Lawmaker Asks Court to Block Trump From Closing Kennedy Center

The president has said he plans to shut down the center for two years starting this summer for a “complete rebuilding.”

Representative Joyce Beatty, Democrat of Ohio, asked a federal court on Friday to block President Trump’s plan to close the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for two years starting this summer for what Mr. Trump has called a “complete rebuilding.”

Ms. Beatty, an ex officio member of the center’s board who has already sued Mr. Trump seeking to remove his name from the venue, amended her lawsuit, warning that Mr. Trump could be planning a surprise demolition of the center.

“President Trump’s own words indicate that he is planning to demolish the existing Kennedy Center building,” said Ms. Beatty’s suit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “To state the obvious, Congress has not authorized either closing the center or conducting a ‘complete rebuilding.’”

The suit cited the sudden demolition of the White House’s East Wing last year in Mr. Trump’s drive to build a ballroom there.

“This all fits a disturbing pattern,” the suit said. “Just a few months ago, President Trump bulldozed the historic East Wing of the White House, without authorization and after misleading the American public about his intentions. It appears that President Trump and his allies are about to attempt the same thing with the Kennedy Center.”

Ms. Beatty is represented by Norman Eisen, a White House ethics counsel in the Obama administration and the chairman of the group Democracy Defenders Action, and Nathaniel Zelinsky of the Washington Litigation Group.

“The president cannot shut down and demolish the Kennedy Center without congressional authorization — and he cannot silence dissenting trustees like Joyce Beatty who are fighting to protect this national treasure,” Mr. Eisen and Mr. Zelinsky said in a statement. “We are asking the court to intervene to prevent additional irreparable harm.”

Liz Huston, a White House spokeswoman, defended the president’s plans for the Kennedy Center, saying he was “transforming it into a welcoming destination that everyone can enjoy under his leadership.”

“While the Democrats neglected the Trump-Kennedy Center for years, President Trump immediately stepped up to rescue and revitalize the institution,” she said after the amended lawsuit was filed, adding: “Only deranged Democrats could oppose these efforts.”

Mr. Trump has maintained that the center is “tired, broken and dilapidated,” and that a dramatic step was needed to transform one of Washington’s most treasured cultural institutions. The closure, to begin July 4, would allow construction to go faster and without interruptions, he has argued.

He has not made clear his plans for construction, but has insisted he will not demolish the center.

“I’m not ripping it down,” Mr. Trump said last month. “I’ll be using the steel. So we’re using the structure, we’re using some of the marble, and some of the marble comes down.”

Since returning to office, Mr. Trump has aggressively sought to reshape the center, installing himself as chairman, stacking its board with his allies and trying to purge it of what he has called “woke” programming. The changes have caused artists and audiences to flee.

By law, the board also includes a handful of members of Congress from both parties, Ms. Beatty among them. The suit argued that the board was charged with maintaining a “living memorial” to President John F. Kennedy, and that closing the center would directly contradict that mandate.

The board is tasked with presenting “classical and contemporary music, opera, drama, dance and other performing arts from the United States and other countries” and serving as a leader in “arts education and policy,” the suit said.

“Once the center closes, however, the board will cease performing those functions, once again violating the plain language of the statute that Congress enacted,” the suit said. “At every step of the way, defendants have behaved as if the law does not apply to them. But it does. This court’s intervention is urgently needed.”

The suit seeks a judgment declaring Mr. Trump’s actions to be unlawful and an injunction preventing the closure and potential demolition of the center.

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