The White House is investigating top Trump adviser Ric Grenell over an alleged pay-for-influence text and millions of dollars said to be missing from a Kennedy Center donation, in a feud insiders are calling a "MAGA blood feud." Axios, which first reported the investigation on October 14, reviewed a text message from last year in which Grenell allegedly offered Turkish billionaire Turhan Mildon access to "POTUS," VIP events and administration officials. The White House counsel's office is now investigating the message as part of a broader dispute, and President Trump has ordered the inquiry.
"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."
The accusation comes from former Trump attorney Alina Habba, who is married to Mildon. Habba told the president and White House staffers that in the spring of 2025 Grenell persuaded her husband to include a multimillion-dollar donation to the Kennedy Center inside a larger $17.6 million business payment involving a U.S. company, according to Axios. After learning more about the transaction from her husband, Habba put the amount in question at roughly $5.6 million. Habba's attorneys plan to provide the White House with documentation supporting the allegations, and Axios said it reviewed documents related to the claims.
The Kennedy Center's own records, however, show no sign of the money. Staff searched late last year for a contribution said to be worth about $6 million and could not find it, and Lisa Dale, who managed the institution's finances at the time, told Axios her records show only a $270,000 pledge tied to Mildon. "There was nothing about $6 million," Dale said, adding that she would have known about a contribution of that size. Mildon paid the outstanding $270,000 pledge last week. A White House official initially said the counsel's office had asked Habba's side for documents and proof and that none had come; another official warned that if money is in fact missing, it would be a serious problem. The allegations have not been proven, and the White House has not publicly confirmed that any money was misappropriated.
The inquiry has since taken a new turn. The New York Times reported on Saturday that the $17.6 million payment at the heart of the feud came from an account tied to the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo — Mildon advises Congo's president — and Mildon's lawyers have now delivered a wire receipt and text messages to the White House counsel's office, which is reviewing them. The Daily Mail also reported that Trump placed a furious phone call to Grenell about the missing millions after Habba raised the allegations with him in the Oval Office. The reports did not specify what the Congo-linked payment was for, and the White House has not publicly commented on the inquiry's findings.
Grenell has denied the claims outright, calling them "absurd" and insisting he never received or diverted any such funds. "Make him provide proof of what he is saying, not make these absurd allegations," he told Axios. Grenell, a former ambassador and special envoy who also served as the Kennedy Center's interim president, was at the time advocating for normalizing U.S. relations with Venezuela under Nicolás Maduro, while Mildon held extensive business interests in the country that were threatened by Secretary of State Marco Rubio's hardline pressure campaign. The relationship between the two men frayed after Grenell lost an internal administration power struggle with Rubio, according to the report. Habba met Mildon at the Kennedy Center in late 2025, and the two married before the dispute broke into the open.
Never miss a story — join us on Telegram: https://t.me/profilopoliticsnews