Washington — The Trump administration told a judge it expects to remove President Trump’s name from the front of the Kennedy Center early Saturday morning, saying it will narrowly miss a court-ordered Friday deadline for the name to come down due to thunderstorms.
U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper determined last month that the president’s name was illegally added to The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and ordered that it be removed by Friday, June 12. He also blocked the Trump administration’s plans for the Kennedy Center to close for renovations for two years.
On Friday, Cooper denied the Trump administration’s request for a stay of his injunction, finding that the government had not demonstrated it will succeed on appeal or suffer irreparable harm. Later in the day, an appeals court also denied an emergency request to halt the ruling, meaning Cooper’s order won’t be paused for now and the deadline stands.
Workers erected scaffolding outside the Kennedy Center under its name Friday afternoon. But by midnight, the president’s name remained on the building’s front facade as crews continued to work onsite, while a crowd of onlookers chanted, “take it down.”
Lawyers for the Justice Department said in court filings late Friday the effort to remove Mr. Trump’s name is “ongoing,” but “has been delayed because of thunderstorms in the District of Columbia that presented safety concerns for workers.” The work will wrap up “in the early hours of the morning” on Saturday, Kennedy Center Executive Director Matthew Floca wrote in a court declaration.
The government asked the court to give it until noon on Saturday to file court papers certifying compliance with Cooper’s order.
In a last-minute request earlier on Friday, the Justice Department had asked the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to stay Cooper’s ruling by 7 p.m. and allow the president’s name to stay up. But in a one-page order, a panel of appellate judges rejected the request for an immediate stay, instead directing the parties in the lawsuit to file briefs later this month. The unsigned order was issued by two Obama-appointed judges and one Trump appointee, with no noted dissents.
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In its emergency motion to the appellate court, the government wrote that “it does not make sense to alter the Center’s name and signage now, only to potentially revert the name again after what should be a successful appeal.”
The Trump administration argued it could cause public confusion for the Kennedy Center to change its name multiple times in the span of a year, and said some donors specifically gave money to the center because of Mr. Trump’s name.
“Without the name, ‘Trump’ on the Building, our fundraising will not only come to a halt, but any and all monies raised or committed would be obligated to be returned, refunded, or terminated,” the government wrote.
The motion echoed some of the arguments raised by Mr. Trump himself for renovating the Kennedy Center, including that the building is in “bad shape” and is “unsightly to look at.”
“It is unable to compete with other such venues throughout the United States, but when completed, as planned, will be the envy of the World, something that everyone, including this court, will be proud of,” the filing said.
Attorneys for Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, who sued over the planned name change and two-year closure, asked the appeals court on Friday to reject the Trump administration’s emergency motion, calling it “a frivolous stay request, filed at the eleventh hour, in a transparent effort to jam the Court and game the judicial system.”
In a scathing 12-page filing, Beatty’s lawyers argued that the administration will not prevail on appeal. They also accused the government of “gamesmanship” and “running out the clock” by waiting weeks before asking the appellate court to step in, in what they called a “manufactured emergency.”
“There is no reason they should not finish complying with the district court’s order — as they have been planning for the past two weeks,” Beatty’s lawyers wrote. “In the extremely unlikely event the Court grants Appellants a stay pending appeal, Appellants can easily restore Donald Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center during the appeal, should they choose.”
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The center, run by a Trump-aligned board of trustees, voted in December to add the president’s name to the institution, rebranding it as the Trump-Kennedy Center. The center is the premier arts venue in the nation’s capital and was established by Congress as a memorial to President John F. Kennedy.
Beatty, who sits on the Kennedy Center’s board, challenged the move in court. In May, Cooper ruled that only Congress could approve a name change to the institution and set a deadline of June 12 for complying with his order.
Earlier this month, CBS News reported that lawyers for the center were instructing staff to immediately begin the process of switching the name of the facility back to its original title. The instructions were laid out in a memo sent by the center’s general counsel and obtained by CBS News.
Cooper’s original order also blocked plans by the administration and trustees to close the center for nearly two years for major renovations.
The Kennedy Center’s website has already removed the president’s name from much of its online material.
Mr. Trump made moves to put his mark on the center soon after his return to office last year, removing Democratic-appointed members of the board and installing allies and top administration officials instead. The president and his allies also sought to make changes to the types of performances at the institution.
