President Trump has directed his White House counsel to examine explosive allegations dropped on him Friday in the Oval Office:
- Former Trump attorney Alina Habba told the president that another one of his top advisers — former Kennedy Center leader Ric Grenell — failed to deposit a multimillion-dollar donation that her billionaire husband made to the center a year ago, according to four senior administration officials and three insiders briefed on the controversy.
- Grenell denied the accusations as "absurd" and a "lie."
- Habba and her husband, Turhan Mildon, declined to comment through a spokesperson.
Why it matters: The extraordinary row between the two top-tier presidential advisers and former allies provides a rare and acrimonious behind-the-scenes glimpse into the intersection of power, influence and money in Trump's Washington.
- The total value of the contribution in question: nearly $6 million, White House sources said Habba told them.
- A senior administration official cautioned that "these are only allegations. We don't know if they're true. This could be a misunderstanding."
- Said another: "POTUS doesn't want to deal with this. Of course, he's concerned. But if there is missing money, this is a big, big problem."
Just a few months ago, Grenell was friends with Mildon and Habba. But he was notably absent from their $10 million wedding that was attended by Trump world officials, power brokers and luminaries last month.
- "This is the ultimate MAGA blood feud," said one Trump world insider with knowledge of the conflict.
Zoom in: The dispute grew out of a friendship between Grenell and Mildon, sources familiar with the conflict say. The men had mutual interests in Venezuela in early 2025, immediately after Trump returned to the White House.
- Grenell, as a Trump special envoy, was advocating for normalizing U.S. relations with Venezuela's leader at the time, Nicolas Maduro.
- Mildon, a Turkish national, had extensive Venezuelan business interests that were threatened by Secretary of State Marco Rubio's hardline pressure campaign targeting Maduro.
The intrigue: In the spring of 2025, Grenell persuaded Mildon to include a multimillion-dollar Kennedy Center donation in a lump-sum $17.6 million payment for a business deal involving a U.S. company, Habba told the president and White House staffers, two sources said.
- Habba's attorneys plan to give the White House documentation — reviewed by Axios — to support her allegations about Grenell soliciting a Kennedy Center donation from Mildon to go to a private company in the spring of 2025.
- "The White House counsel has asked for documents and proof. None has come so far," a White House official said.
Grenell called the statements from Habba to Trump "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. Make him give proof to what he is saying, not make these absurd allegations."
- When Habba initially leveled her accusations against Grenell, she said the total amount of the Kennedy Center contribution was $17 million, the sources said. But as she learned of the specifics from her husband, she said the amount of the contribution in question was $5.6 million.
- "This has been hard to track because numbers have changed," the White House official said.
After making his alleged contribution, Mildon never checked to see if it was deposited. He believed it had been credited because he was treated like a VIP donor at the Kennedy Center, where he met Habba in late 2025 before their whirlwind romance and marriage, those sources said.
Friction point: Mildon and Habba, the sources said, discovered the issue after their business relationship frayed with Grenell, who lost an internal administration power struggle with Rubio that culminated in the U.S. seizing Maduro on Jan. 3 and taking him to New York City to face narcotics charges.
- In June, Maduro's successor, Delcy Rodriguez, issued an order revoking one of Mildon's company contracts to operate state-owned cement plants in Venezuela, the New York Times reported Monday. A source familiar with the situation told Axios this summer that her action was partly due to the U.S. government's prodding.
- Rodriguez then reversed herself, the Times reported, after learning of Mildon's new relationship with Habba because the Venezuelan leader believed Mildon therefore had Trump's backing.
- Amid the Times' reporting into Mildon's contract, Habba discovered that Mildon's supposed donation never made it to the Kennedy Center, the sources said.
Inside the room: Habba then headed to the White House last Friday to tell the president about the situation.
- "Alina hit the roof" when her husband told her that he hadn't donated the money directly to the Kennedy Center, whose records indicate that Mildon actually owed a $270,000 pledged donation.
- There was no record of Mildon giving anything close to $5.6 million, officials said. Mildon on Tuesday paid the $270,000, records show, to the Kennedy Center.
In partial confirmation of Habba's story, Kennedy Center staff reported that late last year there was a search for Mildon's contribution — then thought to be $6 million — but that it couldn't be found, an official said.
- But Lisa Dale, who handled finances for the Kennedy Center then, said the only record in her books connected to Mildon showed he owed $270,000. "There was nothing about $6 million," she told Axios. "I would have heard about that."
Context: Habba and Grenell trace their roots to Trump's first administration.
- Grenell was Trump's ambassador to Germany and then his acting director of national intelligence. Habba was Trump's private attorney and briefly was U.S. attorney in New Jersey during this term.
Between the lines: The Kennedy Center has been an ongoing sore spot for Trump, beset by controversy over his efforts to put his name on the building and fundraising woes.
- If Habba's allegations of missing money are true, it could prove particularly galling to Trump, who views the center and its fundraising personally.
- Those who know the president's thinking say he is particularly disapproving of people who use his name or misuse positions he has given them. His dismissal Tuesday of Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle was the latest reminder of that.
- Two top Trump world figures being engaged in such a bitter feud adds to the complexity.
- "Nobody wants to get in the middle of Alina Habba and Ric Grenell going to war," one official said.