President Donald Trump has directed White House lawyers to examine allegations that Ric Grenell, a former top adviser and onetime leader of the Kennedy Center, failed to deposit a multimillion-dollar donation intended for the performing arts institution, according to new reporting published Wednesday by Axios senior political reporter Marc Caputo.

One senior official described the fallout as a full-blown "MAGA blood feud."

According to Caputo, former Trump attorney Alina Habba told the president that Grenell, the former Kennedy Center leader, "failed to deposit a multimillion-dollar donation that her billionaire husband made to the center a year ago." The account draws on four senior administration officials and three insiders briefed on the controversy.

Caputo reported that in the spring of 2025, Grenell persuaded Habba's husband, Turhan Mildon, to include a multimillion-dollar Kennedy Center donation in a lump-sum $17.6 million payment for a business deal. Sources said the donation itself amounted to nearly $6 million, but Habba says it was never deposited with the Center.

A senior administration official cautioned that so far "these are only allegations," but Habba's attorneys plan to hand the White House documentation — reviewed by Axios — that supports her claims. The caution underscores that the review begins from contested claims, which places the documentation Habba's attorneys plan to hand over at the center of what comes next.

Per the report, Mildon and Habba discovered the issue only after their business relationship with Grenell frayed. Habba then went to the White House last Friday to tell the president about the situation. "Alina hit the roof" when her husband told her he had not donated the money directly to the Kennedy Center, whose records indicate Mildon actually owed a $270,000 pledged donation. Officials said there was no record of Mildon giving anything close to $5.6 million. Reconciling that gap — between the nearly $6 million Habba says was arranged and the $270,000 on the Center's books — stands to be a central question for the White House lawyers' examination.

Lisa Dale, who handled finances for the Kennedy Center at the time, said the only entry connected to Mildon in her books showed the $270,000 owed. "There was nothing about $6 million," she told Axios. "I would have heard about that."

Caputo noted that if Habba's allegations of missing money prove true, the matter could be particularly galling for Trump, who views the Kennedy Center and its fundraising personally. One Trump insider put it bluntly: "This is the ultimate MAGA blood feud." Beyond the personalities, the dispute pulls White House lawyers into a fight between two of the president's closest political allies, over money tied to an institution whose fundraising he tracks personally.

Both Habba and Grenell served in Trump's first administration. Grenell was U.S. ambassador to Germany and later acting director of national intelligence, while Habba worked as Trump's private attorney and briefly served as U.S. attorney in New Jersey.

According to Caputo, "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."

As one official noted, "Nobody wants to get in the middle of Alina Habba and Ric Grenell going to war."