Kennedy Center’s Grenell hits back at Senate Democrats’ investigation

Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell blasted Senate Democrats for opening an investigation into the national cultural center, writing to Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse that his investigation was based on “inaccurate gossip” and was riddled with “partisan attacks.”

“I am concerned about your reckless attacks on me and my team,” Grenell wrote in a letter to Whitehouse on Thursday. “The letter you signed has not undergone basic fact-checking. It is filled with partisan attacks and false accusations. Your staff relied on anonymous sources, inaccurate gossip, and allegations from partisan journalists who never had access to the data or facts that I am happy to provide below.”

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is located in Washington, DC, along the Potomac River and serves as the national cultural center of the United States. It is led by Grenell as chairman, and President Donald Trump serves as its chairman.

It is a public-private institution that receives some funding from the federal government.

Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, announced Thursday that the committee was investigating Grenell’s leadership of the Kennedy Center and its budget, while claiming that “the nation’s premier arts center is being used as a slush fund and private club for Trump’s friends and political allies,” according to to a press release.

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The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is located in Washington, DC, along the Potomac River. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

“Contracts, invoices, and facility use agreements reveal that you exploited the Center for the enrichment of your friends and acquaintances, to distribute political favors, and as a playground for the President of the United States and his allies,” Whitehouse wrote of the investigation.

“The Center is being looted to the tune of millions of dollars in lost revenue, canceled programs, unpaid use of its facilities and wasteful spending on luxury restaurants and hotels – an unprecedented pattern of selfishness, favoritism and waste,” he continued in his letter.

Roma Daravi, vice president of public relations for the Kennedy Center, told Fox News Digital Friday morning that Whitehouse’s “baseless accusations are just the latest partisan attack on America’s cultural center.”

“With a balanced budget and an incredible $117 million raised under the leadership of President Trump and Ambassador Grenell, the Kennedy Center continues to invite all Americans to enjoy the arts through common-sense programming,” she added.

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Grenell fired back at Whitehouse on Thursday with a detailed 12-point letter that repeated claims made by Whitehouse, alleging that the Kennedy Center offered “well-funded political allies like NewsNation and the American Conservative Union Foundation” discounted event rental prices, spent thousands of dollars on “luxury hotel rooms, lavish meals and entertainment for friends and newly hired staff,” and offering the Kennedy Center as a venue for a FIFA event without fees, which Whitehouse argued was a loss of $5,038,444 in revenue for the center.

“As president of the Kennedy Center, I take my financial responsibility extremely seriously,” Grenell wrote. “When I arrived, we were paying a bloated staff with our future debt reserve account. The person who held the position before me was making $1,210,635 a year. There were 94 people employed in the development department (today there are 16). And the deferred maintenance of the building was literally causing the building to fall apart.”

Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell has lashed out at Senate Democrats over allegations about his leadership of the cultural center and an investigation into its finances. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

He said Whitehouse omitted from his investigative announcement any mention that, under Grenell’s leadership, the Kennedy Center’s budget had been balanced for “the first time in decades.”

Grenell explained that he had reduced the costs of executive salaries compared to his predecessors who had seen “a hemorrhaging (of) the donor dollar,” with single board meetings costing $120,000 each, that the Kennedy Center had not canceled any shows as some media outlets had previously reported, while installing a new system to ensure that “all events must be revenue neutral.”

As for the FIFA event, Grenell wrote, the massive soccer organization provided “several million dollars, in addition to paying all expenses for this event in lieu of rental fees.”

“Focusing on simple rental fees is no way to run an institution as diverse as the Kennedy Center. Simple rental fees would not have been enough to cover the scale of the event,” he wrote.

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The thousands of dollars spent on “luxury hotels,” he continued, were related to housing new employees at the Watergate Hotel, which is located right next to the Washington Cultural Center, citing that this practice is customary while pointing out that the center spent $878,000 in 2024 under the Biden administration for stays at the Watergate Hotel.

Grenell continued that Whitehouse’s criticism of the venue hosting a NewsNation event in no way benefited “political allies,” citing the event featuring Democrats and Trump critics Chris Cuomo, Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman and sports analyst Stephen A. Smith.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., during a Senate hearing on March 23, 2022. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

“No one could describe this as a gift to the President’s political allies. This group engaged in bipartisan debate without any restrictions on free speech,” he wrote.

Grenell is a longtime Trump ally, serving in the president’s first administration as the country’s ambassador to Germany and as acting director of national intelligence toward the end of Trump’s first term. Four years later, Grenell is president of the cultural center and special envoy for special missions, a role that focuses on overseeing complex foreign policy challenges.

Grenell told Fox News Digital in February, as he took the reins of the center, that he would make up for its historic financial losses, including by promoting events that will sell tickets. The Kennedy Center under the Biden administration has been criticized by Trump for hosting drag shows aimed at children, with Grenell unveiling more traditional programming, such as recent announcements that the center would stage its first Christmas tree lighting and religiously oriented Christmas shows.

President Donald Trump leads a board meeting at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts March 17, 2025 in Washington, DC (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

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“This will be the golden age of the arts,” Grenell told Fox News Digital at the time. “The Kennedy Center has zero cash on hand and zero dollars in reserves – all while taking tens of millions of dollars in public funds. We have to have programs that sell tickets. We can’t afford to pay for content that isn’t at least paying for itself right now. I wish we didn’t have to consider production costs, but we do.”

Fox News Digital reached out to Whitehouse’s office for comment on Grenell’s response letter, but did not immediately receive a response.

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Grenell invited Whitehouse to tour the center to “take advantage of our new, common-sense programming and responsible financial management.”