Inside tonight’s newsletter:
Another musician alleges copyright infringement over Trump’s taxpayer-funded ads, and All Rise News previews a pair of high-profile hearings involving press freedom and the Maduro prosecution.
The Kennedy Center’s Trump-installed Board cannot hide a 163-page report providing the details of its plan to close the building for two years to complete a more than $250 million renovation, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday.
It’s the latest in a string of victories by Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), whose lawsuit succeeded in blocking Donald Trump’s effort to rename the Kennedy Center and put his name on the building.
The Board has relied upon the still-secret JLL Plan, written by the real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle, to justify closing the Kennedy Center for more than two years to complete renovations — but opposed its public release on the grounds of unspecified safety and security concerns.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said that he would allow the Board to propose redactions “out of an abundance of caution.”
“The vast majority of the JLL Plan appears to contain information that is non-sensitive or already publicly available,” the 6-page order states. “The Court makes clear that any redactions proposed by Defendants ‘must be narrowly tailored and specifically supported.’”
The Board must propose the redactions one week from today, and the Congresswoman will respond by Oct. 19.
Judge Cooper will ultimately decide what, if any, information will be redacted from the report. The judge also ordered the wholesale unsealing of a four-page Powerpoint presentation outlining the proposed renovations.
Rep. Beatty said that the unsealing of the report is in the public interest and crucial to her opposition to the two-year closure of the Kennedy Center.
“This is a case of enormous public interest about public officials’ maintenance of a public memorial to a slain President,” her lead attorney Nathaniel Zelinsky wrote last month in the motion to unseal.
The Kennedy Center’s Board claims that the building is closed on a temporary basis for “emergency repairs” after a 5-by-4-ft. stretch of plaster fell from the Grand Foyer in September — in an order that continues to be reviewed on a “weekly basis.” To date, the purportedly temporary closure has been extended every week.
The Board claims that the current closure is separate from the plan for a two-year closure for renovations, which is under review by the court.
Earlier this week, Rep. Beatty told Judge Cooper that the Kennedy Center’s Board was stonewalling all communications with Trump, who asserted presidential communications privilege over the evidence. Trump is the first sitting U.S. president to simultaneously serve as the chairman of the Kennedy Center’s board. He became “Chairman Trump” after installing loyalists to give him control over the institution.
Watch a video breakdown of “Chairman Trump” here.
The newsletter continues below with a video interview about Trump’s taxpayer-funded ads, instructions for remote public access to Thursday’s press ban hearing, and more.
