Judge says Kennedy Center board broke law putting Trump’s name on building, blocks closure

— A federal judge ruled Friday that President Donald Trump’s name was illegally added to the Kennedy Center and blocked the administration from closing the cultural and arts venue for major renovations — the latest legal setback for Trump’s efforts to leave his personal mark on the landscape of the nation’s capital.

Trump said in response that he’s backing away from his proposed renovation and returning control of the arts institution to Congress.

“Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, bring this Institution back, physically, financially, and artistically, I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into ‘NEVER NEVER LAND,’” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C., ruled that the Kennedy Center board’s March 16 vote to close the facility was “ill-informed and seemingly preordained” with no regard for its legal obligations. The administration had announced the work would begin in July and last approximately two years, but Cooper’s ruling halts those plans for now.

“The trustees might have assessed the propriety of closure in a number of prudent ways. This was not one,” he wrote.

Cooper also concluded that the board “overstepped its statutory bounds” by unilaterally adding Trump’s name to the center. Congress gave the Kennedy C