President Donald Trump's administration suggested on Tuesday that the Kennedy Center in Washington could be demolished if courts block his plans to overhaul the performing arts landmark.
The extraordinary warning came in a Justice Department filing opposing efforts by Democrats to halt a two-year renovation and to prevent Trump's name being prominently added to the building.
The filing does not say there is a plan to demolish the complex. But it argues that without Trump's restoration and fundraising efforts, it would become increasingly hazardous to visit until it had to be torn down.
"Without those efforts, the center will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down," Justice Department attorney Brantley Mayers wrote.
He suggested the site could then house a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River, acknowledging that this would "fail to adequately honor" slain president John F. Kennedy but would be cheaper to build and maintain.
The demolition warning marks an escalation in a bitter battle over one of the best-known cultural institutions in the United States.
The filing described the venue as "structurally unsound, fundamentally unsafe, and embarrassing to the nation's capital" and portrayed Trump as uniquely capable of rescuing it.
Justice Department lawyers said Trump's administration had secured US$258mil (approximately RM1bil) from Congress for restoration and attracted a new donor base, arguing that recognition of the president was essential to keeping contributors on board.
Trump's handpicked Kennedy Center board recently voted to place the words "Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump" beneath the institution's name and to rename its surrounding site the "President Donald J. Trump Plaza."
Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, an ex officio member of the board who brought the suit, has challenged Trump's efforts to put his name on the center, arguing that only Congress can name the institution established as a "living memorial" to Kennedy.
A federal judge previously agreed that the board could not simply rename the center and ordered earlier Trump signage removed. The administration is appealing.
Kennedy Center officials had previously described the planned work in much less dramatic terms, saying it would involve extensive electrical, stage and leak-prevention repairs but would neither materially alter the exterior nor reduce the building to its structural frame.
A hearing on the proposed closure and latest effort to recognise Trump on the building is scheduled for Thursday. - AFP
