A legal expert argued a newly surfaced court document points to an unexpected player in President Donald Trump's push to shutter the Kennedy Center.
Legal AF's Michael Popok said on Tuesday's episode of "The Intersection" that presidential aide Natalie Harp has been trading messages with Kennedy Center management about the institution's fate, according to a privilege log the Trump administration is using to keep those exchanges hidden.
"Does Natalie Harp have a bigger role in the White House than we first suspected?" Popok asked. "It appears from a new filing in the Kennedy Center litigation that Natalie Harp is communicating with people at the Kennedy Center about the destruction of the Kennedy Center. And of course, Trump doesn't like that, so he's hiding it from public view."
The log, which Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH) filed Sunday in her lawsuit over the center's closure, lists 19 messages between Kennedy Center executive director Matt Floca and Harp, according to reporting by The Washington Post. Eleven of them were sent Sept. 15, the day trustees voted again to close the main building for a two-year renovation.
The same list identifies roughly 180 texts between Floca and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whose wife is on the Kennedy Center board. The Post reported those exchanges started the day after Trump announced he'd tapped Lutnick to help shift control of the institution.
"There's Natalie Harp...banging out 19 separate text messages, including 11 on one day alone on September 15," Popok said. "How many times do we have to see Natalie Harp with a giant binder under her arm doing Donald Trump's bidding before we realize that she is nothing more than a conduit and an enabler for Donald Trump?"
The Trump administration argues presidential communications privilege shields the messages. A White House official told the Post that attempts to dig into Trump's private communications "will not succeed." Beatty's lawyers counter that the records concern Trump's work as the board's chairman rather than as president.
Popok questioned why Harp, rather than a more senior aide, appears to be at the center of it. "Why is she the one?" he asked. "Why isn't it Susie Wiles, the chief of staff? Why is it Natalie Harp who's the one that is trying to bring down the curtain on the Kennedy Center?"
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper has yet to rule on the privilege dispute. Popok predicted Cooper would hold a hearing and might review the records in camera, meaning privately without the public seeing them. "But I think he's going to, from there, force those documents to be produced," Popok said.