Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Caught Hiding Kennedy Center Documents and Information as Judge Orders Immediate Responses

Episode Date: October 10, 2026

Popok reports on new developments in the fight over the Kennedy Center's future and name, as Trump orders his DOJ to refuse to have witnesses answer questions by asserting "executive privilege"! For the self-proclaimed "most transparent administration in history" the Trump Administration and DOJ certainly spend a lot of time and energy covering their tracks and refusing to answer questions! Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@LegalAFMTN?sub_confirmation=1 Become a member of Legal AF YouTube community: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgZJZZbnLFPr5GJdCuIwpA/join Become a member of the Legal AF Substack: https://michaelpopok.substack.com/20off Follow Legal AF on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/legalafmtn.bsky.social Follow Michael Popok on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/mspopok.bsky.social Subscribe to the Legal AF podcast feed here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/legal-af-by-meidastouch/id1580828595 Subscribe to the Intersection with Michael Popok podcast feed here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-intersection-with-michael-popok/id1818863274 Subscribe to Unprecedented with Michael Popok and Dina Doll podcast feed here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unprecedented-by-legal-af/id1867023089 Subscribe to Court of History with Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wilentz podcast feed here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-court-of-history/id1867022920 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IGPrivatewealth.com. With Amazon, you can deliver joy to everyone on your list. Like your Uncle Ricky, who made your wedding photos unforgettable because his fly was open. So get him underpants Hill love and get a head start on holiday shopping with low prices on gifts everyone wants. For an administration that claims it's the most transparent in history, it certainly spends an ample amount of time trying to hide information from courts and the public. Latest example, the Kennedy Center, as Donald Trump, who's just the chair of the

Kennedy Center. It's not an executive branch function. It's not an Article 2 power of the presidency has had his lawyers assert executive privilege to stop answers to questions in deposition sworn statements under oath about the Kennedy Center, its finances, the decision making or instructions around demolition or renovation or fundraising. And it's not like the plaintiff in the case, Representative Joyce Beattie, who's on the board of trustees. It's not like she's trying to take the deposition of Donald Trump or even the Commerce Secretary who seems to be in control for Donald Trump, Howard Lutnik, or any of the members of the board. They're not doing that at all. Mindful of the argument that executive privilege could be triggered, they only want to take

the deposition so far of the executive director, a guy named Matt Flaca. about his communications with Donald Trump, who's calling the shots, who admits he's calling the shots, with Howard Lutnik and the rest. And every time they asked a question in this sworn statement under oath, like you're in court, it's called a deposition. What happened? The lawyer for the Department of Justice, Mr. Jenkowski, put up the executive privilege stop sign. No, he's not going to answer that. no this is a preemptive assertion of executive privilege no we're doing it now just so we can preserve it no you're not going to allow if Donald Trump and the defense team at the Department of Justice is going to submit to the judge facts about discussions between flaca and Trump then flaka is going to have to be asked and answer questions

about his discussions with Trump. Same as Lutnik. We've seen the video. They love to talk outside of the Kennedy Center or outside of the courtroom or post social media posts threatening to tear down the Kennedy Center unless Donald Trump gets his name on it.

That's what this fight is all about. But when push comes to shove inside of a courtroom in the discovery process, which is what it's called after a lawsuit is filed, to prepare the documents and information and evidence that's necessary to prove, a case or prove a defense. There they put up the stop sign.

Oh, you can't ask those questions. He's the president of the United States after all. Yes, who made himself chairman of an institution that's outside of the executive branch. Welcome to Saturday morning on the upside down world of Donald Trump. I'll tell you what happened. And I'll tell you what I think is going to happen next. I'm Michael Popock. Another day of traveling that I'm back in my home studio.

Thanks for being here. Take a minute. Hit the free subscribe button as we continue to grow our approach. Democracy Channel. What is this all about? Donald Trump back in February of 2025 took over the Kennedy Center, a performing arts center created by Congress to memorialize the memory of a fallen president, John F. Kennedy, after he was assassinated. It's the only living memorial to Kennedy in the District of Columbia. It seemed pretty simple. Every president has put some people on there on the board of trustees. There's about 20 or 30 of them. And they make the decisions generally about the operation

of the Kennedy Center. Not this time. Donald Trump decided he was going to put his big fat thumb on the scale and big foot all the meetings, order his board to do certain things like clothes, like threatened to close unless they put his name on the building. He wants his name on the building because he wants his name on the building. And he's going to cut off funding, even though it was congressionally allocated unless he gets his name on the building. So he's had the Kennedy Center in a death grip, threatening to cut the fuel line of funding for almost the last year. And of course, without money being spent to renovate it

and to resolve certain structural issues, the building's got issues. Donald Trump points to those issues that he's caused as a reason why he needs his name on the building. Now, Judge Cooper has already permanently blocked Donald Trump's name from being on the building. He's also preliminarily blocked the demolition of the building unless they give them 30 days notice. So now there's a whole dispute about the decision-making that's going on and the plans at the Kennedy Center, which moves us into the discovery phase. During the discovery phase, both parties are allowed to ask for documents in request for

