A White House lawyer says President Donald Trump has formally invoked executive privilege in the lawsuit involving his management of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
In a court filing Wednesday evening, Joshua Hoyt, deputy assistant and deputy counsel to the president, said that at “the direction of the President” he was “formally invoking presidential communications privilege with respect to information, documents and communications requested” by the plaintiff in the case, Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio.
Beatty, an ex-officio member of the center’s board of directors, took issue with Trump’s effort to add his name to the building’s facade and his directive that the center be closed for two years while it was renovated.
She is seeking more information about Trump’s role in both matters, since he appointed himself to the board last year and was elected chairman by the hand-picked board members. In February, Trump ordered the center closed for renovations in a social media post and has since said those renovations wouldn’t happen if he didn’t get “recognition” for his efforts.
Beatty contends that the board’s subsequent votes to close the center were a fait accompli, given Trump’s directive in February.
In the filing Wednesday in Administration Court, Hoyt said the invocation of executive privilege means Beatty is not entitled to more details about the nonprofit board president’s management.
He said in a statement that the privilege specifically covers “information, documents, and communications shared between the President, his advisors (governmental and nongovernmental), and Kennedy Center staff, relating to the management and operation” of the center. This also extends to communications “to or from his advisors and/or Kennedy Center staff.”
In a separate filing Wednesday, the Justice Department said Beatty was engaged in an improper “fishing expedition,” arguing that her “search for irrelevant evidence does not justify her extraordinary request” for additional documents and information.
Beatty’s lawyers said it was the DOJ acting extraordinarily.
“Donald Trump has appointed himself chairman of the nonprofit Kennedy Center board and is now attempting to protect its leadership by inappropriately invoking executive privilege,” attorneys Norm Eisen of Democracy Defenders Action and Nathaniel Zelinsky of the Washington Litigation Group said in a statement.
“The Supreme Court has emphasized that the government should not invoke executive privilege lightly, but that is precisely what the Justice Department is doing here. This type of cover-up is a direct attack on the rule of law,” they said.
DOJ lawyers had said in a filing earlier this month that Trump would assert executive privilege, but he did not formally do so until Wednesday.
In an Oct. 6 filing, Beatty’s lawyers said there was no basis to claim the privilege, since Trump is a defendant in the case as chairman of the congressionally created center’s board, not as president.
The lawyers said the Kennedy Center is not part of the executive branch “and does not exercise executive power.” They added that Trump “voluntarily assumed the ‘usual powers and duties of a fiduciary’.”
“Administrator and Chairman of the Board are not roles that should be filled by the President of the United States and, in fact, have never been the case in the history of the Center before. Nor do the Kennedy Center staff have anything to do with close presidential advisors whose conversations are protected by executive privilege,” the lawyers argued. “The Court should not allow defendants to escape responsibility as directors by abusing a privilege constructed for other purposes, not the presidency of this nonprofit entity.”
“Allowing defendants to hide behind this unwarranted assertion of privilege would hinder the search for the truth” and “undermine public confidence in these important proceedings,” they added.
The Justice Department countered that Trump’s involvement in the center “is undoubtedly in his official capacity,” since it is the president’s duty to appoint board members.
And, according to government lawyers, the president is still the president.
Beatty “argues that executive privilege “protects the institution of the presidency, not the individual who occupies the White House.” But, as the Supreme Court recently pointed out, the Framers vested “executive power” in one person: “a President of the United States of America.”
The federal judge presiding over the case, Christopher Cooper, has not yet ruled on the matter, but the administration’s position is at odds with a ruling he issued this month allowing Beatty’s team to learn more about the circumstances surrounding a photo of Trump on Air Force One looking at a poster that read “Kennedy Center DEMOLISH.”
The site was closed Sept. 15 on a temporary basis for what center officials described as emergency security assessments. It has not reopened.
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