The Department of Justice on Tuesday asked a federal judge to reject Rep. Joyce Beatty’s attempt to compel the government to provide documents about President Donald Trump’s role in the Kennedy Center’s planned two-year shutdown.
Government attorneys asserted in a response filed to U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper that Beatty’s discovery request for documents is unnecessary, saying the information already before the court supports the Kennedy Center board’s vote to shutter the center.
“Enough is enough,” the DOJ lawyers wrote. “The Court should not entertain Plaintiff’s and counsel’s efforts to mire this litigation in unnecessary and massively burdensome discovery simply because Plaintiff and her counsel believe something must be wrong with the Board’s well-supported decision to take an action with which Plaintiff, for undefined reasons, evidently disagrees.”
Beatty’s lawyers filed a motion on Monday accusing the Trump administration of improperly shielding evidence behind presidential privilege, saying it “stonewalled discovery” by withholding communications between the president and Kennedy Center officials.
Trending
“Absent the Court’s intervention, Defendants will be allowed to curate the record and hide the truth from the Court,” the Ohio Democrat’s legal team wrote.
Government lawyers asked the court to “order discovery closed immediately” and decline to reopen the process if the Oct. 9 discovery deadline passes before the judge can rule on the DOJ’s request.
The attorneys later said the Trump administration had already complied with the “Plaintiff’s requests for information” under a “severely expedited discovery timeline” in the case — and strongly rejected Beatty’s claims that communications revealed in discovery would reveal any misconduct by the Trump administration.
“None of the voluminous evidence provided to her thus far supports her unfounded theories of impropriety,” the DOJ attorneys argued, describing Beatty’s motion as a “desperate efforts to seek additional discovery.”
Beatty’s lawyers fired back with a reply filing Tuesday night. They pushed back against the DOJ’s claims that the evidence-gathering process has been dragging on and reemphasized the need to uncover new information, “particularly in light of the information that Plaintiff has uncovered in discovery in the short period available and despite Defendants’ apparent stonewalling.”
The Ohio congresswoman, who serves as an ex officio board member, has continued to challenge Trump’s push to reshape the institution since he took control of its board and leadership. The president has said that the iconic D.C. landmark is in a “virtual state of collapse” and asserted that only a complete shutdown of the main building, in addition to a more than $250 million renovation project, can save the performing arts center.
Trump has also taken specific issue with Cooper, a Barack Obama appointee, blocking the addition of his name to the building’s facade under President John F. Kennedy’s name. Trump threatened to halt planned construction for the center after it closed on Sept. 15 unless he is allowed to add his name.
In a Time magazine interview published last week, Trump declined to rule out demolishing the Kennedy Center if his name isn’t added to it, with or without congressional approval.
“I’m not committing to anything,” Trump said.
Author
