The Trump-run Kennedy Center accepted a $2mn donation from an alleged “fake CIA operative” who made the gift to curry favour with the White House during a dispute with a former business partner, a lawsuit has asserted.
The claim in a complaint filed in California this week is the latest allegation of cronyism at Washington’s top performing arts centre, which is helmed by allies of President Donald Trump. A federal judge this week ordered that the president’s name be removed from the building after an attempt to rename it the “Trump Kennedy” centre.
The donor was Gaurav Srivastava, a 35-year-old Indian college dropout who publicly calls himself a California-based “strategic investor” but has been accused of pretending to work for the CIA.
He agreed to donate $10mn to sponsor an area in the centre previously named the Africa Lounge, according to the lawsuit, which said he has so far paid the first $2mn.
The allegations were made by his former business partner, sanctioned Dutch oil trader Niels Troost, who is suing Srivastava for allegedly defrauding him of more than $43mn by falsely claiming to be a covert operative. Srivastava, who denies claiming to work for US intelligence, told the FT that Troost’s legal filing was a “complete fiction” but did not address questions about his donation.
Trump was elected chair of the centre in February 2025 and Richard Grenell, a Trump special envoy, served as interim president. Their effort to shut the concert hall for a two-year renovation, part of Trump’s plans to put his stamp on Washington’s architecture, was also blocked by the federal judge this week.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, the lead Democrat on the Senate public works committee, has accused Grenell of cronyism and corruption at the centre, alleging that work contracts were “funnelled to personal friends” and “tens of thousands of dollars” spent on entertaining new staff.
“The nation’s premier arts centre is being used as a slush fund and private club for Trump’s friends and political allies,” Whitehouse said in November.
Grenell rejected Whitehouse’s allegations as “false”, “partisan” and “careless”, saying the new leadership had ended the centre’s “financial chaos”.
Srivastava’s sponsorship of the former Africa Lounge was first reported by an ex-Kennedy Center employee, Josef Palermo, writing in The Atlantic in April. The size of Srivastava’s donation has not previously been revealed.
Troost’s suit, which was filed in January and amended this week, calls Srivastava a “brazen conman of remarkable skill” and depicts the Kennedy Center donation as the latest in a series of attempts to buy political support.
Srivastava has said recordings cited in the lawsuit, in which he appears to describe himself as a “Non-Official Cover” (NOC) operative for the CIA, are deepfakes. But he proposed to use his Kennedy Center lounge for a permanent exhibition celebrating Washington’s intelligence agencies, according to a person with knowledge of the plans.
In February, a bronze plaque outside the room, which had been emptied of its African artworks, read: “A Tribute to America’s Intelligence Community, donated by Gaurav Srivastava”. His deal with the centre was expected to last five years, the same person said.
Last year, Srivastava attended a reception at the venue, posting a picture on X of himself with vice-president JD Vance. The event was a performance of the musical Les Misérables, where attendees were offered the chance to pay as much as $2mn to sit in a box seat, attend a reception with Trump and take a photo with the president.
Pleasure seeing Vice President @JDVance during last week’s event in #WashingtonDC as we work towards strengthening America’s future! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/3ObHUepFfW
— Official Gaurav Srivastava (@OffclGauravSriv) June 19, 2025
A spokesperson for the Kennedy Center confirmed that a donation was given to the Africa Lounge but did not provide further details. “A private donor contribution was made, and details are not finalised,” they said. The White House declined to comment, referring the FT to the Kennedy Center.
When Politico reported on Srivastava’s picture with Vance last year, a spokesperson for the vice-president said he “took photos with many” of the thousands of attendees that evening.
Under Grenell, the Kennedy Center also sold the naming rights to other lounges previously used for receptions, private dinners and cultural diplomacy.
The former Russia Lounge was renamed the SyberJet Lounge after the jet manufacturer run by Trevor Milton made a donation reported by the Wall Street Journal to be worth “millions”. Milton had received an unconditional pardon from Trump in March 2025, after being convicted in 2022 and receiving a four-year prison sentence for defrauding investors in hydrogen truck company Nikola.
The lawsuit against Srivastava also alleges that he may have benefited from Grenell’s support on projects relating to Venezuelan oil. As Trump’s special presidential envoy, Grenell spent much of 2025 seeking a diplomatic deal with President Nicolás Maduro to avoid a wider conflict and give US companies access to Venezuelan oil, the New York Times has reported.
A representative for Grenell, who stepped down from the Kennedy Center in March, said the ambassador “never spoke to Mr Srivastava about Venezuela and offered no support to Mr Srivastava in Venezuela or anywhere else”.
It is not the first time Srivastava has made large political donations. Under President Joe Biden, Srivastava gave at least $1.6mn to mainly Democratic groups and candidates, parlaying those gifts into meetings and photo opportunities with senior politicians, including Biden, donor records and photographs show.
Srivastava has denied all allegations against him and last month filed a motion to dismiss Troost’s lawsuit, describing the complaint as “baseless” and intended to “harass, intimidate and punish” him after the collapse of their brief business partnership.
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