A quarrel between two figures close to Donald Trump led the White House to examine accusations involving several millions of dollars, set against a backdrop of commercial rivalries in Venezuela.
The former lawyer for the American president, Alina Habba Mildon, implicates Richard Grenell, former Washington envoy to Caracas. He categorically rejects any irregularity.
According to a New York Times investigation, signed by Tyler Pager and Anatoly Kurmanaev, Alina Habba Mildon went to the Oval Office last week to inform Donald Trump of the circumstances of a transfer carried out by her husband, the Turkish investor Turhan Mildon.
She asserts that he wired 17.6 million dollars in May 2025 as part of a business operation, on instructions she attributes to Richard Grenell. Of this sum, 5.6 million dollars would have had to go back to the Kennedy Center, a Washington cultural institution then led by Grenell, but would not have been recorded in the center’s accounts.
Facing these accusations, Donald Trump asked his White House legal counsel, Will Scharf, to review the file. Turhan Mildon’s lawyer then transmitted messages and a bank certificate presented as elements supporting his client’s version. Their probative value remains to be established: the New York Times notes it was not able to independently verify the allegations.
Richard Grenell denies diverting funds, asks that a payment allegedly destined for the Kennedy Center be sent elsewhere, or that he received money from Turhan Mildon. The accusations and this denial thus concern disputed facts, and not proven embezzlement.
At the center of the dispute lies TXAT, a Texas-based company specializing in defense and security equipment, to which the payment would have been addressed. Grenell acknowledges that he provided advice in 2024, but insists that he no longer had a professional relationship with it at the time of the alleged 2025 transfer. According to the American daily, the company did not respond to his inquiries.
For its part, the Kennedy Center has launched an internal audit of donor promises and the corresponding sums, according to information reported by American media. Another contribution, considerably more modest, is documented: Turhan Mildon had pledged to donate 270,000 dollars to the center. This amount was paid this week, after questions from journalists about its absence from the accounts. The documents reviewed by Axios, however, did not show any donation close to 5.6 million dollars. This lack of trace is not, in itself, sufficient to determine the destination of the alleged funds.
The dispute, however, goes beyond the cultural institution’s accounts. It is part of a rivalry over American influence and business in Venezuela. Richard Grenell had prioritized, at the start of Trump’s second term, contacts with the authorities of Nicolás Maduro and the pursuit of economic arrangements. The Secretary of State Marco Rubio later defended a tougher line toward the Venezuelan regime.
Turhan Mildon, for his part, had developed activities in the cement sector in Venezuela, notably through relations with Alex Saab, a figure close to Maduro’s circle. According to information published by the New York Times, these links raised questions from American officials, while Venezuelan authorities challenged some of the investor’s contracts after Maduro’s capture by U.S. forces in January 2026.
The American press also mentions a message that the attorney for Mildon attributes to Grenell, in which he would have wished to make the investor the “American face in Venezuela.” Grenell denies having drafted or sent this text. Here again, the authenticity and interpretation of the document remain contested.
Longtime close associates in the president’s circle, Habba and Grenell now find themselves opposed in a case where personal connections, access to political leaders, and international economic interests intersect. The two protagonists offer conflicting versions of the financial transfer, while the checks requested by the White House and those conducted at the Kennedy Center must still help establish the circumstances.
