The Kennedy Center board voted Thursday to close the landmark Washington arts venue for two years and add President Donald Trump's name to the building a second time, according to Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, an ex-officio member of the board.
The move was reported by ABC News. Beatty said in a statement that the board, filled with Trump's hand-picked appointees, voted to inscribe the front of the building to read: "The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump." The board also voted to name an outdoor space "The President Donald J. Trump Plaza."
Beatty called the vote a direct challenge to an earlier court ruling. "This morning's decision to close the Center and the surprise agenda item to put Donald Trump's name back on the building was more of the same," she said. "This latest development is a transparent effort to circumvent the Court's ruling, and flies in the face of the statutes that Congress passed. I will continue to fight for this treasured national monument."
The White House responded quickly. White House assistant press secretary Liz Huston said: "Under President Trump's bold leadership, the Kennedy Center is on its way to becoming the finest cultural institution anywhere in the world."
The vote came months after U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper ordered Trump's name removed from the building in May. Cooper's ruling cited a law prohibiting the adding of memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials to the Kennedy Center. He also found that the board's March vote to close and renovate the center had been ill-informed and preordained, and that trustees had not properly weighed the impacts on programming and finances.
Beatty's lawyer, Norm Eisen, said the new vote changes nothing legally. "A federal judge already rejected the board's unlawful attempt to rename the Kennedy Center, and told Donald Trump's handpicked board that its last closure vote was ill-informed and preordained," Eisen said. "Today's vote is more of the same, and a show of blatant disrespect to the courts."
Congress created the Kennedy Center in 1964 shortly after President John F. Kennedy's death and designated it as a living memorial.
The board is now under an order from Judge Cooper to report back to him on the outcome of Thursday's meeting within five days. Cooper also asked for an update on the board's plans for a tarp that currently covers the facade of the building.
