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Rep. Joyce Beatty’s (D-Ohio) lawyers on Monday said the tarp covering the exterior of the Kennedy Center, installed after President Trump’s name was removed, is an “act of petty defiance.”
Beatty, an ex officio board member, filed the original lawsuit against the administration. Her attorneys filed a motion with the U.S. Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia Circuit seeking the return of the Kennedy Center’s original name and the permanent removal of the tarp outside the building.
Her lawyers argued that the Trump administration “willfully flouted the statutes Congress passed; played chicken with the judicial system; now threaten to sabotage this sacred institution; and continue to obscure the Kennedy Center’s façade in an act of petty defiance.”
“Today, President Kennedy’s name remains on the building,” her lawyers wrote. “But the iconic letters are now obscured by the semi-permanent tarp, which appears to be Appellants’ effort to frustrate the restoration of the status quo as it existed prior to the renaming.”
The Hill has reached out to the Kennedy Center for comment.
Trump’s name was removed at U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper’s request. Last month, he ruled that the institution’s board improperly voted to shut down the center for renovations. He set a June 12 deadline for Trump’s name to be removed from anything associated with the arts center, from its website to the exterior of the building.
The tarp and scaffolding were set up that day to allow workers to remove Trump’s name from the building, and they have remained since.
The latest filing requests that Cooper deny the Kennedy Center board’s last-minute appeal to keep Trump’s name on the exterior of the building. The center’s lawyers would have to argue that removing the president’s name would cause it “irreparable harm.”
Beatty’s lawyers argued that the center’s legal defense failed “to demonstrate irreparable harm, which is independently fatal to their motion.”
“Indeed, Appellants’ own conduct –– complying until June 11, only to plead for a stay at the very last moment –– betrays their total lack of urgency,” her motion reads.
Government lawyers said the Trump administration complied with Cooper’s order to remove Trump’s name from all of the center’s digital and physical signage.
The center’s executive director, Matt Floca, said in a filing on Friday that the center’s management plans to present the board with various options to partially close the arts center for renovations between July and December.
Beatty’s lawyers said the administration’s filing with this request “confirms that they plan to turn the Kennedy Center into a lifeless husk.”
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