With Trump's narcissism on grim display, a beloved sculpture is set to be uprooted at the Kennedy Center -- and Congress, with authority over the center, apparently will do nothing

Workers prepare "Blue" sculpture for removal at Kennedy Center (Reuters)

A beloved piece of sculpture is being removed from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, apparently at the behest of the Trump administration -- although neither President Trump nor the Kennedy Center issued a public warning or explanation in advance of the removal.

Our research indicates Trump has no authority over the administration of, or renovations to, the Kennedy center -- although he and supporters have been pushing for weeks to have his name added to the center. A jointly published report at The Hill and Yahoo! News looks at what led to a sculpture, one that has been on the Kennedy Center grounds since 2019, being set to suddenly disappear. Under the headline "Kennedy Center is removing landmark sculpture from grounds," Sarah Davis writes:

The Kennedy Center is set to take down a towering sculpture from the center's grounds today. 

The artwork's removal comes amid a wave of changes at the renowned Washington performing arts center during President Trump's second term. 

The 24-foot aluminum sculpture, titled "Blue," was gifted to the center in 2019. The art, which was created by famed American post-minimalist sculptor Joel Shapiro, depicts a human stick figure "poised in mid-kick," according to the Kennedy Center's description.

Does Trump hold authority over what comes and goes at the Kennedy Center? The answer we have found is a resounding no. Here is one of the best explanations we've seen:

Congress holds ultimate lawful authority over the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts because the facility was established and designated as a national memorial by federal statute.

An article at CNN provides more details about the law surrounding the center and its artwork. " The Kennedy Center operates under an organic federal law (the John F. Kennedy Center Act). Federal courts have affirmed that because Congress created the institution and defined its core identity as a memorial to President John F. Kennedy, fundamental changes—such as altering its official designation or name—require an act of Congress rather than unilateral board decisions."

Tensions around the center probably have not been eased by board statements that threaten to demolish the center. From a report at NPR:

In a legal filing, the board of the Kennedy Center said that the arts complex and living memorial to President John F. Kennedy may be torn down if its plans for a two-year renovation and to add President Trump's name back on the complex do not move forward.

The board called the Kennedy Center "embarrassing to the nation's capital" and a "sick and poorly run facility." Lawyers for the Justice Department also argued that the board and President Trump, who was named as the complex's chairman in February 2025, should be allowed to move ahead with a two-year renovation that would shut down most of the complex's performance venues and cost at least $250 million.

All indications are that today will be a busy one at the Kennedy Center, as Sarah Davis reports:

The National Park Service implemented a temporary road closure starting early Wednesday morning to facilitate the removal, according to a public notice. 

The sculpture is located along the Video Wall at the REACH, a $250-million addition to the center that opened in 2019. The project is an acronym of renew, experience, activate, create, and honor — words meant to encapsulate former President Kennedy's "vision for a new frontier for the arts," the center's website explains.

The center directed the sculpture's removal, and its relocation will be determined by a foundation dedicated to the artist, a spokesperson for the performing arts venue told The Hill. 

"We are deeply grateful to Joel Shapiro for the years 'Blue' has spent animating our campus and connecting visitors to his vision," the spokesperson said. "We are honored to have been stewards of his vibrant work and a part of his enduring legacy."

They also noted that gifted or loaned artworks are frequently deinstalled at art institutions across the world. 

This, however, involves Donald Trump and his chaotic nature, meaning it rarely is business as usual when the Orange King is involved. In this case, as has been know to happen often, Trump's narcissistic personality takes over and tends to make everyone else involved miserable. Davis writes:

The removal of "Blue" comes amid a backdrop of tension over the Trump administration's efforts to renovate the Kennedy Center. 

The president's push to have his name inscribed on the performing arts center's sign and shut down the venue for restoration projects has resulted in an ongoing legal battle. Ohio Rep. Joyce Beatty (D), an ex officio Kennedy Center board member, has sued to halt the changes.

In federal court on Thursday, the Justice Department defended the administration's efforts to add Trump's name to the building and claimed the iconic arts center was in "structural and financial disarray." 

