Exclusive: Secret pay-for-play text rocks Trump White House

Top Trump adviser Ric Grenell allegedly outlined a stunning pay-for-influence offer to a Turkish billionaire last year: access to "POTUS," "VIP events" and administration officials, according to a text message, reviewed by Axios, that the White House counsel is investigating.

"Once the money comes to the company here, I will arrange the donation to Kennedy Centre [sic], and you'll be joining the VIP events and get close with the administration, even with POTUS," the May 3, 2025, text says.

Grenell has called the accusations "lies" and denied sending the text message.

Why it matters: Administration officials say the text is a key piece of evidence in the White House's investigation — ordered by President Trump — into whether Grenell abused the president's trust and misappropriated a potential multimillion-dollar donation to the Kennedy Center, which Grenell led at the time.

Grenell also served in another Trump-appointed capacity: as special envoy to Venezuela, where Turkish businessman Turhan Mildon also had contracts.

"We need to make you the 'American face' down in V," Grenell allegedly wrote in the same 2025 text message to Mildon, whose attorneys 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 U.S. attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba, who stormed into the Oval Office on Oct.

9 and accused Grenell of hoodwinking her husband into making a Kennedy Center donation that never arrived, Axios first reported .

Zoom in: At the heart of the alleged scheme is a financial transaction involving a private Houston-based defense company's software and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Habba and Mildon's attorneys have told the White House.

Mildon alleges that at Grenell's direction, Mildon wired $17.6 million to Texas Armament & Technology.

He says the money was to be split in roughly two parts: one for the Congo deal and nearly $6 million for the Kennedy Center.

To back up his claims, Mildon provided the 2025 text that discussed the Kennedy Center donation and Congo "software." In the text to Mildon, the sender also says, "There is an e-mail that was sent to you, can you please take a look at it for me ?" That email also was furnished to the White House, as was a May 29, 2025, financial record s howing $17.6 million was wired to the company, known by its initials TXAT, sources said.

It would be 17 months before Mildon learned that the Kennedy Center never received the money that he thought was included in the wire he sent at Grenell's direction, Habba told the president.

The intrigue : Here's where the story gets mysterious and murky.