The Trump administration's lawyers just pulled back a key argument for shutting down the Kennedy Center, and a legal expert noticed right away.
In a notice of errata filed Wednesday in federal court in Washington, Justice Department attorneys withdrew their claim that renovating the building in phases would cost $41 million more than closing it temporarily. The comparison, they acknowledged, came from a version of a consultant's report that the Kennedy Center's board never received ahead of its August meeting.
"Whoops!" legal expert Adam Klasfeld posted on X.
"The Kennedy Center's Trump-installed Board quietly revises a key justification for the two-year closure," Klasfeld wrote, adding that "a report supposedly found phased renovations would cost $41M more."
"The Board admits it never read that before voting," he added.
The case was brought by Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH) and is before U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper.
The notice, signed by Justice Department trial attorney William S. Jankowski, says portions of three sentences in the government's brief "mistakenly describe the JLL Comprehensive Project Development Plan shared with the Center's Board in advance of its August 13, 2026 meeting." That brief supports the government's renewed motion for partial summary judgment and its motion to dissolve a preliminary injunction.
According to the filing, the cost comparison "references not the June 8 version of the JLL report presented to the Board in advance of its August 13, 2026 meeting, but an alternate version of the report provided to the Center on August 20, 2026, which was not provided to the Board."
The government is also withdrawing its argument that JLL's estimate showed "a phased closure of parts of the building would cost $41 million more than a temporary closure of the building," counting "construction costs alone."
The attorneys corrected their description of the JLL document as a "180-page" report. That was the length of the version they received Aug. 20, while the report the board saw ran 160 pages.
"Defendants regret these errors," the filing states. The updated JLL report has since been turned over to Beatty in discovery, according to the notice.
