Even Trump Lawyers Can’t Deny He “Irrevocably Damaged” Kennedy Center

Donald Trump’s so-called renovations to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts have done more harm than good—even his lawyers think so.

In a court filing Wednesday, Ohio Representative Joyce Beatty, the Democratic lawmaker mounting the legal challenge to Trump’s changes to the prestigious theater, said that the president’s lawyers had declined to defend him from accusations that he’d already marred the building.

“Tellingly, Defendants do not dispute that their prior efforts to emblazon the building with President Trump’s name may have irrevocably damaged the center’s historic marble facade,” Beatty’s lawyers wrote.

Trump’s lawyers suggested in a court filing Monday that if the administration was not allowed to proceed with the $250 million renovation project—including tacking the president’s name to the facade—the building would have to be demolished. Beatty’s lawyers called out the thinly veiled threat.

“In plain English, Defendants have not-so-subtly said: ‘What a nice Kennedy Center you have here. What a shame should something happen to it,’” Beatty’s lawyers wrote. “This is a breathtaking assault on the rule of law. It is delusional. And it must stop.”

In her filing, Beatty’s lawyers also pointed out that Trump’s overhaul of the prestigious national theater has only hastened its demise. The Kennedy Center is on track to fall $100 million short of its profit goal this year, and the shortfall can be directly tied to Trump changing the institution’s name. The center expects to miss its budget target by 70 percent and its contributed revenue by 25 percent, a projected $23 million deficit.

Earlier this month, the board voted again to close the center for two years so that it can renovate the building in Trump’s image. Now Beatty has asked a federal judge to once again keep Trump’s name off another man’s memorial.