An ex-staffer at the Kennedy Center who refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement after he was fired in March is now adding his insider knowledge of the corruption of the renowned arts center to an investigation by U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).
Josef Palermo, hired by ousted Kennedy Center President Ric Grenell in April as curator of visual arts and special programming for the arts center, says he saw “cronyism, incompetence, and a series of bizarre moves that would lead to the Kennedy Center going dark.”
Amid “cancellations, shrinking audiences, firings of old staffers and influxes of new ones,” there was “a lot of drama, just not onstage,” the fired curator says in The Atlantic Monthly.
The Kennedy Center was “barely able to function artistically and financially,” he wrote.
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Sen. Whitehouse notified Grenell in a letter last November that he was the subject of an investigation over his management of the arts center.
“Contracts, invoices, and facility use agreements reveal that you operate the Center for the enrichment of your friends and acquaintances, to dole out political favors, and as a playground for the President of the United States and his allies,” Whitehouse wrote of the former ambassador’s management of the living memorial to former President John F. Kennedy.
Trump added his own name to the Kennedy Center in December.
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