SCHEMING

Trump Goon’s Secret Plot to Purge Treasured Gifts Revealed

The president’s loyalist sought to replace gifts honoring JFK with art chosen by Trump patrons.

Ex-Kennedy Center boss Richard Grenell secretly tried to dump valuable gifts from the performing arts center to replace them with MAGA-approved art.

Grenell, the former head of the Kennedy Center who Trump fired in March, wanted to replace the center’s art collection, which includes gifts from foreign nations to honor Kennedy, with art hand-picked by Trump patrons, The New York Times reported.

Late last year during Grenell’s tenure, a proposal was circulated by Kennedy Center officials, the first page of which included details about a “de-accession” of artwork that “may include disposal via the following means: return to country of origin, transfer or exchange with another institution, public sale or destruction.”

Another memo circulated by Kennedy Center officials said the performing arts center could get rid of “outdated or inappropriate artworks,” and replace them with works that reflect “shared American values.”

In one email, Grenell wrote to Josef Palermo, a curator he hired, that he was permitted to unload the art.

“You can definitely start sending stuff back to the countries who donated it now. Figure out everything you don’t want and just send it back A.S.A.P.,” he wrote.

Palermo was fired about a month after Grenell was canned, and he has maintained that he was not for getting rid of the artwork.

Grenell asserted in an interview with the Times that he did not discuss art with Trump, and explained that in his email, “What I instructed Josef to do was go back to every gifted piece of art and tell the giver, ‘Thank you very much, we’re returning the art.’”

He also said he was focused on returning art that had been in need of repair, which he claimed the Kennedy Center could not afford.

Still, the plan shows that more than 20 pieces of art were targeted, including “Blue,” an outdoor sculpture that was taken away from the property last month without public notice.

The Kennedy Center has been in disarray since the start of Trump’s second term, when he declared himself the center’s chairman and made the board only hand-picked loyalists. But ticket sales plummeted, and artists fled from scheduled events.

In February, just before he fired Grenell, Trump announced that the Kennedy Center would close for two years for renovations.

Since then, Trump has tried and failed to get his name added to the memorial, which has prompted a court battle over the center’s future. He was ordered to remove his name, but construction tarps still cover the area.

The MAGA-filled board has tried to circumvent that court order, voting this month on a new push to keep the venue as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, but also add the words “Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump” on the building. The grounds would also become “President Donald J. Trump Plaza” under that proposal.

The administration has also maintained that if it cannot get what it wants with the Kennedy Center, the whole thing might be torn down, despite Congress having already allocated $257 million for repairs. Trump declared last week, “Because frankly if we don’t do that it’s going to close, it’ll end up being ripped down.”

He was later spotted through the window of Air Force One looking at a printout about the Kennedy Center being “demolished.”

His comments and fears of a sudden demolition prompted concerned Washingtonians to flock to the center in an attempt to protect it. On Friday, thousands gathered and locked arms around the Kennedy Center, forming a human chain to protect the memorial.

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