Hot Fun in the (DC) Summertime

Official Washington spent a fleeting Friday in June with its collective eyes fixated on the Kennedy Center--to wait for workers to take down Donald Trump's name. Sad!

The start of meteorological summer is well underway—a time when many normal Americans clock off early on Fridays to make the most of what seems like a shorter and shorter summer season each year (this could be my age, of course.)

As families headed to lake houses or prepared for weekend barbecues or tuned into the World Cup action, the anti-Trump establishment instead fixated on a building situated on the Potomac River in the nation’s capital: The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

In response to a court order issued last month by D.C. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper, who called the Center “a living memorial” to Kennedy, the current president’s name was set to stripped from the front of the iconic building on Friday afternoon. A Trump-appointed board last December voted to add the president’s name to the center; his name was placed before that of the 35th president’s name.

An ex-officio board member immediately filed a lawsuit to remove Trump’s name, arguing the institution had been created by statute and adding the current president’s name represented a violation of the law. (The lawsuit, filed by Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, the ex-officio board member, also sought to halt the temporary closure of the building during much-needed repairs and renovations, which even Cooper admitted were necessary and consistent with recent Congressional funding.)

In a last-ditch effort, the Department of Justice asked Cooper on Thursday to delay his order pending the outcome of an emergency appeal before the D.C. Circuit court. Cooper quickly denied the motion—so Trump haters and reporters (I repeat myself) stood watch. Former CNN reporter Jim Acosta started his disheveled coverage this morning:

Others did the same. MS-NOW covered the event LIVE as if reporting on the ground from the beaches of Normandy:

Work paused temporarily due to inclement weather—but the skies cleared around the same time the D.C. Circuit court on Friday evening denied the administration’s emergency request, permitting the removal of Trump’s name to proceed for now.

And the news made the anti-Trump establishment as buzzed as the first sip of a pinot grigio on a perfect Friday summer eve in Georgetown. “Breaking news,” CNN declared on Friday evening, along with an X post by Kaitlin Collins.

People with apparently nothing better to do on a lovely summer weekend night gathered round to watch the event:

Observers noted a RAINBOW appeared as the work resumed, as if Mother Nature herself (sorry, itself) consented to the shedding of Trump’s name, symbolizing something much, much bigger ahead!

And no one was happier over that development than Scott MacFarlane, the oleaginous reporter now with the MeidasTouch website. (MacFarlane sashayed through the hallways of the D.C. courthouse for years covering J6 cases for CBS News.) He’s been bleating about this for days.

Democratic members of Congress acted as if the removal of the president’s name meant something more than…the temporary removal of his name on a building.

Beatty relished in her 15 minutes of fame:

Litigation will continue; as far as Cooper is concerned, he is the subject of a misconduct complaint for handling the case despite his wife’s representation of anti-Trump clients including Joe Biden in his recent attempt to prevent the release of recordings between himself and his ghostwriter. (Complaint is here.) As I urged for years, Cooper should have recused from all Trump-related cases, including the dozens of J6 cases he handled, due to his wife’s participation in the lawfare against the president. (Cooper and his wife, Amy Jeffress, were married by former Attorney General Merrick Garland. She also represented former FBI lawyer Lisa Page.)

As this matter moves through the D.C. appellate court—just be glad you have better things to do on a summer Friday than wait for letters to be hammered off a public building.