Appeals court keeps Trump name off Kennedy Center during challenge

A federal appeals panel declined Wednesday to put President Donald Trump’s name back on the Kennedy Center while litigation over the building’s official name continues. The ruling leaves the Washington arts institution’s façade without Trump’s name after its removal on June 12, and it also rejected claims that fundraising would suffer without immediate relief.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied a request from Trump and the Kennedy Center board to stay a lower-court order requiring the name’s removal. A stay would have paused that order while the appeal proceeds, but the panel said the appellants had not shown the kind of irreparable injury needed to justify that step.

Because the name had already been taken down, the panel said restoring it temporarily would not prevent the harms Trump and the board cited, even if those harms qualified as irreparable. The judges also said the filings did not include “specific facts and evidence” showing that the center’s fundraising would be damaged if Trump’s name remained off the building.

The panel also rejected an argument concerning a newly named fundraising entity, “The Trump Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Foundation.” Trump and the board had argued that the entity could no longer raise money and would have to return funds already “raised or committed” if Trump’s name was not restored to the façade.

The judges said that argument had not been presented to the district court and that Trump and the board had not explained why it was raised for the first time on appeal. A new factual argument after the fact, the panel said, could not establish that the district court abused its discretion.

Dispute over authority

The litigation centers on whether the Kennedy Center board had power to add Trump’s name to the performing arts center without congressional approval. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ordered the name removed on May 29, finding that the statute creating the Kennedy Center made Congress responsible for its name.

Cooper wrote that Congress named the center and that only Congress could change it. He said the Kennedy Center’s organic statute made clear the institution was to be named for President John F. Kennedy and could not carry another formal name or public memorial through unilateral board action.

The Kennedy Center board added Trump’s name in December. That action followed Trump’s removal of several trustees from the board 10 months earlier and his appointment of himself as a trustee. Trump is also chair of the board.

Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat and ex officio member of the Kennedy Center board, sued Trump soon after the name was added, seeking to have it removed.

The D.C. Circuit panel that issued Wednesday’s order had already denied Trump’s request for an administrative stay on June 12, allowing the name to be removed that night in compliance with Cooper’s order. The same appeals court is due to hear Trump’s broader challenge to the May 29 removal order.

The panel included Judge Gregory Katsas, who was appointed by Trump, and Judges Patricia Millett and Robert Wilkins, who were appointed by former President Barack Obama. CNBC reported that it requested comment from the Justice Department, which represents Trump and the Kennedy Center board in the appeal.

This story draws on original reporting from CNBC.