The Kennedy Center’s executive director insisted he shut down the building temporarily this week because of emergency safety issues, as he rushed to argue he wasn’t violating a court order blocking him from starting work on President Trump’s two-year makeover project.
But Rep. Joyce Beatty, the Ohio Democrat who has defeated Mr. Trump twice in court, isn’t buying it.
She noted that the shutdown came just hours after Mr. Trump led the center’s board to vote for a shutdown and after the president announced on social media it would close “immediately.”
Ms. Beatty asked a federal judge to order Mr. Trump not to demolish the building, fearing a repeat of last fall, when the president had the White House’s East Wing razed without getting congressional approval.
The two sides made their arguments in dueling court filings Thursday, two days after the shutdown vote and a day after fencing went up around the center to block visitors from the performing arts venue.
“The Trump administration would rather defy the court than admit they broke the law by closing the Kennedy Center,” Ms. Beatty said in a statement as she took stock of things.
The shifting explanations from Mr. Trump and the center have given Ms. Beatty plenty of legal ammunition to fire.
She said she was initially told Tuesday that the closure was the result of a mistaken fire alarm.
On Wednesday morning, one of her lawyers visited the center and was told it was shut down indefinitely.
Matt Floca, the center’s executive director, then sent an email just before 5 p.m. — hours after the closure — saying he decided to shutter the building to the public because of emergency safety risks. He insisted it was completely unrelated to the shutdown vote hours earlier.
“I came to the conclusion that acute risks to public safety resulting from continued structural deterioration at the center necessitated a temporary closure of most public spaces in the main building of the center to general public access,” Mr. Floca said.
He called it a “temporary closure” that would allow time to assess the risks and said he would decide on a weekly basis whether to keep it closed.
The problem with that, Ms. Beatty told U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, is that he had already ordered the center not to close until the board sought a new order erasing a previous injunction against a shutdown.
She said the different explanations are an attempt to clean up after Mr. Trump.
Overshadowing it all is Mr. Trump’s insistence that his name be added to the center, which by law honors former President John F. Kennedy, before any reconstruction work begins.
Until then, he posted on social media, “the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place.”
Ms. Beatty has twice won court orders prohibiting the president from adding his name. She is now trying to defeat the closure.
The congresswoman, who is an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center board, said Thursday that the nature of the closure — moving the gift shop and shuttle buses to another building on the site — doesn’t sound like the week-long pause Mr. Floca has indicated.
“One does not relocate retail and transit operations or install barricades (which seemingly would have needed to be acquired in advance) for a one-week inspection. These measures are consistent with an open-ended shutdown,” her lawyers said in a new legal filing.
Mr. Flaco said danger issues have been known for years, but heavy rains accelerated the deterioration.
He said a new assessment shows at least seven additional ceiling spots from water damage.
On the exterior, 46 of the 278 soffit panels have severe corrosion, and 93 have moderate decay.
The fight over the closures is tied to another battle over the center’s name.
Mr. Trump has insisted no renovations can happen without his name being added to the building, which by law is a memorial to the late President John F. Kennedy.
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