The New York Times reports President Donald Trump’s love of no-bid contracts with connected contractors and flunkies have ruined another Washington, DC., project, this time at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Whistleblowers say renovations at the center “were rushed to meet the deadlines driven by the president’s desire to host official events at the center [and] federal contracting laws and regulations were ignored.”
In one case cited in Congressional internal documents a new bathroom floor in one of the center’s three presidential boxes was ordered torn up last year and redone after the White House complained about the beige color of the tiles.
“The 82-page submission to Congress was made under a law designed to protect federal employees who disclose allegations of wrongdoing from retaliation. The lawyers who sent it, David Seide and Dana Gold, work for a nonprofit that represents government whistle-blowers,” reports the Times. “ … Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, which received the submission, wrote to the Kennedy Center on Thursday demanding information related to the renovations. Mr. Whitehouse, an ex officio member of the center’s board, said the submission raised ‘serious questions’ about whether public funds were being spent properly.”
No-contract painting was done by Cypress Painting Systems, a company in Maryland that has done work under prior administrations. But lawyers for the former project managers reported that the work began before any contract had been awarded, said the Times. Cypress Painting also installed Trump’s name on the Kennedy Center’s marble facade, under a separate arrangement, before his name was ordered removed by a federal judge.
The Kennedy Center whistleblower complaint is part of a broader pattern of concerns about the Trump administration’s contracting practices across federal projects. The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool project, for example, has been carried out through multiple no-bid contracts, with administration officials justifying the bypassing of competitive bidding by claiming deadlines tied to the nation’s 250th birthday celebrations were critical.
The Kennedy Center adopted a new procurement policy in November 2025 that exempts the institution from federal contracting regulations it previously followed as a nonprofit on federal property. The relaxed policy allows sole-source contracts when “circumstances beyond the center’s control require an immediate award” or when “the requirement is unique or has a compelling business interest”—standards critics argue are dangerously vague and lack meaningful oversight.
The whistleblower submission also raises questions about potential favoritism. Representatives of Low Country Flooring, the South Carolina company selected without competition for a five-year, $8 million flooring contract, posted photos on Facebook showing themselves praying with Trump at the Kennedy Center before being selected for the lucrative deal. One company official commented on the image: “He asked, and the president said of course.
The Kennedy Center maintains it followed proper procedures and conducted exhaustive market research before vendor selection.