Mildon's lawyer hands White House wire records in Grenell donation dispute
A lawyer for Turkish businessman Turhan Mildon has sent bank records and disputed text messages to the White House counsel, deepening the row over $17.6 million allegedly meant for the Kennedy Center and former centre chief Ric Grenell.
A lawyer for Turkish businessman Turhan Mildon has sent bank records and disputed text messages to the White House counsel, escalating his row with former Kennedy Center president Ric Grenell, in a development reported on Monday (https://www.mogazmasr.com/151047).
An Oct 19 Axios exclusive is at the centre: the outlet said it reviewed a May 3, 2025 text in which Grenell allegedly offered Mildon access to “POTUS”, “VIP events” and officials for financial support via a corporate entity — “Once the money comes to the company here, I will arrange the donation to Kennedy Centre”. The message is alleged and unverified (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Grenell).
The White House counsel’s office is examining the row over a $17.6 million payment that Alina Habba — Mildon’s wife and a former personal attorney to Donald Trump — says her husband intended for the Kennedy Center but which never arrived, part of a larger lump sum tied to a business deal with US firm Texas Armament & Technology (https://global1.news/grenell-inquiry-potus-access-text-17-6-million-wire).
The New York Times reported on Oct 17 that the money came from a bank account affiliated with the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ministère des Finances, not Mildon’s own account as she had indicated, and that the Justice Department’s foreign-agent register holds no filing for Mildon, Milvest, TXAT, Grenell or Habba — per official accounts and the Times’ reporting, not any court finding (https://imnews.imnet.online/2026/10/18/white-house-investigates-richard-grenell-congo-transfer/).
Grenell denies everything, calling them absurd to the Daily Beast: he never sent the message or anything like it, never received any payment from Mildon and never solicited payments for TX-AT, while acknowledging he consulted for the firm in 2024 but had no connection to it when the transfer was made (https://www.mogazmasr.com/151047). He led the Kennedy Center from February 2025 to March 2026; Habba confronted him in the Oval Office on Oct 9. No charges have been filed.
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