those communications in depositions," the filing said. "Plaintiff does not bring this motion lightly. The Department's sweeping assertion of privilege, however, appears to be unprecedented. Donald Trump is the chair of a non-profit corporation's board, and his decisions and directions lie at the heart of that board's actions which, in turn, are the subject matter of this case. Allowing Defendants to hide behind this unwarranted assertion of privilege would obstruct the search for the truth, frustrate the Court's discovery order, and undermine public confidence in these important proceedings."
Read the full filing here.