Trump Faces Court Challenge Over Kennedy Center Renaming in “Breathtaking Act of Defiance”

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1:59Michael Popok:Which part of the order Judge Cooper entered to block Donald Trump from ever putting his name anywhere near the Kennedy Center or from closing the Kennedy Center without doing a detailed analysis? Which part of that 96-page order did the Trump-dominated, controlled board of trustees failed to read. Because this resolution that they tried to pass is now front and center back in front of Judge Cooper. And in the resolution, they're saying, well, we're just going to put his name on the building in another way. No, you are not. Here's what the resolution says. It says, the center desires to honor the president's contribution with an inscribed recognition on the building just below the name of the center.

2:49Michael Popok:So it'll say the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which is what the organic law establishing it as the only living memorial to JFK after he was assassinated. And just under it, it'll say in apparently the same size letters or as big of letters as they, maybe bigger letters, restored and renovated by President Donald J. Trump. And then if they raise over$100 million, it'll have three lines of text, two of which are devoted to Donald Trump on the only living memorial of JFK. It'll say the JFK Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, restored and renovated by President Donald J. Trump, endowed by the Trump-Kennedy Center Fund.

3:32Michael Popok:There should never be a Trump-Kennedy Center Fund, which was not established by Congress. And now we've got the joint status report that was just filed by the plaintiff, Representative Joyce Beattie, a congresswoman from Ohio, and the lawyers for the Trump side. And here's what I'm going to read to you now from the new filing about the audacious flouting of and contumacious conduct by the board to try to put that name back up. And they're keeping that scaffolding up and that cover up in the meantime to avoid going back to the status quo and embarrassing Donald Trump. I'm Michael Popok. You're here on Legal AF.

4:18Michael Popok:Take a minute and hit that free subscribe button to help us grow this channel. That's how important these matters are. Here's the plaintiff statement. I'll post it up on Legal AF Substack for you. Plaintiff raises three issues. First, at the August 13 board meeting, defendants voted to add Donald Trump's name back onto the facade and grounds of the Kennedy Center. This latest move is deeply concerning. They knowingly voted to violate their own organic statute and seem intent on defying the court's decision. Second, in the status report, defendants advance a pretextual justification for the tarp that's currently covering the facade.

5:01Michael Popok:The structure is an obvious effort to obstruct a return to the pre-litigation status quo. So third, on page six, on August 13th, defendants voted to shut down the center for two years based on a vague two-page PowerPoint provided to the board just two days before the meeting. It mirrors the defendant's previous rush to rubber stamp President Trump's Feb 1 announcement that led to the shutdown. Now, there's one thing they kind of leave out of the filing, but that I caught when Joyce Beattie was being interviewed. And that's that Donald Trump was on the phone call listening in and people didn't know it, secretly listening in, but then spoke up, putting pressure on the board members to vote in his favor on his name.

5:49Michael Popok:Here's a clip of Joyce Beattie saying exactly that. The president actually came on as we were getting ready to vote, said he had been listening for the entire meeting, which was about an hour in our meeting time. It was very interesting because we're just revisiting the same thing. This time he wants to put an inscription at the bottom of the John F. Kennedy Memorial name. But my lawyers will file a joint report on this Tuesday in which will notify the court about the actions that were taken in the board meeting in the latest development. The government must also already meet the court's order to talk about when the TARP will come down.

6:35And so we are going back to court. This is something that the board has brought up again. And of course, you have to remember that the two hundred and fifty seven million dollars that that was in the bill, government taxpayers dollars. So again, Donald Trump wants to take credit and use this as a billboard for his name. And we're going to go back to court as much as it takes. We've been victorious on this because it's unlawful.

7:05Michael Popok:They then go on to say on page seven about the new inscriptions that will be on the Kennedy Center.

