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Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell torched Senate Democrats for opening an investigation into the national cultural center, writing to Rhode Island Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse that his investigation relied on “inaccurate gossip” and is rife with “partisan attacks.”
“I am concerned about your careless attacks on me and my team,” Grenell wrote in a letter to Whitehouse Thursday. “The letter you signed did not undergo basic fact-checking. It is filled with partisan attacks and false accusations. Your staff relied on anonymous sources, inaccurate gossip, and allegations from partisan reporters who never had access to the data or facts I’m happy to provide below.”
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is located in Washington, D.C., along the Potomac River and serves as the national cultural center of the U.S. It is led by Grenell as its president, with President Donald Trump serving as its chair.
It is a public-private institution, and receives some funding from the federal government.
Whitehouse, the ranking Democrat on the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, announced earlier Thursday that the committee was investigating Grenell’s leadership over the Kennedy Center and its budget while claiming the “nation’s premier arts center is being used as a slush fund and private club for Trump’s friends and political allies,” according to a press release.
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“Contracts, invoices, and facility use agreements reveal that you operate the Center for the enrichment of your friends and acquaintances, to dole out political favors, and as a playground for the President of the United States and his allies,” Whitehouse wrote of the investigation.
“The Center is being looted to the tune of millions of dollars in foregone revenue, cancelled programming, unpaid use of its facilities, and wasteful spending on luxury restaurants and hotels—an unprecedented pattern of self-dealing, favoritism, and waste,” he continued in his letter.
Kennedy Center Vice President of Public Relations Roma Daravi told Fox News Digital Friday morning that “Whitehouse’s baseless accusations are just the latest partisan attack on America’s cultural center.”
“With a balanced budget and an astounding $117 million raised under President Trump and Ambassador Grenell’s leadership, the Kennedy Center continues to welcome all Americans to enjoy the arts through commonsense programming,” she added.
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Grenell hit back at Whitehouse Thursday with a detailed, 12-point letter that walked through the claims Whitehouse put forth alleging the Kennedy Center offered “well-funded political allies like NewsNation and the American Conservative Union Foundation” discounted event rental prices, spent thousands on “luxury hotel rooms, lavish meals, and entertainment for friends and newly hired staff,” and offering the Kennedy Center as a venue for a FIFA event at no charge, which Whitehouse argued was a loss of $5,038,444 in revenue for the center.
“As President of the Kennedy Center, I take financial responsibility extremely seriously,” Grenell wrote. “When I arrived, we were paying a bloated staff with our future debt reserves account. The individual who had the job before me was getting paid $1,210,635 per year. There were 94 people employed in the Development Department (today, there are 16). And the deferred maintenance of the building was quite literally making the building fall apart.”
He added that Whitehouse left out of his investigation announcement any mention that, under Grenell’s leadership, the Kennedy Center’s budget was balanced for “the first time in decades.”
Grenell detailed that he has slashed costs on salaries for executive leadership compared to his predecessors who saw the “hemorrhaging (of) donor dollar,” single board meetings costing $120,000 each, that the Kennedy Center has not canceled any shows as some media outlets have previously reported, while installing a new system to ensure “all events must be revenue neutral.”
As for the FIFA event, Grenell wrote, the massive soccer organization delivered “several million dollars, in addition to paying all of the expenses for this event in lieu of a rental fee.”
“Your focus on simple rental fees is no way to run an institution as diverse as the Kennedy Center. A simple rental fee would not have been enough to cover the magnitude of the event,” he wrote.
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The thousands spent on “luxury hotels,” he continued, related to housing new employees at the Watergate Hotel, which is located directly next to the cultural center in D.C., citing the practice is customary while pointing to the center spending $878,000 in 2024 under the Biden administration for Watergate Hotel stays.
Grenell continued that Whitehouse’s criticism of the venue hosting a NewsNation event was by no means one benefiting “political allies,” citing the event featured Democrats and Trump critics Chris Cuomo, Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman and sports analyst Stephen A. Smith.
“No one would describe this as a giveaway to the President’s political allies. This group engaged in bipartisan debate with no restrictions on speech,” he wrote.
Grenell is a longtime Trump ally, serving in the president’s first administration as the nation’s ambassador to Germany and as acting Director of National Intelligence toward the end of Trump’s first tenure. Four years later, Grenell serves as the president of the cultural center and as the special envoy for special missions, a role that focuses on overseeing complex foreign policy challenges.
Grenell told Fox News Digital in February as he took the reins of the center that he would reel in its historic financial losses, including by promoting events that will sell tickets. The Kennedy Center under the Biden administration came under fire from Trump for hosting drag shows targeting kids, with Grenell unveiling more traditional programs, such as recent announcements that the center will hold its first Christmas tree lighting and religious-focused Christmas performances.
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“This will be the Golden Age of the Arts,” Grenell told Fox News Digital at the time. “The Kennedy Center has zero cash on hand and zero dollars in reserves – while taking tens of millions of dollars in public funds. We must have programs that sell tickets. We can’t afford to pay for content that doesn’t at least pay for itself right now. I wish we didn’t have to consider the costs of production, but we do.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Whitehouse’s office for comment on Grenell’s response letter but did not immediately receive a reply.
Grenell invited Whitehouse to visit the center to “enjoy our new commonsense programming and responsible financial stewardship.”
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