How Did Trump So Easily Take Over the Kennedy Center? Ask Sean Spicer.
15th February 2025
BLUF:
In 2019, Spicer was appointed by Trump to the Naval Academy’s Board of Visitors. Trump’s current OMB director Russell Vought was also made a member then.
In 2021, both were told by Biden’s White House personnel office that they had the option of resigning their board positions or being fired. Spicer realized an opportunity in the making, so both of them refused to resign and they were fired. They filed suit, alleging an unjust firing. The lawsuit was denied and their dismissals were upheld (as he expected).
Spicer wrote an op-ed before Trump’s recent inauguration, laying out the case for dismissing presidentially-appointed boards and mentioned a specific one: the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees. On February 7, Trump dismissed the entire Kennedy Center board and put in place a new one. One of the fired board members was Katherine Petrelius, who had sent Spicer and Vought the emails in 2021 telling them to resign or be fired.