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Trump rushed Kennedy Center renovations for Fifa peace prize ceremony, whistleblowers say

Letter from Democratic senator outlines more no-bid contracts and second botched reflecting pool redo The US senator Sheldon Whitehouse has sent a letter to the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts detailing allegations from whistleblowers that some renovations were “rushed” and federal contracting laws “were ignored” to get the center ready for events, including for Donald Trump to receive the Fifa “peace prize” during the World Cup draw he hosted there in December. “I have received allegations that the Kennedy Center has conducted rushed renovation and maintenance work with disregard to its commitments to Congress and the federal contracting standards the Center has long applied to its own procurements,” the Rhode Island Democrat wrote in the letter dated Thursday. Whitehouse said that the allegations stem from a whistleblower disclosure submitted to him by the Government Accountability Project, and said that the disclosure conveys “the firsthand accounts of multiple former Center project managers, supported by contemporaneous documents and photographs” and “describes conduct sharply at odds with both the procurement standards the Center has long applied and the representations it has made to Congress”. The senator wrote that the whistleblower disclosure includes allegations that “a cosmetic and rushed revamp of the Center’s Reflecting Pool is already rusting and peeling, and will need to be fully rebuilt”, and that Trump’s “preferred contractor cut corners when repainting the Center’s columns, sticking taxpayers with the repair bill”. Also among the whistleblowers’ claims detailed in the letter are allegations that “an $8m no-bid flooring contract went to a firm with no apparent concert-hall experience”, and that the Kennedy Center “tore out a brand-new bathroom floor because President Trump didn’t like the color”. Whitehouse also said whistleblowers alleged that the Kennedy Center “rewrote its own contracting rules in a post hoc effort to justify the no-bid contracts awarded to facilitate the rushed renovations”. The allegations, Whitehouse said, raise “serious questions about the Center’s leadership and the Board’s financial management of the Kennedy Center and whether the Center’s representations to Congress were made in good faith”. “Instead of pursuing renovations tailored to the building’s actual needs, the Center rushed a series of renovations driven by the President’s aesthetic whims and his desire to star in a series of televised events in December,” said Whitehouse, who is the ranking member of the Senate committee on environment and public Works. “The Center’s subservience to the President’s desires and its corner-cutting contracting practices have resulted in steel columns that are rusting through fresh paint, a reflecting pool that may have to be torn out and rebuilt, and a brand-new bathroom floor torn out over an offending tile color.” “This is waste, and it treats a national memorial to President Kennedy as if it were a private renovation project,” he added. In the letter, Whitehouse requested documents and answers to a series of questions from the executive director of the center by 23 July. The Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday. But in a statement to the Times on Saturday in response to the allegations, a White House spokesperson accused previous Kennedy Center leadership for allowing the center to fall into disrepair. “President Trump did what Democrats wouldn’t,” the spokesperson said. “After decades of neglect, he committed the bold leadership and proper resources to fix the Kennedy Center and start the renovations of the finest performing arts facility in the world.” The letter comes after last year, Trump secured $257m from Congress for repairs and restoration at the center. In a statement issued Saturday, Representative Rick Larsen, the senior Democrat on the House infrastructure committee, said that the “Kennedy Center whistleblower allegations are serious and concerning”. “The Board of Trustees have the opportunity to focus on addressing these allegations and ensuring the $257 million Congress approved for renovations are used for legitimate, necessary repairs instead of cosmetic nickel and dime fixes that don’t last,” he said.