The Kennedy Center’s Latest Defense Raises a New Mystery

For weeks, a tarp obscuring the facade of the John F. Kennedy Center has baffled observers, prompting speculation about the Washington, D.C., arts complex following the court-ordered removal of the president’s name. But recent court filings have raised a new mystery beyond the canvas.Department of Justice lawyers representing the Kennedy Center yesterday urged a federal appeals court to restore Donald Trump’s name to the institution, arguing that taking it down jeopardizes “hundreds of millions” of dollars in gifts and pledges tied to an entity, unheard-of until this month, called the Trump Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Foundation. Note the last word.Bylaws for the foundation (which DOJ lawyers first mentioned in a June 12 filing in the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit) require that gifts be “returned, refunded, or terminated” if the president’s name is removed from the building, its branding, or other affiliated materials, the Kennedy Center wrote in a filing yesterday. Seeking an emergency stay to restore the president’s name to the building, the center argued that donors had pledged generous sums because Trump’s name was attached to the institution.The Kennedy Center was reporting fundraising hauls totaling more than $100 million under Trump as recently as late last year. But public business records that I reviewed this week show that the Trump Kennedy Center Foundation did not exist until this spring, raising questions over why funds raised or pledged before that date would need to be returned or canceled.On March 18, the records (filed with the District’s Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection) show, the center amended the name of an existing nonprofit that had been called the Kennedy Center Foundation, which past Kennedy Center leaders had established as an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2024, before Trump’s reelection. The records, however, do not include any details about the renamed foundation’s governance, and who i