production, ask for questions written under oath. That's called an interrogatory. or sit people down in a chair with a court reporter, swear them in like they're in court, and that's called a deposition. And that's where we are right now with Discovery about to close in October. We're in that deposition phase. And all that the lawyers for Representative Beattie want to do was to sit Matt Flocka, the executive director,

who already filed a series of affidavits that's sworn declarations under oath to challenge the subject matter within that and get to the bottom. of what's going on at the Kennedy Center. I have already said in numerous prior hot takes that the lawyers for the Kennedy Center, and that includes people that I know like Norm Eisen,

should be moving to replace the trustees, have the judge appoint a monitor or a receiver, a court-appointed officer, a former federal judge, to make decisions while he considers whether the board has violated their fiduciary duties. We're not there yet, but we may be getting closer based on these new rulings. Here's what they tried to ask in deposition and were blocked every time by the Department of Justice lawyers. It says defendants then asserted executive privilege numerous times on highly pertinent topics.

This is in a new supplemental memorandum that just came in the last 48 hours. This is according to the plaintiffs. whether Mr. Flokka had any communications with the chairman, that's Trump, about the two-year timeline for closure, as opposed to some other interval of closure. Whether Mr. Lutnik, that's Howard Lutnik, conveyed information from the chairman directly to the consulting group who is hired to do construction consulting. Delta is ostensibly acting as an independent consultant, but had at least one in-person meeting with Mr. Lutnik and Flaka to discuss their upcoming presentation to the board. board. Here's Howard Lutnik talking about the Kennedy Center and his role. One side note, his wife, Alison Lutnik, is on the Kennedy board. Play the clips. The building is dangerous. People say, oh, don't overstate that it's dangerous. Look, there are chunks of concrete falling

off the ceiling in the garage. The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts should be the greatest cultural institution in the United States of America and possibly the world. And the president wants to do that, right? But it's not there now. It's had decades of financial neglect. And the reason that happened is because Congress is good at a lot of things, but what they're not good at is putting out a little bit of money every year to renovate and restore a building. $27 million would be enough money to completely renovate and restore the building if President Trump was the construction manager. If he agreed to do it, we could get this done.

If the building is not properly renovated and restored, eventually it falls into a set of disrepair that it cannot be used. And since Congress isn't good at doing it, right? If this, let's say they started doing it and just ran out of money. The president says, you know what, I'm not working with it. It's just, I should just step away. You know what? I should just step away. Then what will happen is it'll just run out of money.

It'll be a halfway done, a quarterway done, and a run out of money, and then over time it will just go down and down and down until at some point, a building that was built in 1964 that isn't renovated does eventually get torn down. Does the administration have the authority to tear down the Kennedy Center if that's what it decides needs to be done? I have no idea. That is not, you know, these are, board decisions, right? How the building does from a safety standard will be up to the building. Right now, we expect the board has voted, voted overwhelmingly to keep the reach open and close

the main building and let Donald Trump restore it. So that has been done by this board. So unless this judge blocks it and sort of creates a harrowing decision for the Kennedy Center, right? That's what's going to happen. This building is going to close and President Trump's going to renovate it. And if you want him to renovate it and you want him to endow it and the endowment is the key because the Congress can't give money for its operating losses. And this building has lost a hundred million dollars a year. This business has lost a hundred million. No one thinks the Kennedy Center is like a profit-making enterprise, right? You have the unbelievable asset of the National Symphony Orchestra. Right? The NSO is amazing, but it loses money every year, okay? Because you can't have like the world's great

symphony orchestra and expected that it's making money. So who's going to put up that money? Congress does not write operating checks. So President Trump has said, I will endow this center. So it is extraordinary forever. And we made a deal, by the way, to keep, if we close the main building, to help the NSO travel this country. and have the world see how amazing this orchestra is. So we made a deal with them. They were in my office when we made the deal and the leadership started crying because they didn't know how much the president loves them and respects them.

And when we told them how much he loves and respects them, they were so happy because he said, we're gonna endow this institution and you're never going anywhere. And that matters. And Donald Trump has not been shy about the candidate Center and his comments about wanting to exert control and put it under his boot heel. Here's some clips of President Trump talking about the Kennedy Center that he chairs.

The Kennedy Center for many years has lost tens of millions of dollars, even hundreds of millions of dollars. It's a loser financially. And many of the places like that, you know, like Carnegie Hall and the various places throughout the country, they lose a lot of money. For me to go and fix it. I'm the one capable of fixing it, and then have to subsidize it for years to come, because you will lose with the Kennedy Center.

They were losing hundreds of millions of dollars, and sometimes hundreds of millions. This is before I got involved. So for the Trump administration, for me to get involved and to take that on long term and to carry it, or to raise money to carry it, I think that the Trump administration should certainly have recognition. Because frankly, if we don't do that, it's going to close. It'll end up being ripped down. It's in very, very bad shape, very dangerous shape.

You see steel falling down. You see plaster falling off ceilings. You see a lot of dangers. It's been very badly maintained for 25 years. The place is a dump. It's been a dump for years. It's lost money for years. I can turn it around, fix it.

