The Kennedy Center’s leadership worked closely with Donald Trump’s administration to rush out no-bid contracts for construction projects at the performing arts venue in service of the president’s personal tastes, according to a Democratic senator investigating the efforts.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse says he is expanding a probe into the Trump-led renovations after several whistleblower reports raised “serious questions” about the center’s leadership and the board’s financial management.

The whistleblower complaints allege corner-cutting projects that have already rusted over, a new bathroom floor that was ripped out because the president didn’t like the color, multi-million dollar no-bid contracts, and management that defied contracting rules while telling officials “we’ll deal with the lawsuits later.”

“Taken together, these are not isolated lapses but a single pattern that runs counter to everything the center has told Congress it would do with the public’s money,” Whitehouse wrote in a letter to Kennedy Center executive director Matt Floca on Saturday.

Rather than focus on the building’s “actual needs,” the center rushed renovations “driven by the president’s aesthetic whims,” according to Whitehouse. “This is waste, and it treats a national memorial to President Kennedy as if it were a private renovation project.”

The Kennedy Center has been at the center of investigations and litigation after Trump named himself chair and dismissed trustees who were appointed by Democratic presidents and replaced them with loyalists last year.

The board then voted to rename the venue after the president in December.

In May, District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C. ruled that Congress made it “crystal clear” that the building is only to be named after the assassinated former president, “and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial” based on a “unilateral say-so.”

The Kennedy Center had until June 12 to strip the president’s name from the building, but construction crews in hard hats and neon green high-vis vests only started to assemble scaffolding to reach the letters that afternoon.

Workers eventually began removing letters at 3 a.m. June 13, but a massive tarp is still covering the signage. Judge Cooper has ordered the Kennedy Center to “indicate the purpose for and status of the tarp and scaffolding” by July 31.

The Department of Justice is also joining the fight to keep Trump’s name on the building, arguing that the Kennedy Center stands to lose “hundreds of millions” of dollars without him.

In court filings earlier this month, the Justice Department claims Trump raised $258 million from Congress and “hundreds of millions more in pledges and donations from Patriotic private donors” to renovate the building.

Government lawyers argued that the venue should be renamed in the president’s honor after he “donated his time, energy and unparalleled Construction talents” to renovating the venue.

But anonymous whistleblower disclosures compiled by Whitehouse’s office reveal “longstanding federal contracting controls were set aside, no-bid contracts were awarded, and superficial cosmetic work was performed that staff warned would have to be redone,” according to White House.

Whistleblowers also allege Kennedy Center management was ordered to “do whatever it takes” to meet White House deadlines before a series of high-profile events at the venue in December, including the FIFA World Cup draw on December 5, when he received the organization’s “Peace Prize,” and the Kennedy Center Honors, which Trump hosted.

Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, wants answers by July 23.

“Public funds ought to be spent lawfully, prudently, and in service of the institution, not on the stylistic whims of the current president,” Whitehouse wrote.

The Kennedy Center has rejected Whitehouse’s allegations.

“As America’s cultural center, the institution makes every decision guided by responsible stewardship and an unwavering commitment to its patrons and the nation it proudly serves,” spokeswoman Roma Daravi said in a statement to The Washington Post. “We remain fully committed to transparency and to delivering the critical improvements that will preserve this institution for generations to come.”