Kennedy Center ex-president decries ‘false allegations' about her tenure
The offstage drama at the embattled John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts just took another turn.
Deborah Rutter, whose tenure as president of the premier Washington, D.C. arts organization was cut short this year by President Donald Trump, issued a withering statement on LinkedIn decrying 'false allegations' about her leadership.
Those critics, she wrote on Tuesday, May 20, lack 'the context or expertise to understand the complexities involved in nonprofit and arts management.'
The statement follows allegations made Monday, May, 19, by Richard Grenell, who Trump appointed as the institution's interim executive director, that the center's deferred maintenance and deficit were criminal matters for prosecutors to investigate. The remark, reported by the Associated Press, came during a meal with Trump and board members at the White House's State Dining Room.
It was not immediately clear what law the center might be breaking; deficit spending by nonprofit arts organizations has practically been the norm, not the exception, since the COVID pandemic. Berkeley's Aurora Theatre Company, for instance, recently announced plans to forego producing a season next year after draining its savings.
Moreover, Rutter pointed out that Trump's allies approved previous Kennedy Center budgets. 'The Finance, Audit, and Executive Committees of the Board — composed of appointees from President Trump's first term — had full transparency into all financial transactions and decisions,' she wrote.
She also noted that when she left in February, as part of a wave of terminations and resignations that reconstituted the center, the organization had $10 million in reserve funds.
'Perhaps those now in charge are facing significant financial gaps and are seeking to attribute them to past management,' she hypothesized. 'This malicious attempt to distort the facts, which were consistently, transparently and readily available in professionally audited financial reports, recklessly disregards the truth.'
The dispute exacerbates an already tumultuous 2025 at the Kennedy Center.
In February, Trump appointed himself chair of the board. Soon after, a host of shows at the organization, including Tony Award-nominated 'Eureka Day' by Oakland playwright Jonathan Spector, was axed from the lineup.
A Kennedy Center artist leaked 'unprofessional and rude' emails Grenell sent her in April, further exposing the internal chaos there since Trump's takeover.
This month, 'Les Miserables' cast members announced plans to boycott Trump's attendance at a June 11 Kennedy Center performance, which recently scheduled a run of 'Mrs. Doubtfire' despite the presidents frequent castigations of drag. Also this month, center employees took steps with the National Labor Relations Board to unionize.
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