Donald Trump instructed his senior lawyer to “take this seriously, figure it out, and come back to me ASAP.”
Almost three weeks later, the White House is scrutinizing the main evidence in the dispute involving Ric Grenell, the former Kennedy Center chief, and has delayed a decision until after the midterm elections.
Alina Habba, who previously served as Trump’s personal lawyer, alleges that Grenell failed to pass along $5.6 million that her husband says he donated to the Washington arts institution. Grenell has denied the accusation.
Habba raised the matter with Trump in the Oval Office on October 9. The president then called White House counsel Will Scharf into the room and contacted Grenell by phone.
Much of Habba’s claim relies on a text message that her billionaire husband, Turhan Mildon, says Grenell sent him on May 3, 2025.
“Once the money comes to the company here, I will arrange the donation to Kennedy Centre [sic], and you’ll be joining the VIP events and get close with the administration, even with POTUS,” the message says.
The text also tells Mildon to review “an e-mail that was sent to you.”
The White House is now questioning whether the message is authentic, Our News Outlet can reveal.
Mildon, 29, and Habba, 42, met at the Kennedy Center last year and married at New York’s Waldorf Astoria last month in a $10 million ceremony
Richard Grenell speaks during a Kennedy Center Board dinner in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 19, 2025
“There are questions about the authenticity of that text message,” a White House official said.
The official said the wording, including the use of “e-mail” and “centre,” had raised concerns. “It’s not a typical way an American would write that,” the official added.
“Centre” is the British spelling, while the hyphenated form “e-mail” is less common in the United States, although it remains widely used in some European languages.
If the message was fabricated, it would be “a huge problem for the Alina side and helpful to Ric,” a second White House official said.
However, that official cautioned that questions about the text do not “necessarily absolve Ric of anything.”
“It’s a f***ing car crash for both of them,” the official said, referring to Habba and Grenell.
Both officials emphasized that the White House had made no final determination. “We don’t know for sure if the text was or wasn’t sent by him,” the second official said.
White House counsel has asked Habba’s legal team to establish that the message originated from Grenell’s phone. “Nothing has been sent as of yet,” the second official said.
A source close to Habba disputed that account, saying her attorneys had remained in contact with the White House and supplied Trump’s team with everything requested. The source said no further information was outstanding.
Grenell’s lawyers have said they would conduct a forensic examination of his phone to demonstrate that the message did not come from him. As of Monday night, however, that material had not been submitted, according to the second official.
The White House wants to prevent the dispute from becoming “a distraction” during the final week of the campaign, the official said.
Donald Trump sits at the Resolute Desk. ‘Take this seriously, figure it out, and come back to me ASAP,’ Trump told White House counsel Will Scharf in the Oval Office
Mildon told the White House through his attorneys that, acting on Grenell’s instructions, he wired $17.6 million to Houston defense company Texas Armament & Technology, known as TXAT, in May 2025, Axios reported.
According to the New York Times, Habba said her husband understood that $5.6 million of the payment would be directed to the Kennedy Center.
Grenell has said he advised TXAT in 2024 but was no longer connected to the company when the funds were transferred, the outlet reported.
A White House official told Axios that Habba initially said the payment came from Mildon’s personal bank account. The money was instead wired from Congo’s finance ministry in Kinshasa, the official said.
Her account of the amount also changed. She first described the Kennedy Center contribution as $17 million, then revised it to approximately $6 million after speaking with her husband, Axios reported.
Kennedy Center records contain no donation from Mildon close to that amount, Our News Outlet previously reported. On October 13, he paid an overdue $270,000 pledge after the New York Times questioned why it had not been settled.
“It’s absurd. I’ve never asked for one cent to be sent somewhere else pretending it was for the Kennedy Center and I’ve never received any payment from him at all,” Grenell previously told Our News Outlet.
“Make [Mildon] give proof to what he is claiming he gave,” he added.
Grenell, 60, formerly served as acting director of national intelligence and led the Kennedy Center from February 2025 until his departure in March.
Mildon, 29, is an heir to a Turkish construction and mining fortune and has connections to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
He met Habba, 42, at the Kennedy Center, and the couple married last month at New York’s Waldorf Astoria in a ceremony reportedly costing $10 million.
White House counsel Scharf, Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel were among the guests. Grenell, who was once friends with the couple, was not in attendance.
Habba, Grenell and Mildon declined to provide further comment when contacted by Our News Outlet on Monday.
