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A Turkish billionaire says he wired $17.6 million at the direction of senior Trump adviser Ric Grenell, believing part of it would go to the Kennedy Center in exchange for access to the president, according to Axios, which reviewed a text message at the center of a White House investigation. Grenell denies sending the message and calls the accusations “lies.”
The businessman, Turhan Mildon, 29, provided the May 3, 2025, text through his attorneys to the White House counsel’s office.
President Trump ordered the investigation into whether Grenell, who led the Kennedy Center at the time, abused the president’s trust and misappropriated a potentially multimillion-dollar donation, administration officials said.
The message says that once money reached a company, the sender would arrange a donation to the Kennedy Center and that Mildon would join “VIP events” and “get close with the administration, even with POTUS.”
It also allegedly says Mildon should become the “American face” in Venezuela, where Grenell served as special envoy and where Mildon has contracts.
Mildon alleges that Grenell directed him to wire the money to Texas Armament & Technology, a private Houston-based defense company known as TXAT.
By his account, the funds were to be split roughly in two: one part for a deal involving the Democratic Republic of Congo and nearly $6 million for the Kennedy Center.
His attorneys also gave the White House an email referenced in the text and a May 29, 2025, financial record showing the wire, sources familiar with the inquiry said.
Mildon’s wife, Alina Habba, a Trump adviser and former U.S. attorney for New Jersey, told the president that he learned only 17 months later that the Kennedy Center never received the money.
On Oct. 9, she burst into the Oval Office and accused Grenell of cheating her husband, Axios reported.
One administration official described her as “pretty animated” and said she exclaimed, “Ric stole the money!”
Much remains unclear, including what the Congo contract covered and how it related to the Kennedy Center. The text contains no dollar figures.
The $17.6 million also did not appear to come from Mildon’s own bank account, as Habba initially told Trump.
A White House official said it was wired to TXAT from Congo’s finance ministry in Kinshasa, where Mildon has business interests. “We’re trying to find out whose money this is,” the official said.
The figures cited for the Kennedy Center contribution have shifted. Habba first said $17 million, then about $6 million after speaking with Mildon.
The exact amount appears to be $5.6 million. A spokesman for Mildon declined to comment, and representatives for TXAT and the Congolese government could not be reached.
Grenell declined to comment for the Axios article but earlier called the claims “absurd.”
He said he had never asked for money to be sent elsewhere under the pretense that it was for the Kennedy Center and had never received any payment from Mildon.
A source briefed on his thinking said he emphatically denied sending the text because it spells “center” in the British style, “centre.”
In a call with Trump and White House Counsel Will Scharf, Grenell said, “There’s no way this is true. This is crazy,” according to a source briefed on the discussion.
Grenell’s allies have questioned Mildon’s business background and associates, his age, which some records list as 25, and his $10 million wedding last month to Habba, 42.
The two began dating last year after meeting at the Kennedy Center in 2025.
Mildon and Grenell had been friendly since 2024 but had a falling out as The New York Times examined Mildon’s activities in Venezuela.
Scharf grew skeptical of Habba’s claims early last week because she and Mildon’s attorneys were slow to hand over records, a source said.
They submitted documents on Friday. Scharf plans to verify the digital footprint of the text, the source said, noting that a printout shows the same image of Grenell that appears on his smartphone contact card.
An administration official said Habba “didn’t have all her stuff in order” and that the facts keep changing, but added that Grenell was not in the clear.
Kennedy Center insiders have told the White House they frequently saw Mildon at exclusive events, including in the vice president’s box. “Why so much access if the contribution was never paid?” one official asked.
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