But the question is, somebody's going to have to subsidize that for years to come. because palaces of the arts lose tremendous amounts of money. The Kennedy Center for 25 years has lost a tremendous amount of money. And all I'm saying, I don't mind doing the job. But if I do the job, I think the Trump administration, including Bobby, but the Trump administration should be recognized. I do that. Why do you want your name on the memorial?

Because we should be recognized. the Trump administration, if I'm willing and the administration is willing, we have a lot of people working very hard on it to save it. I can save it easily. But why should we be doing that and then raise money for the rest of our lives to keep it afloat? Because that's what you have to do. If we get no recognition, I think the Trump administration should be recognized as having saved the Kennedy Center because nobody else can do it. Now, the new filing continues. This is where they got blocked. Questions not answered. Whether Mr. Flaka spoke with Trump at any point this year about the center's cash position, how much money it has or does it has.

Whether Mr. Flaka spoke with Trump about the fiscal harms caused by renaming. There's already been reporting that the fundraising is going in the opposite direction from Donald Trump's argument. He tries to argue, my name has to be on the building, or we won't raise enough money to save it. In reality, donors are running away from the Trump-Kennedy idea screaming, and they're not donating money because of Trump's involvement. And so that's the question and that's the topic that they want to ask that they have been blocked so far. Whether Mr. Flocka spoke with Trump about the decline in artists, patrons, and donors. a topic likewise directly relates to its cash position. In other words, nobody wants to perform there.

Nobody wants to go there. Nobody wants to donate there because Trump's name is involved. And again, they want to run away from reality, and they don't want those questions answered. You can see where this is going. We have a concept in the law, two concepts of the law that are coming to a head right here with these filings with Judge Cooper. One is, what is executive power and executive privilege?

Is being the head of the Kennedy Center in Article 2 from the Constitution, constitutional power or function or a core function? Most watchers, court watchers like me, would say absolutely not. And even if you stretch the presidential powers out to its outer boundaries, which the Supreme Court likes to do, you're not going to find running the Kennedy Center under the organic statute, which was set up by Congress, not as an executive branch, but just as an entity giving Trump the ability or any president the ability to appoint trustees, but not to actually run the thing. That's not going to fall within executive power. If it doesn't fall within executive power, then the president can't assert executive privilege because he's wearing his chairman of the board hat. he's not wearing his president of the United States hat.

Also, so that's executive privilege analysis. The other analysis that comes into play here, which Judge Cooper is going to have to get to the bottom of, is what we call the sword and the shield. And it's sort of what it sounds like. You can't use documents and information that are in your favor as a sword. Well, Trump told me this,

and Matt Flok is saying, who's the executive director, well, I talked to Howard Lutnik on that, And then when you inquire about it and say, tell me more, they throw up a shield and say, nope, executive privilege. Yeah, you can't, you can't do it that way. You can't, it's not a one-way street, you know, like only I can talk about what my conversations with Donald Trump and file it with court filings.

But you can't ask me about it. I think the lawyers have done a very smart thing for Joyce Beattie. They are telling the judge, look, we're reasonable. We're not trying to take Donald Trump's deposition. but I think that's yet. I think Donald Trump's deposition should be taken. I think this executive privilege issue should come to a head right away. I think they should be taking the deposition of Howard Lutnik.

I've made this, I've said this out loud, and I've conducted cases like this. I think the board of trustees, a number of them like a Paolo Zambole, anybody that has spoken out in favor of Donald Trump in renaming should be under oath in a deposition. They should be getting their documents. They should be getting their text messages, their signal apps, their WhatsApp, however they've been communicating between Trump, Lutnik, and the board. I want to see what Howard Lutnik and his wife have been communicating about related to the board. I want to see how Howard Lutnik has been interacting with the supposed independent consultants telling them that they need to shut down the Kennedy Center. Howard Lutnik has a sort of a real estate and construction background

because his family office used to own a or owns a company called Newmark, a real estate concern. I want to see, you know, how many fingers in the pie, if you will, Trump and Lutnik have over the Kennedy Center at its board. That should be fair game in this discovery process. The judge right now is taking it all in. He's given the Trump side another few days to respond, and then he's going to make his ruling. And I think it's going to be favorable for Representative Joyce Beattie because the judge needs to see this information as well.

He's also told the Trump side they need to turn over the financial information. They can't keep talking about it. Can't keep social media posting about it. They need to actually turn it over. So we're going to continue to follow it all right here. You're on legal AF. Take a minute. Hit that free subscribe button.

that really helps. Come over to LegalAF Substack, where we're going to post things like these new supplemental filings for you to read for yourself. Until I make my next report in about an hour, I'm Michael Popak. Can't get your fill of Legal AF. Me neither. That's why we form the Legal AF substack. Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the substack. You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do call, wait for it, morning A.F. What else? All the other contributors from LegalAAP are there as well. We got some new reporting. We got interviews. We got ad-free versions of the podcast and hot takes. Where? Legal A.F. on Substack. Come over now to free subscribe.

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