A United States senator has published a whistleblower complaint alleging that allies of President Donald Trump mismanaged renovations at the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in order to please the president’s “aesthetic whims”.
On Saturday, Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island released a letter addressed to the Kennedy Center’s leadership, conveying the accusations.
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They include claims that the Kennedy Center, under Trump, bypassed standard procedures for awarding government contracts and approved unnecessary — or faulty — projects.
“These are not isolated lapses but a single pattern that runs counter to everything the Center has told Congress it would do with the public’s money,” Whitehouse wrote.
“Instead of pursuing renovations tailored to the building’s actual needs, the Center rushed a series of renovations driven by the President’s aesthetic whims and his desire to star in a series of televised events in December.”
That month, Trump had hosted the FIFA World Cup final draw, which helps determine the group-stage matches for the football tournament.
The draw doubled as a ceremony to celebrate Trump himself, who was awarded the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize by the organisation’s president, Gianni Infantino.
Two days later, on December 7, Trump again took the stage to emcee the Kennedy Center Honors, an annual ceremony that recognises lifetime contributions to US art and culture. Trump was the first president to host the award show, and he said he was “very involved” in the honourees’ selection.
To prepare the Kennedy Center for those dates, its officials worked “in unusually close consultation” with Trump’s White House, according to the whistleblower report Whitehouse obtained.
Located in Washington, DC, the Kennedy Center serves as the national performing centre for the US.
Established by an act of Congress, the theatre complex also acts as a living memorial to slain President John K Kennedy, who was assassinated while in office in 1963.
But since taking office for a second term, Trump has sought to exert influence over the arts centre and other government institutions that had previously operated independently from the president.
Shortly after his 2025 inauguration, Trump fired most of the Kennedy Center’s board and replaced the terminated members with allies. He also announced himself as its incoming chair, a proposal his hand-picked board subsequently voted to approve.
Saturday’s whistleblower disclosure sketches what happened afterwards.
It explains that Trump objected to the gold-coloured columns outside the theatre complex, designed to look like strings on a musical instrument. He preferred that they be painted white, to match the marble of the building.
But, as Whitehouse’s letter conveys, “Trump’s preferred contractor cut corners when repainting the Center’s columns”, resulting in the steel columns “rusting through the new white paint”.
Whitehouse also notes that the painting began in August “with no written contract in place” — and a $4.4m deal only awarded afterwards. He estimates the repairs will cost $1.5m.
In another case, Whitehouse said the Kennedy Center’s Trump-appointed leadership ripped up newly installed bathroom tiles because the president “didn’t like the color”.
Another example that Whitehouse cites mirrors Trump’s ongoing struggles with the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which has been criticised for its algae bloom and peeling paint after a Trump-approved renovation.
The Kennedy Center has its own, smaller reflecting pool. But it “is now unevenly painted and rusting” after the Kennedy Center board pushed ahead with a hasty “cosmetic revamp”, according to the whistleblower disclosure.
Whitehouse wrote that the Kennedy Center’s management “set aside contracting rules to hit the President’s deadlines, telling staff, ‘We’ll deal with the lawsuits later.’”
“Longstanding federal contracting controls were set aside, no-bid contracts were awarded, and superficial cosmetic work was performed that staff warned would have to be redone,” Whitehouse explained.
One contractor, he added, did not appear to have any experience working on concert halls, despite being awarded $8m to do so.
Whitehouse accused the Trump administration of wasting taxpayer money and called for a full accounting of the renovations and their costs — including the price tag for affixing Trump’s name to the side of the building.
A court later ruled in May that Trump’s name had to come off the building, citing Congress’s authority over the Kennedy Center.
“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” Judge Christopher Cooper wrote at the time.
The Trump administration has long argued that the Kennedy Center was in a state of disrepair and called for the arts complex to be closed for two years, following backlash over attempts to rename the building.
The fight over the Kennedy Center, however, is part of a larger battle over Trump’s efforts to reshape Washington, DC.
In addition to his work on the Kennedy Center and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Trump has demolished the White House’s East Wing, sought to build a triumphal arch, and proposed painting the historic Eisenhower Building white, despite concerns about its granite exterior.
Whitehouse, who serves on the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works, issued a warning against any half-baked projects, though.
“Public funds ought to be spent lawfully, prudently, and in service of the institution, not on the stylistic whims of the current President,” he wrote.