Beatty's lawyer, Nathaniel Zelinsky, accused the center's current board members of engaging in "outright defiance" of the court and argued that the institution was now in "crisis" because of this renaming effort. 

In a Virginia courtroom this week, a Russian mobster with family ties to money laundering via Donald Trump properties (including Trump Tower), stands trial for arson and murder

Fatal case of arson in Virginia tied to Russian mobster with links to Trump (Loudoun Times-Mirror)

Donald Trump has brought an unprecedented level of disgrace to the U.S. presidency, and New York-based journalist and author Craig Unger has reported that a substantial amount of it derives from Russian mafia efforts to launder money through Trump real estate.

The latest unsavory chapter involving Trump's ties to Russian mobsters is unfolding this week in a Virginia courtroom, where Jacob Bogatin, 78, stands trial for murder and arson related to an October 2025 fire at a row of town houses in Sterling, VA, killing one woman, destroying two homes and causing a third to be condemned.

It was not Bogatin's first time being  charged with crimes in the U.S. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Bogatin was president of YBM Magnex International, a shell company in Newtown, Pennsylvania at the center of a scheme that defrauded investors of roughly $150 million. From the outside, YBM Magnex looked legitimate. Incorporated in Canada, it claimed to manufacture high-tech industrial magnets and consumer goods. According to a report at the Centre for Accounting Ethics at Waterloo University in Alberta, Ontario, Canada, YBM issued 4,000,000 shares of common stock in July 1994 and was listed on the Alberta Stock Exchange. Two years later, it was listed and traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE)

Something dark, however, was going on beneath the glossy surface. In May 1998, YBM and its directors and officers became the subjects of several U.S. shareholder class-action suits. What was  going on? Here is how the Waterloo University report put it:

The principal complaint is that while YBM seemed to be operating legitimate businesses it really was engaged in laundering of criminal proceeds derived from illegal activities carried out in the former Soviet Union and other eastern European countries and in a stock fraud.

Fallout from the scandal was steep. In 2002, Jacob Bogatin and three co-defendants were indicted in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on RICO conspiracy, mail fraud, money laundering, and SEC false-filing charges. 

The case never went to trial because three of the co-defendants fled the country and remain fugitives. Jacob Bogatin alone remained to face the charges. He was released on $1 million bond in 2003, and over several years, the conditions of his home confinement and electronic monitoring were gradually eased so that he could live a relatively free existence, but that changed in October 2025, with the fire that has him standing trial this week in Virginia

How does all of this tie to Donald Trump? It's likely that no one is better positioned to address that question than Craig Unger. A contributing editor at Vanity Fair, Unger is The New York Times best-selling author of six books about the Republican Party's assault on democracy. Two of those books -- House of Trump, House of Putin and American Kompromat -- focus specifically on Trump's longstanding connections to Russia-based criminality.

Part of that story involves the Bogatin brothers and their trail of misdeeds that led to this week's murder/arson trial in Loudoun County, VA. Unger pulls the pieces together in the latest article at his American Kompromat Substack page. It comes under the title "The Bogatin Brothers and the Long Shadow of the Brainy Don." The accompanying subhead points jarringly to the precarious position in which America now finds itself. The subhead reads: "In 1984, Russian mafioso David Bogatin began laundering money through Trump real estate. Now, 42 years later, his brother Jacob is on trial for murder. Here is what happened." Unger writes:

It’s been almost exactly ten years since I first started writing about how the Russian Mafia laundered hundreds of millions of dollars through Donald Trump’s real estate.

But last week, the long shadow of so-called Brainy Don, Semion Mogilevich, the alleged financial genius and money-launderer-in-chief of the Russian Mafia, surfaced again in a Loudoun County, Virginia,  courtroom when a 78-year-old man went on trial for murder and arson.

Jacob Bogatin’s name will mean nothing to most people reading about the case. But it should mean something to readers of my work because Jacob Bogatin is the brother of David Bogatin, a Russian émigré about whom I first wrote about nearly a decade ago in my 2017 New Republic piece, “Trump’s Russian Laundromat,” and later at greater length in House of Trump, House of Putin. 

