Fencing surrounds the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., US, October 5, 2026. This year's Kennedy Center Honors will be held at Washington's Capital One Arena as the Trump administration faces legal and congressional challenges over plans to demolish the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a center spokesperson said on Friday. REUTERS/Eric Lee
A federal judge rejected the Kennedy Center's bid to keep secret the plans its board used to justify President Donald Trump's two-year shutdown.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled Wednesday in a written order that the board must make a PowerPoint presentation it reviewed fully public.
Cooper also ordered the release of a 163-page construction plan prepared by the company JLL, though he will first let the government propose limited redactions.
Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH) asked for both documents to be made public as part of her lawsuit against Trump and the other trustees, according to the order. Beatty sits on the Kennedy Center board because of her seat in Congress.
Government lawyers argued that the construction plan includes "structural schematics, floor plans, … and detailed information on restricted access areas," Cooper wrote. Releasing it "would be unprecedented and could pose a material security risk to the building and those within," they said.
"Defendants have not met their burden to rebut the presumption of disclosure," Cooper wrote.
Court records that a judge is asked to rely on are presumed to be open to the public, and the side seeking secrecy must show it is needed, Cooper explained.
"The JLL Plan was created for and used by the Board of a public trust deliberating how to use public funds to renovate a public building," the judge wrote.
Cooper added that national news outlets had already reported some of the plan's contents. He also noted that hundreds of detailed photographs and many building schematics of the center were already in public court filings.
The government is also relying on the plan in its pending request to lift Cooper's injunction, the court order that has stalled the renovation project, according to the ruling.
"Defendants introduced and extensively rely on the JLL Plan in this case. That alone heavily favors unsealing," Cooper wrote.
Cooper wrote that, according to the government, the two documents informed the board's Aug. 13 meeting on whether to close the center's main building for renovations.
The board voted at that meeting to close the center for two years, and again on Sept. 15, according to a motion Beatty filed Monday. Those votes came after Trump announced on Feb. 1, without warning the board, that he had personally decided to close the center, the filing said.
"I have determined that the fastest way to bring The Trump Kennedy Center to the highest level of Success, Beauty, and Grandeur, is to cease Entertainment Operations for an approximately two-year period of time," Trump wrote on social media.
Cooper blocked that first shutdown on May 29, finding that the board had likely been presented with "a stacked deck," Beatty's motion said.
In asking Cooper to release the new documents, Beatty's lawyers argued that they mirrored the board's earlier "hasty attempt" and noted that both were created just two days before the vote, NOTUS reported.
"The first document—the 'JLL Plan'—is a building plan that assumes the Center must close and outlines the construction plan Defendants intend to undertake once they completely close the Center. The JLL Plan contains no cost-benefit analysis of closure," the motion said, according to Law&Crime.
"The vast majority of the JLL Plan appears to contain information that is non-sensitive or already publicly available," Cooper wrote.
Cooper gave the government until Oct. 14 to propose redactions that are "narrowly tailored and specifically supported," along with detailed written reasons, under his order. Beatty has until Oct. 19 to respond, and Cooper will then decide what stays sealed.