NEA claimed records request could be ‘voluminous.’ It released 12 files
A released email shows one visible White House ballroom talking point before the rest of the discussion is redacted.
Government and Cultural Heritage
The National Endowment for the Arts released 12 files after a 119-day review of an Urgent Matter public records request that sought communications involving chair Mary Anne Carter, White House architectural projects and federal commemorative initiatives — including records tied to her work on NEA systems and her separate service on the Commission of Fine Arts.
Filed on January 19, the request followed Urgent Matter’s reporting that the NEA approved grants related to Trump’s National Garden of American Heroes initiative, while some community arts awards were being terminated or zeroed out.
Urgent Matter requested records created, sent, or received from January 1, 2025, through the date of the request. This timeframe includes the months before Carter’s December confirmation as NEA chair and the days leading up to her January reappointment to the Commission of Fine Arts.
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NEA records on Carter, CFA and White House ballroom
Records released by the NEA in response to an Urgent Matter FOIA request.
Adam Schrader
The released records primarily include CFA onboarding emails, Zoom logistics, public comments, news clippings, and Smithsonian acquisition packets related to the commission’s January 22 meeting, where the first substantive agenda item was the White House East Wing modernization and ballroom addition.
The production contains no obvious substantive communications between Carter and White House personnel or records directly addressing several initiatives named in the request. Several files pertain to the January 22 meeting. The NEA’s application of the request’s cutoff date remains unclear.
The release was far narrower than the request. The records do not show whether that reflects the limits of the agency’s search, records withheld under FOIA exemptions or the absence of additional responsive material.
The January 19 request sought records involving “federal cultural, architectural, or commemorative initiatives involving the White House or other federal sites.”
It specifically named the White House ballroom or East Wing renovation, federal architectural standards or review processes, coordination between the NEA, White House, Commission of Fine Arts or other federal agencies, Executive Order 13967, the National Garden of American Heroes and communications between Carter and White House personnel, including senior staff or leadership.
The request was written to reach Carter-related records on NEA systems even when the subject involved her work outside the agency. It covered NEA accounts, devices and staff “regardless of her specific role,” including her service on the CFA or other advisory bodies.
The released files shed little light on Carter’s NEA role in the White House, federal architecture or commemorative initiatives named in the request.
On February 17, the NEA said the request could involve “a voluminous amount of records” and require consultation with other federal entities.
The agency said on March 11 that it had searched for potentially responsive records and forwarded documents to outside agencies because those agencies had “equities” in the records. Twenty days later, it said that the consultation was mandatory and asked whether Urgent Matter remained interested in receiving the records.
Urgent Matter said it remained interested.
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On April 24, the NEA suggested that certain responsive records were publicly available on the CFA website and asked whether those materials would satisfy the request. Urgent Matter clarified that the request covered internal NEA communications, interagency communications subject to consultation, and Carter-related records “not available through the CFA or other public sources.”
The agency’s final response, sent May 18, said the NEA had conducted a search “reasonably calculated to locate responsive documents” and identified responsive records, some of which “originat[ed] from or implicat[ed] the equities” of the CFA. The NEA said it consulted with CFA before making a final release determination and withheld information under FOIA Exemptions 5 and 6.
Exemption 5, the agency said, protects “inter-agency or intra-agency records that are predecisional and deliberative,” a category often used to shield internal government discussions before a final decision is made. Exemption 6 protects personal privacy information.
The NEA’s final response also pointed Urgent Matter to “additional publicly available information” on the CFA website. That link led to the public page for the January 22 meeting — the same meeting around which the released emails, comments, clippings and acquisition packets were clustered.
The 12 attachments released by the NEA included five CFA emails or meeting logistics files, a news clippings packet, four Freer Gallery acquisition packets, public comments on the White House ballroom and the East Wing, and public comments on a proposed Trump one-dollar coin.
The most substantive released email is dated January 14. In it, CFA Secretary Thomas Luebke told Carter it was “great to connect” the previous day and said the commission still did “not have official word about the appointments,” but had “gone ahead and rescheduled the CFA meeting” for January 22.
“As we discussed, here are a few points from our meeting on the White House ballroom,” Luebke wrote.
Only one bullet point remains visible: “It makes sense that the White House has a larger, interior space for official functions that can accommodate many more attendees than the East Room.”
The rest of that section is covered by a large black block, an Exemption 5 redaction.
The next day, Luebke emailed Carter again.
“I got the official word— congratulations on your reappointment by President Trump to the Commission of Fine Arts!” he wrote on January 15.
Luebke said that, “per guidance from PPO,” he was reaching out to other appointees to set up the following week’s meeting and onboard two new CFA members. He also said the commission would adapt biographical information provided by the White House and other sources for its own announcement, after the White House made its announcement.
A January 16 email to “New Commission Members” said CFA was preparing to post the meeting agenda, case materials and members’ names to its website.
Luebke told the members that the Zoom invitation would show the public meeting beginning at 9 a.m., but that “just you four and my senior staff” should begin a pre-meeting at 8 a.m. because, “given the complexity of the meeting,” it would be best to give them more time “to discuss the run of the meeting.”
A separate January 16 email from CFA senior urban planner Carlton Hart attached news clippings, four Freer Gallery files and public comments on the White House ballroom project and the semiquincentennial one-dollar coin. Hart also linked to a CFA Dropbox folder with “this month’s digital submission files” and told commissioners the agency looked forward to seeing them on Zoom at 8 a.m. January 22.
The public comment files included objections to the White House ballroom project and the proposed Trump one-dollar coin. One coin comment urged CFA staff to “prevent this coin from entering circulation.” Another commenter wrote that Trump did not deserve to be placed on a coin “now or in the future.”
Much of the remaining release consists of Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art acquisition packets for the Freer Gallery of Art. Those documents include proposed gifts from Mary and Cheney Cowles and Lois Raphling, including Japanese and Korean paintings, calligraphy, Chinese ceramics and a Korean painted fan.
One Cowles acquisition justification described the Cowles Collection as “arguably the most significant addition to the collection of Japanese paintings and calligraphy since the original gift of Charles Lang Freer.”
After 119 days, the NEA released some meeting logistics, public comments, news clippings and acquisition packets, plus one White House ballroom discussion that disappears into a redaction.
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