Kennedy Center lawyers say Trump’s name going back up in September

Aug. 19 (UPI) — Lawyers for the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts notified a federal judge that the facility plans to return President Donald Trump’s name to the facade of the building.

The announcement came in a court filing late Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The filing notified the judge that the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees voted Thursday to put Trump’s name on the building. The building’s name will be changed to The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump in early September.

The board also voted again to close the building for a multi-year renovation.

A federal judge ordered the center to remove Trump’s name in May and blocked plans to shutter the venue for two years for renovations. The board had voted in December to add Trump’s name to the building less than a year after the president dismissed the entire existing board and named new members, who in turn elected him chairman.

U.S. District Judge Casey Cooper, though, denied an appeal from the board to keep the name in June, saying, “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”

Kennedy officials set up scaffolding and tarp covering the sign on the building as they removed Trump’s name during an overnight operation June 13. Cooper asked why the tarps and scaffolding remained more than a week after the work was done.

In Tuesday’s filing, the Kennedy Center lawyers said the scaffolding and tarps remained the facilitate renovation work on the soffits, or eaves, of the building.

In a response, Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, who led the lawsuit against the Kennedy Center renaming, said the explanation for the remaining scaffolding and tarps “falls apart under scrutiny.”

“The soffits are some 20 feet or more above the scaffolding,” her response reads.

She said that the fact that the center has only left up the scaffolding obscuring the name of the building is “a strong indication that this structure has nothing to do with the roof and is, instead, meant to defy a return to the status quo.”