US President Donald Trump gestures on stage as he speaks at the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center in Wasilla, Alaska, US, October 13, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci
President Donald Trump ordered his White House counsel to review a longtime ally’s claim that someone in his inner circle never deposited a multimillion-dollar donation meant for the Kennedy Center.
Alina Habba, Trump’s former personal attorney, accused Ric Grenell, the former president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, of failing to deposit the donation Friday in the Oval Office, Axios reported Wednesday.
Habba told the president that Grenell failed to deposit a nearly $6 million donation her husband, Turkish investor Turhan Mildon, made to the center, according to the report.
“Absurd. I’ve never asked for one cent to be sent somewhere else pretending it was for the Kennedy Center, and I’ve never received any payment from him at all. Make him give proof to what he is saying, not make these absurd allegations,” Grenell told Axios, also calling the claims a “lie.”
Habba and Mildon declined to comment to Axios through a spokesperson.
“POTUS doesn’t want to deal with this. Of course, he’s concerned. But if there is missing money, this is a big, big problem,” a senior administration official told Axios.
Habba told Trump that in the spring of 2025, Grenell persuaded Mildon to include the donation in a lump-sum $17.6 million payment for a business deal involving a U.S. company, two sources told the outlet.
Her attorneys plan to give the White House documents reviewed by Axios that she says show Grenell sought a Kennedy Center donation from Mildon to go to a private company.
“The White House counsel has asked for documents and proof. None has come so far,” a White House official said.
When she first raised the accusation, Habba put the contribution at $17 million, then lowered it to $5.6 million as she learned details from her husband, the sources said.
“This has been hard to track because numbers have changed,” the White House official said.
“Alina hit the roof” when Mildon told her he hadn't donated the money directly to the Kennedy Center, sources said.
Kennedy Center records show Mildon owed only a $270,000 pledged donation, and no record shows him giving anything close to $5.6 million, officials told Axios. Records show Mildon paid the $270,000 on Tuesday.
Kennedy Center staff searched late last year for Mildon’s contribution, which they thought was $6 million, but could not find it, an official told Axios.
“There was nothing about $6 million. I would have heard about that,” Lisa Dale, who handled the center’s finances at the time, told Axios.
“[T]hese are only allegations. We don’t know if they’re true. This could be a misunderstanding,” another senior administration official said.
Just a few months ago, Grenell was friends with Habba and Mildon, but he didn't attend the couple’s $10 million wedding last month, Axios reported.
White House Counsel Will Scharf, whom Trump directed to examine the allegations, attended the wedding with Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel, according to The New York Times.
The couple’s business relationship with Grenell frayed after Grenell lost an internal administration power struggle over Venezuela to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, sources told Axios.
Grenell stepped down from the Kennedy Center in March. The order to examine the allegations came seven months after Trump praised his work there, saying Grenell had done “an excellent job,” NPR reported.
“This is the ultimate MAGA blood feud,” an insider with knowledge of the conflict told Axios.
“Nobody wants to get in the middle of Alina Habba and Ric Grenell going to war,” one official said.
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