A federal appeals court panel shot down the Department of Justice’s request that President Trump’s name remain on the Kennedy Center, rejecting his claims that the institution will face financial ruin if his name is stricken.
The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, in an unsigned order, said the Justice Department didn’t provide any evidence that Mr. Trump’s name is at the heart of the Kennedy Center’s financial health.
The three-judge panel also rebuffed Mr. Trump’s claim that the center will have to return money it’s already collected because it was done under the name “Trump Kennedy Center.” The judges, one GOP appointee and two Democratic picks, said DOJ didn’t raise that argument in the district court and gave no reason for raising it now, in the appeal.
Without that, there was no evidence that the Kennedy Center faced “irreparable harm” from losing the Trump name from its operations.
That leaves in place a lower court injunction ordering the name to be stricken.
“We now deny appellants’ motion for a stay pending appeal because they have failed to show how they will be irreparably injured absent a stay,” the court said.
The judges said they were not ruling on the merits of the legal arguments at this point.
The district court ruled on May 29 that the Trump name come down from the building, be deleted from the website and not be used in official trademark materials. The order was to take effect June 12.
The appeals court on June 12 rejected a previous Trump attempt to block that deadline.
This latest ruling was on a broader attempt to delay the deadline.
Mr. Trump has vowed to lead a massive renovation of the center. He’d planned to close it on July 4 for a two-year refurbishment and was raising money for it.
The Kennedy Center’s board, largely comprised of Trump picks, had also voted to add his name to the center.
Rep. Joyce Beatty, Ohio Democrat and an ex officio member of the board, sued.
A district court put the closure on hold, saying the center didn’t prove a full shutdown was necessary. The judge also ordered the name revert to the Kennedy Center, finding that the law establishing the center required that it only use the 35th president’s name.
The Justice Department had told the appeals court, in briefs that closely echoed the president’s own words and sentiments, that Mr. Trump’s name is all that stands between the institution and disaster.
“Many donors and companies, who have given, or will be giving, millions of dollars to the center were only willing to do so with the name ’Trump’ on the building,” Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said in a brief filed last week. “No one else other than President Trump would be in the position of both rebuilding the building, and raising the money for its operation. President Trump raised $258 million from Congress and hundreds of millions more in pledges and donations from patriotic private donors to rebuild and restore the center.”
The brief mentions Mr. Trump’s “unparalleled construction talents” and “tremendous construction abilities” and says his plans would make the center “the crown jewel of Washington, D.C., and the envy of the world.”
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