(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) The Kennedy Center under the Biden administration allegedly fabricated financial records to show several million dollars in revenue, the Daily Wire reported Friday.
Newly installed president Richard Grenell told the board the center was $26 million in debt due to “phantom” and “fake revenue.”
“It’s criminal. We’re going to refer this to the U.S. attorney’s office,” Grenell said, calling it “fraud on previous donors.”
CFO Donna Arduin said the prior leadership had built a “broken budget” with a $100 million operating deficit and a $26 million bottom-line shortfall.
“The former leadership led Board members to believe there was a balanced budget when there was $26 Million in false funds,” Arduin added. “Fiscal Year 25 budget was previously passed with $26M of fictitious funds.”
She said, “We have now truly balanced the budget.”
Grenell appeared to blame former president Deborah Rutter, though she denied any wrongdoing in remarks to the leftist Washington Post.
“I am deeply troubled by the false allegations regarding the management of the Kennedy Center being made by people without the context or expertise to understand the complexities involved in nonprofit and arts management, which has been my professional experience for 47 years.”
She claimed previous budgets had been approved by a board that she said included several Trump appointees.
Despite her defense, Grenell told podcast hosts Mark Halperin and Dan Turrentine the matter will be referred to federal investigators.
“It’s a total fraud, and people need to be prosecuted for it,” he said.
“What we just found, we're going to turn over to the DOJ and the FBI for an investigation,” says Richard Grenell about the finances of the Kennedy Center, of which he's now president. The center’s previous executives, including former president Deborah Rutter, were criminally… pic.twitter.com/9hA9pm43LM
— 2WAY (@2waytvapp) May 23, 2025
Grenell’s findings come just months after President Donald Trump overhauled the Kennedy Center following his Jan. 20, 2025, inauguration.
Trump appointed himself chairman of the board, which promptly dismissed Rutter as president.
