Judge demands answers on Kennedy Center’s Trump tarp of shame

A federal judge wants to know why the Kennedy Center remains hidden behind a tarp nearly two weeks after workers removed President Donald Trump’s name from its facade under court order.U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper on Wednesday ordered the parties in Rep. Joyce Beatty’s lawsuit against Trump and the Kennedy Center’s leadership to explain the purpose and status of the tarp and scaffolding covering the building’s front portico.“The report shall also indicate the purpose for and status of the tarp and scaffolding that Defendants have erected on the front portico of the Center, to the extent they remain at that time,” the order states.The explanation must be included in a joint status report filed within seven days of a Kennedy Center Board of Trustees meeting expected in mid-July, or by July 31, whichever comes first.The order adds judicial scrutiny to what has become a strangely literal cover-up. The tarp first prevented a crowd gathered outside the national cultural institution from watching Trump’s name come down. It has since prevented the public from seeing the facade restored to the name Congress gave it more than six decades ago.The removal happened behind a curtainWorkers erected scaffolding outside the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on June 12 as a court-imposed deadline approached. After midnight, crews draped tarps around the structure and began removing the letters that had placed Trump’s name above Kennedy’s.By the time workers left early on June 13, the president’s name had been removed. The tarp was not.Kennedy Center Executive Director Matt Floca later declared under oath that the institution had removed all signage purporting to rename the memorial in Trump's honor. But for days, the public had no way to verify that statement by looking at the building itself.Photographs eventually offered the first view behind the covering. They showed that Trump’s name had, in fact, been removed.According to The Washingt