7:15Michael Popok:And they said that we tried and they're going to rename the plaza, the Donald J. Trump Plaza. They said that the plaintiff's counsel contacted the defendant's counsel who committed that they won't start that work until at the earliest August 27th. I think the judge is going to have to enter a stay in the meantime, don't you think? Then it goes into page nine, the breathtaking act of defiance. it bears emphasis on the law. The last remaining resolution or the latest remaining resolution is a breathtaking act of defiance. Adding the words restored and renovated by or endowed by before President Trump's name and renaming the grounds provides no lawful basis to ignore this court's decision and impose Donald Trump's name on a memorial dedicated by Congress exclusively to a different president.

8:10Michael Popok:As this court previously explained, the Kennedy Center statute states that 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. So he's doing that which he is precluded from doing by statute. They then go through how they keep everybody in the dark, and they talk about the closure of the Kennedy Center, which is obviously to avoid the embarrassment that nobody wants to perform there while Donald Trump is president. Page 15. The only materials that purport to examine the cost and benefits of the closure was a five-slide PowerPoint presentation prepared by the Delta Consulting Group, which was displayed at the board meeting, excluding two cover slides and one slide describing the biography, the substance of the presentation deck is two slides long.

9:08Michael Popok:This is to close for two years the Kennedy Center. In the end, the conclusory two-slide presentation was another stacked deck in favor of closure. For example, the slide outlining the option to conduct phased renovations does not identify any benefits to remaining open. This glaring omission is particularly newsworthy because the prevailing industry norm is to conduct phased renovations. They then call for discovery in the case, telling the judge, we need to get to the bottom of documents and other documents that are solely in the possession of the board. Page 17. The court should reject defendant's proposal to forego all factual discovery and proceed to expedited briefing on summary judgment.

9:54Michael Popok:Critical evidence is in defendant's exclusive possession. It is deeply unfair to force plaintiff to litigate this extremely important case based on the curated, if extremely shabby record assembled by defendants who are just trying to spoon feed the documents. Now, the judge, when he issued his preliminary injunction, he said to the board, you got to do it again on your decision making. And you got to support the prudent decision making required of a fiduciary who's on the board of trustees. And you didn't do that when you made your decision to close the Kennedy Center. And I don't think he's going to be happy with a two-slide deck either without any reality about a way to keep the Kennedy Center open during a phased renovation.

10:40Michael Popok:Here's what's going to happen off of this submission. The judge is going to issue an order. He's going to set a briefing schedule. He's going to grant discovery to Joyce Beattie side of the case. He's going to enter, I hope, an injunction as the Joyce Beattie side files a motion for injunction, which they should be doing, about the name change yet again and litigate this all over again. The D.C. Appellate Court, Federal Appellate Court, affirmed what Judge Cooper did. That's why there's no stay of his injunction or his ruling. Supreme Court hasn't weighed in on this either. So I'm giving you the order of operation.

11:27Michael Popok:Status conference, discovery granted to Joyce Beattie to get all the documents. Go get all those emails among and between the board members who were all controlled and under the thumb of Donald Trump. Go get the text messages between Allison Lutnick and her husband, Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary, who says he's in charge of this project. Get those text messages. Get the text messages among and between the board members. Get the text message between them and Trump. I'm sure they've been texting Trump. I'm sure that Paolo Zampoli, Donald Trump's modeling agent buddy, special envoy who introduced him to Melania at the Kit Kat Club, I'm sure he's been texting Donald Trump.

12:13Michael Popok:Get all those texts. Get those people under oath and in quick deposition. Bring that information to the judge. Let the judge grant summary final judgment in the case. The parties can go litigate this up on appeal. I'll continue to follow it. every step of the way, the only way I know how, without blowing smoke or sunshine here on the Legal AF YouTube channel. Take a minute, hit the free subscribe button. Until my next report, this is Michael Popak. Can't get your fill of Legal AF? Me neither. That's why we formed the Legal AF Substack. Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the Substack.

12:51Michael Popok:You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do call, wait for it, Morning AF. What else? All the other contributors from Legal AF are there as well. We got some new reporting. We got interviews. We got ad-free versions of the podcast and hot takes. Where? Legal AF on Substack. Come over now to free subscribe.