On Wednesday night, President Donald Trump told the world that if the Trump administration is not properly recognized for its role in raising money to resuscitate the Kennedy Center, “it’s going to close; it will end up being ripped down.”
That pronouncement landed with a similar Truth Social post and a widely circulated photo of Trump sitting on Air Force One facing a placard that was partially obscured but appeared to read, “Kennedy Center Demolished.”
What came next was a flurry of court filings on Thursday about whether and how Trump and his co-defendants have violated a May injunction prohibiting them from putting into motion the Trump-picked Kennedy Center board’s decision to first wind-down programming — and then close the Kennedy Center entirely — in order to “complete the repair and restoration” funded by Congress last year.
Yet Washington, D.C., federal Judge Christopher “Casey” Cooper refused to schedule an emergency hearing, as requested by Rep. Joyce Beatty, the plaintiff in one ongoing case over the Kennedy Center’s renaming and closure. Instead, Cooper ordered Trump and his co-defendants to notify Beatty and the plaintiffs in the other case more than 30 days before demolishing anything on the current building or constructing anything new to it.
Cooper also ordered “a knowledgeable representative of the Kennedy Center” to file a sworn declaration, accompanied by a detailed status report, on the Center’s purported ‘temporary closure’ and “emergency repairs,” by next week. And, in a move heralded by Beatty’s legal team as a big win, he even authorized her to seek discovery about Trump’s Wednesday night statement and that Air Force One sign.
Yet Cooper did not flatly prohibit the demolition of the building or “demolition that would make public access [to the Center] impossible.”
And the absence of such a blanket order raises important questions: What would happen if the “emergency repairs” that have been undertaken at the Kennedy Center veer into demolition territory? Would there be any meaningful consequences for Trump, the Kennedy Center board or anyone else?
For as much ink has been spilled about contempt of court, the likely answer is not much, and for a host of reasons.
First, no sitting president has ever been held in contempt of court, and many legal observers doubt a president even could be. A president cannot themself be bound by injunctions of executive agencies, so experts doubt they can be held in contempt for violating one.
Second, while cabinet secretaries and other federal agency officials have been held in civil contempt, there have been significant limits. Civil contempt typically involves a daily or weekly fine, as when then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was held in contempt in 2019 for violating a judge’s order related to a decision on the department’s collection of student loans from a defunct school, found to have been defrauding students. The department was ordered to pay a fine of $100,000, which went to a fund for the students.
And civil contempt findings against federal officials are often short-lived; former Attorney General Griffin Bell was held in contempt for one day before a federal appeals court stayed that holding pending his appeal. Bell’s contempt was later reversed by the appellate court.
Third, federal appeals courts can block civil contempt proceedings from even getting off the ground — and one appellate court in particular has done exactly that in a recent case involving the Trump administration.
Recall Chief Judge James Boasberg, who was convinced that some combination of State Department, Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security or White House officials made a decision to violate his March 2025 order that two planes that had yet to leave American soil could not take off for El Salvador. Those planes left anyway, and more than 100 passenger detainees were imprisoned in CECOT. Although Boasberg initiated contempt proceedings, first to determine exactly who made the decision or issued the directive that the planes should take off, the D.C. Circuit twice prevented him from undertaking that inquiry.
And while much of the panel’s reasoning turned on separation of powers concerns in the realm of national defense and security, the D.C. Circuit is the same court to whom appeals in the Kennedy Center dispute would be directed.
Fourth, a court can initiate criminal contempt proceedings for particularly egregious violations of court orders. But a judge cannot hold a person in criminal contempt of their own volition; it requires the involvement of prosecutors, and this DOJ is certain to refuse to take up contempt proceedings against one of its own. In that circumstance, a district court can appoint an independent lawyer to prosecute criminal contempt of court, but even if Beatty secures a conviction, Trump, like all presidents, can pardon a person convicted of any federal crime, including criminal contempt of court.
And the historic record of criminal contempt convictions against cabinet secretaries or other officials is checkered at best; in 2003, the D.C. Circuit reversed a criminal contempt finding against then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton for the agency’s mismanagement of a trust fund held for Native Americans.
The bottom line: If the past is prologue, the Trump administration may be unbothered by the idea of being held in contempt of court.
But the question becomes less what will happen if it violates Cooper’s orders than whether, given the frequent lack of meaningful consequences and the administration’s apparent disregard for the rule of law, it could begin violating court orders more frequently.
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