- Grenell also held another Trump-appointed position: special envoy to Venezuela, where Turkish businessman Turhan Mildon also had contracts.
- “We need to make you the face-down American in V,” Grenell allegedly wrote in the same 2025 text message to Mildon, whose lawyers sent the text, at least one financial document and other correspondence to the White House counsel’s office, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
- Mildon is married to another Trump adviser: former New Jersey U.S. attorney Alina Habba, who stormed into the Oval Office on Oct. 9 and accused Grenell of tricking her husband into making a donation to the Kennedy Center that never arrived, Axios first reported.
Zoom: At the heart of the alleged scheme is a financial transaction involving the software of a private defense company based in Houston and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Habba and Mildon’s lawyers said at the White House.
- Mildon alleges that, at Grenell’s direction, Mildon transferred $17.6 million to Texas Armament & Technology. He said the money was to be divided into two parts: one for the Congo deal and nearly $6 million for the Kennedy Center.
- To support his claims, Mildon provided the 2025 text that discussed the Kennedy Center donation and Congo “software.” In the text addressed to Mildon, the sender also says: “An email has been sent to you, can you please take a look at it for me?”
- This email was also provided to the White House, as was a financial filing from May 29, 2025. show $17.6 million was transferred to the company, known by its initials TXAT, sources said.
that would be 17 months Before Mildon learned that the Kennedy Center had never received the money he thought was included in the telegram he sent at Grenell’s request, Habba told the president.
The plot: This is where the story gets mysterious and murky. It is unclear what the Congo contract was about, how it related to the Kennedy Center, or what the financial specifics were.
- The text does not mention any financial figures, neither for the TXAT nor for the Kennedy Center. But a source familiar with the matter said other correspondence provided to the White House contained financial details.
- The financial transaction sent to TXAT did not appear to come from Mildon’s bank account, as Habba had initially indicated to Trump.
Instead, the $17.6 million was wired to TXAT from Congo’s “Ministry of Finance” in Kinshasa, the capital, where Mildon has business and access to finances, a White House official said.
- A Mildon spokesperson declined to comment. Spokespeople for TXAT and the Congolese government could not be contacted.
- “We are trying to find out who owns this money,” the official said..
To complicate matters further: Habba’s numbers kept changing after she first alerted Trump to the alleged theft of Kennedy Center money.
- At first, she said the Kennedy Center’s contribution was $17 million.
- Then she said it was about $6 million after talking to Mildon. The correct figure appears to be $5.6 million.
The other side: Grenell, who declined to comment for this article, previously told Axios that the allegations against him were “absurd.”
- “I never asked for a single penny to be sent anywhere else claiming it was for the Kennedy Center, and I never received any payment from them,” he said. “Make him prove what he says, not make these absurd allegations.”
- When asked about the exact wording of the text message, Grenell flatly denied sending it because “center” was spelled in British English as “center,” a source briefed on his thinking said.
- Grenell’s allies have also questioned everything from Mildon’s business background to his associates, his age (he is 29 but some records say he is 25) and his $10 million marriage last month to Habba, 42, whom he began dating last year.
Point of friction: As The New York Times examined Mildon’s activities in Venezuela, he fell out with Grenell, with whom he had been friends since 2024.
- Mildon met Habba in 2025 at the Kennedy Center.
Inside the room: When Habba arrived at the White House on Oct. 9, she was “pretty animated,” an administration official said, and at one point exclaimed, “Ric stole the money!”
- The problem, however, was that Habba “didn’t have all her affairs in order. She went in there half-cocked without all the facts screaming about Grenell’s theft. And the facts kept changing,” the source said. “That doesn’t mean Ric is out of the woods. It looks really fishy.”
- After Habba made his accusations, Trump summoned White House counsel Will Scharf to the Oval Office and asked him to look into his claims, sources said.
Trump and Scharf then called Grenell: who denied everything and said he would have immediately alerted everyone to the idea of a $17 million contribution.
- “There’s no way that’s true. It’s crazy,” Grenell told Trump at one point, according to a source briefed on the discussion.
Behind the scenes: Scharf became skeptical of Habba’s claims early last week because she and Mildon’s lawyers were initially slow to provide documents to help her investigation, a source said. They submitted the documents on Friday.
- Scharf is still gathering evidence and plans to verify the digital fingerprint of the 2025 text, the source said, noting that a printout of the message features the same image of Grenell that appears on his smartphone’s contact card screen.
- Kennedy Center insiders also contacted the White House and said they frequently saw Mildon at exclusive events at the facility, indicating he was a big donor. That includes appearances in the vice president’s box, next to the president’s, a source said.
- “This is where Alina could tell the truth: Mildon had access. So why did he have access? Was he doing business in Congo with Ric? Why so much access if the contribution was never paid?” » asked one of the administration officials.
- “There are a lot of questions. And POTUS wants answers.”
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