Leaders of the White House Historical Association ordered employees to keep a $2.5 million donation tied to the East Wing under wraps as angry members demanded answers after President Donald Trump razed it last year, according to a new report.
Association president Stewart McLaurin and his deputies gave staff a directive – “don’t tell anyone” about the gift from businessman Vance Patterson or the detailed photographs of the East Wing the group had commissioned, four people familiar with the conversations told the Washington Post.
“It didn’t feel right to mislead people, or tell them what I knew not to be true,” said one former staffer who received the instructions. “I got calls, every day, from members giving $50 to a quarter-million dollars or more. Many were incredibly disappointed by the lack of response from the WHHA.”
Patterson, a former Republican congressional candidate the nonprofit had recruited as a wealthy donor, said he approached the group last spring after learning of Trump’s ballroom plans.
“We wanted to participate, so they came up with a proposal that turned out to be $2.5 million to do the demolition and preserve everything that was in there,” Patterson said.
An unnamed spokesperson for the association said the money paid only for documenting the East Wing and that none of it went toward tearing it down or building the ballroom. The group ignored questions about why Patterson understood otherwise and did not make McLaurin available for an interview.
Patterson said he dealt only with the association, not White House officials, and that the group arranged a White House tour for him and his wife.
The secrecy has fueled a donor revolt. Four contributors who gave more than $500,000 told the Post they have stopped giving, and philanthropists behind millions more in pledges are weighing whether to walk away.
Two weeks after the demolition, donors at the group’s gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art asked whether anything Trump did would draw a response. They were told the association had no plans to speak up.
Privately, McLaurin and other leaders have conceded that many of Trump’s changes are inappropriate but decided a fight could do lasting damage, two people told the Post.
Leon Pascucci, a retired interior designer who gave for more than 30 years, didn’t mince words.
“Trump destroyed the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden — dedicated in 1965 to the founder of the association — and they haven’t said one word about it. Not one word,” he said.
Patterson told the newspaper that change to the White House was inevitable.
“If they want to rebuild the East Wing, they can do it at a later date. They’ll have everything they need to rebuild it,” he said, adding that he was joking “because nobody’s going to want back what was there.”