Unger's research revealed that it was relatively common for people with known links to Russian mobsters or oligarchs to own or live in Trump properties, including at Trump Tower. And Trump seemed to take a special interest in his Russian residents, Unger writes:

When David Bogatin bought his Trump Tower condos, Trump personally attended the closing. As I reported in House of Trump, House of Putin, according to the New York State Attorney General’s office, whether he knew it or not, Trump had helped launder money for the Russian Mafia.

Over time, I discovered that at least 13 people with known or alleged links to Russian mobsters or oligarchs have owned, lived in, and even run criminal activities out of Trump Tower and other Trump properties. The flow of money from Russia provided Trump with a crucial infusion of financing that helped rescue his empire from ruin, burnish his image, and launch his career in television and politics. “They saved his bacon,” said Kenneth McCallion, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Reagan administration who investigated ties between organized crime and Trump’s developments in the 1980s.

---------------------------------------

As the 1990s approached, signs that Trump was tied to Russian mobsters became more glaring -- and one of those signs involved a familiar name, Unger writes:

n 1987, David Bogatin pleaded guilty to a massive gasoline-bootlegging scheme run with Russian mobsters and fled the country. The government seized his five Trump Tower condos, stating that he had purchased them, in the government’s words, to “launder money, to shelter and hide assets.” A subsequent Senate investigation into organized crime identified Bogatin as a leading figure in the Russian mafia in New York.

Bogatin’s known associates in and around Trump properties — Vyacheslav Ivankov, Semion Kislin, and the network tied to Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov — connected back, in each case, to Semion Mogilevich, the man the FBI and State Department have called one of the most powerful organized crime bosses in the world: the “Brainy Don.” 

The above paragraph -- especially the sections highlighted in yellow -- prompt mind-rattling questions about the current occupant of the White House. First, note the section about  Bogatin "having known associates in and around Trump properties." Does that suggest our president has been part of a network that caters to Russian mobsters? Did he help bring a thuggish element to our shores and serve as a glorified landlord/den mother -- making sure they were put up in pleasant surroundings and had all their needs met? Did that mean he was aiding and abetting their criminal activities? 

Then we learn that Trump isn't tied to just any gangster. He's linked to Semion Mogilevich, the "Brainy Don" who has been a fugitive for decades and is known by the FBI as "one of the most powerful organized crime bosses in the world." Our president actually has associated with these kinds of people? No wonder he has turned our country into a mess.

Speaking of sketchy characters, that brings us back to Jacob Bogatin, who like his brother, seems to have a hard time staying out of trouble. Heck, maybe the two of them would fit on Trump's cabinet. Craig Unger provides details about the events that led Jacob into his most serious trouble so far -- facing murder and arson charges in Virginia. Unger writes:

Indeed, it was on October 24, 2025 that a fire tore through a row of townhomes on Riptide Square in Sterling, Virginia, in the Lowes Island neighborhood. It killed 36-year-old Madelaine Samantha Akers, who lived next door, and destroyed two townhomes outright, condemning a third.

Jacob Bogatin lived in one of the destroyed units with his longtime girlfriend, Valeria Gunkova, and her mother — in a home that was already in foreclosure. The arson/murder story has been covered locally by Loudoun Now.

Investigators allege Bogatin set the fire intentionally. According to reporting by journalist/author Seth Hettena in “From Trump Tower to Arson,” the day after the fire, Bogatin, who was charged with arson, filed an insurance claim for more than double what remained owed on the property. Surveillance footage reportedly showed a man resembling Bogatin walking away from the scene shortly after the blaze began, and a search of his car turned up a bottle of flammable liquid and a grill lighter, Bogatin himself reported the fire, and was arrested on October 28, 2025.

In the nine months since his arrest, Bogatin has been indicted on first-degree murder — a Class 2 felony in Virginia carrying a mandatory minimum of 20 years, up to life — along with three counts of arson of an occupied dwelling and one count of arson of personal property. Gunkova was separately indicted on fraud charges, and was accused of helping move furniture, appliances, and other property out of the townhome into storage before the insurance claim was filed. A judge denied her bail, citing what he called a “high level” of malicious intent, a history of evidence destruction, and — notably — her ties to Russia as a flight risk, as reported by Loudoun Now. The trial is set to last twelve days.

