By Mike Scarcella
WASHINGTON, Aug 25 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s administration argued in a court filing that a decision to restore Trump’s name to the facade of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington does not violate a federal judge’s May order.
In a court filing late on Monday, lawyers for the administration urged U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper to reject a new legal challenge to Trump’s renaming efforts by a Democratic Kennedy Center board member.
The filing is the latest salvo in a months-long legal battle over whether the Trump-appointed board can add the president’s name to a venue that Congress designated as a memorial to President John F. Kennedy. A federal judge ruled in May that only Congress can change the center’s name.
The center’s board, largely composed of Trump appointees, voted 20-3 on August 13 to alter the building’s signage to read “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump,” while naming the center’s grounds the “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.”
U.S. Representative Joyce Beatty of Ohio, a member of the Kennedy Center’s board by virtue of her position in Congress, asked Cooper last week to halt the move. Beatty sued the administration last year after the Kennedy Center altered its marble facade to read “The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”
Cooper in May sided with Beatty and ordered the Kennedy Center to remove Trump’s name, ruling that the venue “must be named for, and is meant to honor, President Kennedy alone.” Cooper said Congress named the Kennedy Center and “only Congress can change it.”
The performing arts center was created as a memorial to Kennedy after the Democratic president’s 1963 assassination.
Trump’s name was removed from the building’s white marble facade in June, with a large tarp draped over the wall since then. A federal appeals court last month denied the administration’s bid to keep the name up while it appeals Cooper’s ruling.
The administration argued in its filing on Monday that the new plan to add Trump’s name to the facade does not violate the court’s injunction because the building would still be named the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. It said the “Restored and Renovated by” inscription simply acknowledges Trump’s role.
“Such acknowledgements of major donors are ubiquitous in similar facilities,” the filing said.
A lawyer for Beatty, Nathaniel Zelinsky, in a statement said “this filing — which reads like it was written personally by Donald Trump — is legally baseless.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Cooper has scheduled a hearing for Thursday in D.C. federal court to weigh Beatty’s bid to block the Kennedy Center from putting Trump’s name back on the facade.
(Reporting by Mike Scarcella; Editing by David Bario and Sanjeev Miglani)
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