Trump claims executive privilege to keep Kennedy Center conversations secret

The privilege could cover Trump's conversations with non-government advisers.

President Donald Trump is making a broad assertion of executive privilege to keep secret the conversations he has had about plans to renovate the Kennedy Center, the Justice Department said in a court filing this week.

A White House lawyer says in court documents released on Wednesday that Trump's executive privilege --which is the right of a president to keep confidential the communications he has with advisers -- would also cover his conversations with advisers who don't serve in government.

The move comes as Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, an ex officio trustee of the Kennedy Center, seeks to obtain information in her ongoing lawsuit challenging the planned closure and renovation of the performing arts center, and whether Trump has plans to demolish it. 

In a sworn declaration, Deputy White House Counsel Josh Hoyt said Trump’s executive privilege claim would cover any conversations the president has had with
"his advisors (government and non-government)," including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Kennedy Center Executive Director Matt Floca, as well as anyone on his or the center's staff who may have advised Trump or his aides about "the President's duties and the effective functioning of the Kennedy Center."

Beyond the president's role as Kennedy Center board chairman, a position to which he was elected last year by his handpicked trustees, administration lawyers say, "in his capacity as President," Trump has "an official role in the Center’s operations." 

The Justice Department argues that since the law gives Trump the power to select who serves on the board, he must be positioned to assess whether current and future board members are "managing the Center ably and in accordance with their duties and statutory obligations."

In a deposition taken earlier this month, an attorney who sat beside Floca repeatedly invoked executive privilege, rejecting questions from Beatty’s lawyer about the director's conversations with Trump, and even suggesting that queries about Floca’s talks with Lutnick could also violate Trump's privilege.

Pushing back on the claims, Beatty’s lawyers have argued in court that "these blanket assertions of executive privilege are both procedurally and substantively improper."

The Trump-aligned Kennedy Center board voted last month to close it for renovations after a federal judge's ruling blocked Trump's name from appearing on the outside of the building, a lawsuit Beatty initially brought last year.

In May, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper issued an order blocking the planned two-year closure of the center for renovations, saying the board had not properly weighed the impact of the closure on the center’s finances and programming when it voted on the plan in March.

The Justice Department later asked the judge to dissolve that order so planned renovations could proceed. Cooper has yet to rule on that motion.