Things got very entertaining online as Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH) tried to make the Trump Administration look bad by insisting that President Donald J. Trump and the board of the Trump-Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts were intentionally excluding her from the meetings, and she sued them as a result.
The Trump Administration brought the receipts to show that she simply hadn’t checked her email for the meeting updates. In fact, the ridiculous situation led to court filings in a contentious back and forth, and the Trump Administration revealed that Rep. Beatty had gotten her invitation, but it sat in her spam folder, which she apparently didn’t check.
Such exploded on X (formerly Twitter) thanks to CNN’s Betsy Klein, a member of CNN’s White House Team. Klein posted the court filing in which it was revealed that the email went to Rep. Beatty’s spam folder, and she didn’t check it, turning her lawsuit into a ridiculous incident involving an out of touch lawmaker.
Klein wrote, captioning the picture of the court filing, “In today’s edition of Washington is Veep: A Democratic congresswoman made a legal complaint against President Donald Trump for, in part, excluding her from an upcoming Kennedy Center board meeting. The invitation, it turned out, was in her spam folder. Aide filed an update today.”
The relevant portion of the court filing revealed, “On March 6, 2026, after learning that Defendant’s counsel represented to the Court that the Center sent the notice to Congresswoman Beatty’s personal email address, I asked Congresswoman Beatty to search her personal email. She was able to locate the notice in the spam folder of her personal email address.”
Commenting on Klein’s post in a comment summarizing how many feel about the whole situation, one X user said, “She was super vocal and public about the “exclusion” drama, making this a total faceplant. It’s even more of a nothingburger when you factor in that ex officio trustees like Rep. Beatty don’t actually have voting power under the Kennedy Center’s bylaws and governing structure.”
The Trump Administration chimed in as well. Quote-tweeting Klein’s post about the embarrassing incident, Roma Daravi, the Trump-Kennedy Center Vice President of Public Relations and White House Comms Dep Director, jokingly asked, “Did the dog also eat her homework?”
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In any case, after the embarrassing court hearing in which the spam email matter was revealed, Rep. Beatty’s attorney, Norm Eisen, commented on the spam filter issue when speaking to reporters. Eisen said, “I doubt there’s a single person here who hasn’t had an email vanished somewhere in a spam filter. That’s what happened here.” Her lawyers later added in a filing that the congresswoman “appreciates Defendants’ confirmation that she can attend the meeting at the White House.”
For reference, the email issue presented itself, Breitbart News reports, during a hearing before U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper. The hearing was handling Rep. Beatty’s demand for a temporary restraining order tied to a Trump-Kennedy Center board meeting as she, an ex officio trustee, wanted to be allowed to participate and vote on plans involving the institution, something that is typically not allowed for ex officio trustees.
Watch Melania stun with her beauty at a Trump-Kennedy Center event here: