Alina Habba told President Trump in the Oval Office that Richard Grenell, the Trump ally who ran the Kennedy Center, never delivered roughly $5.6 million of a $17.6 million payment her husband wired at his direction, and White House counsel Will Scharf has been told to look into it. Grenell denies it all. The dispute has since turned toward Habba's husband, Turkish businessman Turhan Mildon, his Venezuelan and Congolese business ties, and whose money the wire really was.
Richard Grenell and Alina Habba Mildon had once been close friends.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesAccording to the NY Times, Habba brought the accusation to the Oval Office on Oct. 9, after the Times sent Mildon questions about his Venezuela business. She said Mildon made the payment in May 2025 at Grenell's direction, believing about $5.6 million would be set aside for the Kennedy Center, and that the money never reached it. The wire itself went to TX-AT, a Texas security and defense equipment company, not to the Kennedy Center. Trump called in Scharf to hear her out.
Her account has moved. People familiar with the discussion told the Times she described the sum first as a donation of about $17 million, then as roughly $6 million, and eventually said most of the payment was a business transaction whose
