Trump’s name removed from Kennedy Center during predawn operation

Before dawn in Washington, workers stripped President Donald Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center, ending a short-lived rebranding less than six months after it began and bringing the landmark back into line with a judge’s order that only Congress can change its name.

The removal started at about 1.20am local time, just hours after the Department of Justice acknowledged it would miss a court-imposed deadline to take Mr Trump’s name off the Washington venue, which was established more than 50 years ago to honour John F Kennedy.

The centre’s board, chaired by Mr Trump, voted in December to rename the institution The Donald J Trump and The John F . Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.

Crews started ‌installing his name on the building the following ⁠day.

A judge ruled only an act of Congress could authorise the name change

Late yesterday, the DOJ said in a court filing that it would not meet the deadline because thunderstorms could create dangerous conditions for workers, and asked for a 12-hour extension.

Democratic US Representative Joyce Beatty of Ohio, who filed the lawsuit that led to the order removing Mr Trump’s name, denounced the request to push back the two-week-old deadline as “inexcusable” and said it reflected “a pattern of non-compliance”, according to the DOJ filing.

Only hours before that filing, ‌a federal judge in Washington had refused the department’s bid to pause the order requiring Mr Trump’s name to be removed.

Protesters gathered outside the building as Donald Trump’s name was removed

US District Judge Christopher Cooper, in a ruling last month, ordered that Mr Trump’s name be removed from the storied Washington venue by Friday.

In his 29 May ruling, Mr Cooper said the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts had been unlawfully renamed after Mr Trump and that only Congress has the authority to alter its name.

He gave the administration 14 days to strip Mr Trump’s name from the marble facade and from any materials associated with the venue.

The Kennedy Center removed Mr Trump’s name from the institution’s website earlier this week.

Mr Cooper also rejected a last-ditch appeal yesterday by the venue’s board to halt his ruling, leading the Kennedy Center to seek a 12-hour extension of the deadline to take down the signage.

The judge denied that request, writing that the public interest “is rarely served by the ‘perpetuation’ of ‘unlawful’ governmental action”.

Mr Cooper has also temporarily blocked Mr Trump’s demand to shut the Kennedy Center for two years of renovations, which had been scheduled to begin in July.

President Trump responded by saying he was relinquishing control of the venue, which he took over at the start of his second term last year by appointing himself chair.

Mr Trump announced in February that the centre would close for two years for a major renovation.

He has also pursued a broader effort to remake Washington’s monumental core, including plans for 75m arch and a 8,400sq.m ballroom on the site of the East Wing of the White House, which he had demolished in October.

The Kennedy Center opened in 1971 as a memorial to Democratic president John F Kennedy, who was ⁠assassinated in 1963.

Mr Trump, a Republican, has filled its board of trustees with allies since returning to office last year.

The center’s governing board, which Mr Trump stacked with loyalists, approved renaming the venue the ‘Trump Kennedy Center’ in December, and the Republican president’s full name was then mounted on the facade in large, all-capital letters above Kennedy’s.

Several artists withdrew from scheduled performances after the change.

The now-defunct US Institute of Peace was also renamed after Mr Trump, and giant banners bearing his face hang outside the Department of Justice and Department of Agriculture.

The Trump administration is also pushing to place his image on a $250 bill to mark the country’s 250th anniversary of the declaration of independence from Britain.