STATEMENT: Rep. Beatty and Counsel Respond After Judge Cooper Holds Trump Violated Injunction Barring His Name From Appearing On The Kennedy Center
September 15, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Judge Christopher R. Cooper of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a permanent injunction blocking Trump’s handpicked Kennedy Center Board from installing “memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing.”
In response, Congresswoman Joyce Beatty (D-OH-03) issued the following statement: “The law is extremely clear: The John F. Kennedy Center is named for President Kennedy—and no one else. But President Trump is holding the Kennedy Center hostage unless he can put his name on this sacred memorial. The Court just rejected this proposal for the second time. This unlawfulness is as breathtaking as it is wrong, and it needs to stop.”
“Two times the court has told President Trump the same thing: You are not above the law. Legal sanity has once again prevailed over Trump’s vanity,” said Rep. Beatty’s counsel, Amb. Norm Eisen (ret.) of Democracy Defenders Action and Nathaniel Zelinsky of Washington Litigation Group. “This is a victory for the memory of President Kennedy and for our nation.”
Rep. Beatty, an ex officio trustee of the Kennedy Center, is represented by Nathaniel Zelinsky, Kyle Freeny, and Alex Kristofcak of Washington Litigation Group, and Norm Eisen, Steve Jonas, and David W. Ogden of Democracy Defenders Action.
Read the full order here.
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Democracy Defenders Action brings together a nonpartisan team to work with national, state, and local allies across the country to defend in real time the foundations of our democracy.
Washington Litigation Group is a nonpartisan team of attorneys dedicated to defending individuals and institutions that have been unlawfully targeted for exercising their legal rights and to fighting against governmental overreach.
For media inquiries, contact, press@democracydefenders.org.
