Under Richard Grenell, the performing arts center has given steep discounts to CPAC and FIFA, signed contracts with administration associates and spent lavishly on friends.
Richard Grenell at a White House dinner for the Kennedy Center board in May. Since he was tapped to lead the center, it has become something resembling a private club for the president’s friends and supporters.
When the American Conservative Union Foundation needed a venue for last month’s summit on “ending Christian persecution,” it rented out a stage at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.
The one-day event at what has long been viewed as the nation’s cultural stage was supposed to cost nearly $42,000, according to a copy of the Kennedy Center contract obtained by congressional Democrats and reviewed by The New York Times.
But the institution’s leadership — which President Trump has stacked with loyalists including Richard Grenell, the ambassador to Germany during the first Trump administration — brought down the total cost to $20,007.
Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like.
Katie Benner is a correspondent writing primarily about large institutions that shape American life.