As for Jacob’s brother, David Bogatin, the first Russian mobster to interact with Donald Trump, fled the United States in 1987, settled first in Austria, and then in Poland, where he launched one of the country’s first private banking chains. It was an extraordinary act for someone accused of laundering mob money through Trump Tower. After a Warsaw newspaper exposed his criminal past in 1992, David was arrested in Poland and extradited back to New York, after which he served eight years in Attica. And now that his brother is on trial for murder, one can only wonder whether there is a pardon in Jacob Bogatin’s future.

SCOTUS allows Trump to proceed with ballroom construction on the arcane basis of "standing," but even John Roberts states that the administration and court's right-wing majority got it wrong on that issue

(News 9 WAOW, Facebook)

Yesterday's U.S. Supreme Court order that allows Donald Trump to continue construction on his White House ballroom/military bunker makes little sense. So it is fitting that one of the nation's top news sites created a nonsensical headline to spotlight its story about the nonsensical handiwork of Chief Justice John Roberts and his right-wing henchmen on the high court. 

Here is how Politico topped off its story about the Trump administration's seemingly desperate efforts to destroy any semblance of "The People's House" that Americans once knew: "Supreme Court OKs Trump's ballroom construction, but Roberts says project is 'likely unlawful.'"

That might prompt readers who have followed our coverage of the ballroom saga to say, "Hey Schnauzer,  didn't you write the other day that Roberts issued an order allowing Trump to proceed with his ballroom project. Is the chief justice simply reissuing that order now?" The answer is "not exactly." 

As we wrote in a post dated Aug. 24/ 2026, "Roberts ignored all kinds of longstanding law in order to let Trump proceed with his pet project. But that was a temporary order, also known as an administrative stay,  designed to buy time for the full court to consider Trump's appeal of a lower-court ruling that went against him.

So yesterday's order involved the full court weighing in, and here is how Politico describes what transpired, focusing on Roberts' ability to pull off a curious switcheroo:

The Supreme Court is allowing President Donald Trump to press on with his White House ballroom project — over a strident objection from Chief Justice John Roberts and the court's liberal wing.

The justices' 5-4 ruling maintains the high court's hold on a federal appeals court ruling that called for a halt to the project after concluding it lacked approval from Congress.

In an unsigned order Monday, the Supreme Court's majority said a historic preservation group that sued over the project appeared to lack legal standing, while national security concerns favored allowing the construction to continue. The majority did not opine on whether the project is legal. 

That reminds us of all the ways the Supreme Court's handling of this matter is duplicitous, starting with the chief justice, per Politico:

Writing for the dissenters, Roberts said the project is "likely unlawful."

"The White House is an iconic American building whose symbolism and history are wrapped up in its architecture," Roberts wrote, adding that it is critical to "ensure that those responsible follow the rules in deciding what to tear down and what to build up at the People's House."

The court's majority insisted it was not resolving the legal arguments over the president's power to unilaterally make major changes to the White House. But the decision Monday means it is likely that the ballroom will be fully built before that question is definitively resolved.

How many ways is Roberts two-faced? Let's consider some of the ways:

(1)  Roberts says the Trump project, which essentially aims to destroy the White House, is "likely unlawful." In truth, it is "absolutely unlawful." In an earlier report, we cited 40 U.S. Code, Sec. 8106 for its holding that "A building or structure shall not be erected on any reservation, park, or public grounds of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia without express authority of Congress.” The law is exceedingly clear that Trump could not "erect a building or structure . . . without the express authority of Congress, and yet he demolished the East Wing without even seeking authorization, and a 5-4 right-wing majority is fine with Trump blatantly violating the law. Did Roberts not know that two lower courts had gotten the law right, but he is letting Trump proceed with what one of the lower courts called "lawlessness."

(2) Roberts says it is critical to "ensure that those responsible follow the rules in deciding what to tear down and what to build up at the People's House." But he and his conservative majority are not holding Trump responsible in any way.

