As you probably know, the building housing the Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts was recently defaced. What you may not know is that Public Law 88-260, enacted by the U.S. Congress and signed into law on January 23, 1964, quite explicitly makes it illegal to modify the name of the Kennedy Center.
If artists perform in that building before the legal name has been restored, they might therefore be guilty of implicitly endorsing an illegal act of vandalism of a public monument, and of being in contempt of the U.S. Congress. So legally, Chuck Redd had no recourse but to cancel the 2025 Christmas show. To do otherwise could have placed all of the show’s participants in legal peril.
So looking at the situation from a legal perspective, the recent threatening letter to Redd by Richard Grenell was a clear admission of guilt on Grenell’s part. By sending that letter, Grenell was explicitly confessing to having committed a federal crime.
The U.S. Government now has an obligation to bring federal charges against Grenell, for his self-confessed violation of Public Law 88-260. If he is convicted, I wonder how much jail time he will serve.
Then again, he might end up getting a presidential pardon. I hear those are going cheaply these days.