Internal strife in Trump's inner circle: Alina Habba accuses Ric Grenell of failing to deposit alleged donation of nearly $6 million to Kennedy Center

Two figures who for years were part of President Donald Trump's inner circle are now at odds over allegedly missing funds.

Alina Habba, the president's former personal attorney, accused Ric Grenell, diplomat and former director of the Kennedy Center, for failing to report a million-dollar donation that her husband, Turkish businessman Turhan Mildon, allegedly made to the institution a year ago.

As revealed exclusively by Axios, based on information from four senior administration officials and three people familiar with the case, Habba raised the allegation with Trump on Friday in the Oval Office. The president reportedly asked the White House legal counsel to review the matter.

Grenell publicly stated that the accusation is "absurd" and denied any wrongdoing in response to reporter Marc Caputo, who wrote the story.

"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. Make him give proof to what he is saying, not make these absurd allegations," Grenell wrote on X.

Close advisors and former friends

Both figures joined Trump's inner circle during his first term. Grenell served as ambassador to Germany and Acting Director of National Intelligence. Habba was the president's personal attorney and, during this second term, briefly served as U.S. Attorney for New Jersey. Until a few months ago, Grenell was also friends with Mildon and Habba, but he did not attend the couple's wedding last month, according to the report.

According to the account Habba gave to the president and his team, in the spring of 2025 Grenell convinced Mildon to include a donation to the Kennedy Center as part of a $17.6 million payment linked to a business deal with a U.S. company. That money, according to Habba's account, allegedly ended up in a private company. The amount of the alleged donation also changed as the days went by. Habba first mentioned $17 million and then reduced it to $5.6 million, which has raised questions within the White House.

"This has been hard to track because numbers have changed," an official told Axios.

The Kennedy Center's records do not, for now, support that amount. According to Axios, the only entry listed under Mildon's name was a pledge of $270,000, which the businessman paid in full on Tuesday. Lisa Dale, who managed the institution's finances at the time, said she never saw a contribution of that magnitude.

"There was nothing about $6 million," she told the outlet. An official indicated, however, that center staff did search late last year for a donation from Mildon that they were unable to locate.

Is Venezuela involved?

The conflict also has a political backdrop linked to Venezuela. Grenell and Mildon had interests related to the country in early 2025. At that time, Grenell, as Trump's special envoy, was pushing for a rapprochement with the then-dictator Nicolás Maduro, a stance that pitted him against Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a proponent of maximum pressure. That standoff ended in Rubio's favor, with Maduro's capture by U.S. forces on Jan. 3.

Axios also reports that the regime of Delcy Rodríguez revoked a contract in June with a company owned by Mildon to operate state-owned cement plants in Venezuela and later reversed the decision, according to information published by The New York Times. The New York newspaper claims that the reversal occurred when Rodríguez learned of the businessman's relationship with Habba and assumed that this implied Trump's support. It was in the midst of that journalistic investigation that Habba learned the alleged donation had never reached the Kennedy Center, according to Axios sources.

At the White House, meanwhile, there is caution. "These are only allegations. We don’t know if they’re true. This could be a misunderstanding," said a senior official. Another noted that the legal counsel requested documents and evidence that he has not yet received, although Habba's attorneys plan to submit documentation that Axios was able to review.

While Grenell has publicly defended himself, Habba and Mildon have declined to comment so far.