Ultimately, a lower court found the White House case to be unpersuasive:

In National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States v. National Park Service, et al, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decided against the Trump administration primarily on the following grounds, as stated by Judges Patricia Millett and Bradley Garcia, writing in the majority:

The White House is the People’s House, and under the Constitution’s Property Clause, Congress exercises plenary control over the building and its surrounding land. The White House is also the centerpiece of President’s Park, a National Park stewarded by the National Park Service. . . .  Each President is a temporary tenant, not the owner, of the White House and its Executive Residence. The President has no—and claims no—constitutionally assigned authority over that property, which is designed and maintained for the use of all Presidents, current and future, and for the American people. As the defendant National Park Service has explained, “[t]he White House is owned by the American people and stewarded by the National Park Service. It is more than the President’s residence; it is a site for protests and national discourse about what it means to be American.”

As for the court's right wing finding that a historic preservation group lacked standing to challenge Trump, we more or less saw that one coming in an August 1 post, which cited the work of journalists/lawyers at the Above the Law (ATL) legal website:

Because Trump has no authority to rebuild the White House without Congressional approval, the DOJ has leaned hard into to standing as a means to defeat this case. It sneers contemptuously that architectural historian Alison Hoagland, the individual plaintiff through whom the Trust claims aesthetic injury, is merely “a single person who walks her dog in the vicinity of the White House.”

In fact, aesthetic standing is a well-established doctrine that has been around for decades. And, as Judge Millett pointed out in her opinion affirming the injunction, this “cramped standing theory would deem no one injured by a decision to raze the Statue of Liberty, to obscure the names on the Vietnam War Memorial, or to install a political billboard atop Mount Rushmore.”

Even John Roberts, of all people wrote that the administration -- and his right-wing colleagues -- were wrong about the issue of standing, as Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog reports:

In his six-page dissent, which Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined, Roberts countered that “[a] historic preservationist such as Hoagland can be aesthetically injured in a concrete, particularized way by the transformation of a historic building that she frequently enjoys, just as,” based on prior court precedent, “an environmentalist can sustain a concrete, particularized aesthetic injury from the extinction of a particular animal or the transformation of a particular forest or river that he regularly enjoys.” Roberts ended the opinion by quoting Winston Churchill, who said that “[w]e shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.” “All the more reason,” according to Roberts, “to ensure that those responsible follow the rules in deciding what to tear down and what to build up at the People’s House.”

U.S. Circuit Judges Millett and Garcia had some forceful words for Trump's unilateral approach to renovation of historic public property. Per ABC News, they write in their opinion:

"Each President is a temporary tenant, not the owner, of the White House and its Executive Residence. The President has no -- and claims no -- constitutionally assigned authority over that property," they wrote.

"Whether or not a massive ballroom should be constructed is for Congress to decide and is not a matter for Executive self-help," they wrote. 

"This holding has nothing at all to do with whether the proposed ballroom is desirable, or not, as a matter of policy. This ruling does not even necessarily mean that the Defendants may not ultimately construct the ballroom. What it does mean is that the Defendants may not do so during the district court's expeditious litigation without securing Congress's authorization, as the Constitution and laws require," they said.  

While the appeals court acknowledged the national security concerns associated with the East Wing renovations, the majority said that those concerns are not an "automatic get-out-of-law-free card" to violate the law.

"Congress has not given the Park Service authority, specifically and expressly, or otherwise, to raze protected historic sites in the name of presidential functions or national security," wrote Millett and Garcia. 

The majority added that national security concerns are exactly the reason why Congress should be involved in the project. 

"It is Congress's job to ensure that any major construction and security projects at the White House will protect the safety of all Presidents, present and future, while preserving the historical and architectural significance of that unique location. Congress cannot perform its constitutional function when the Executive chooses to proceed wholly unilaterally," they wrote.

Perhaps the most memorable, and important, statement so far in the ballroom case comes from Millett and Garcia:

“The bold assertion that the Executive can act with utter lawlessness, destroying treasured national landmarks and harming the interests of individuals, and that no court can stop it, flouts our constitutional order. And it is no basis on which to claim the favor of courts’ equitable judgment. While this court accords great weight and deference to invocations of national security and the safety of the President, such arguments are not an automatic get-out-of-law-free card.”