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'Hide their embarrassment': Kennedy Center excuse for Trump tarp stuns in court

rawstory.com · 3h · first reportShare

The Kennedy Center told a federal court its tarp is needed for water testing, but Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH) says the real motive is to "hide their embarrassment." The claim came Tuesday in a joint status report filed in U.S. District Court, where U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper had ordered the center to explain why a tarp has covered its facade for more than two months. Beatty, a Democratic congresswoman, Kennedy Center board member, and the plaintiff who sued to block Trump's takeover of the center, says the tarp is doing something else entirely — blocking the public from seeing that President John F. Kennedy's name has been restored to the building. "Water testing and structural repairs to the roof overhang of the Center's front portico require the use of a scaffolding system, including a protective covering — a tarp — around that scaffolding," Department of Justice attorneys told the court on the center's behalf. "The soffits are some twenty feet or more above the scaffolding,