President Donald Trump walks across the South Lawn of the White House to board Marine One en route to Joint Base Andrews, Md., to begin a trip to the Middle East, Monday, May 12, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
FILE - Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden arrives on the red carpet for the 2024 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song honoring Elton John and Bernie Taupin at DAR Constitution Hall March 20, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf, File)
Deputy attorney general who defended Trump in hush money trial is named acting librarian of Congress
Todd Blanche replaces longtime librarian Carla Hayden, whom the White House fired last week amid criticism from some conservatives that she was advancing a 鈥渨oke鈥 agenda.
President Donald Trump walks across the South Lawn of the White House to board Marine One en route to Joint Base Andrews, Md., to begin a trip to the Middle East, Monday, May 12, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
NEW YORK (AP) 鈥 Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who represented Donald Trump during his 2024 criminal trial, has been appointed acting librarian of Congress, the Justice Department said Monday. Blanche replaces longtime librarian Carla Hayden, whom the White House fired last week amid criticism from conservatives that she was advancing a 鈥渨oke鈥 agenda.
Brian Nieves, a deputy chief of staff and senior counsel in Blanche鈥檚 office, was named acting assistant librarian, Justice Department spokesman Chad Gilmartin confirmed. And Paul Perkins, an associate deputy attorney general and veteran Justice Department attorney, is now the acting register of copyrights and director of the Copyright Office, replacing Shira Perlmutter, whom the Trump administration pushed out last weekend.
Since in January, Trump has purged officials he regards as opposed to him and to his Republican agenda. Hayden, nominated by President Barack Obama in 2015 and confirmed on a 74-18 Senate vote the following year, named Perlmutter as head of the Copyright Office in 2020.
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The Copyright Office is overseen by the Library of Congress, which holds a vast archive of books and historical documents. Perlmutter鈥檚 office recently released examining whether artificial intelligence companies can use copyrighted materials to train their AI systems and then compete in the same market as the human-made works they were trained on.
The implications of Trump installing a close ally as librarian of Congress could be far-reaching. For instance, the librarian could see requests made by lawmakers to the Congressional Research Service, according to a congressional aide who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The nonpartisan agency is largely known as the think tank of Capitol Hill and provides analyses meant to help lawmakers in the legislative process.
Senior House Democrats on Monday raised the prospect that data held by the Library of Congress could have been improperly transferred to the executive branch, including officials at Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
Unauthorized information sharing 鈥渃ould compromise legislative branch independence and the ability of Members of Congress to carry out their constitutional duties,鈥 wrote Democrats including New York Rep. Joe Morelle and Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrats on the House Administration and Appropriations committees. They are asking for an inspector general investigation.
The Associated Press obtained an internal memo sent by Robert Randolph Newlen, who had been serving as acting librarian, saying that Congress was 鈥渆ngaged鈥 with the White House about Blanche’s appointment and that the library had not yet 鈥渞eceived direction from Congress about how to move forward.鈥
Blanche was named the No. 2 Justice Department official after serving as Trump’s criminal defense attorney in two cases brought by the department during President Joe Biden’s administration. He is a former federal prosecutor who was a key figure on Trump鈥檚 defense team in his New York hush money trial, which ended in .
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Hayden’s dismissal was widely condemned by Democrats and by many who worked with Hayden, the first Black person and the first woman to be named librarian of Congress. Ada Limon, who served three years as U.S. poet laureate after Hayden chose her in 2022, that 鈥淒r. Carla Hayden is the kindest, brightest, most generous Librarian of Congress we could have hoped for as a nation.鈥
The creators and cast of the Tony-nominated musical 鈥淒ead Outlaw鈥 canceled a planned visit to the library and issued a statement praising Hayden as “a fierce advocate for preserving America鈥檚 cultural memory and a great champion of the Broadway community.鈥
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Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim, Alanna Durkin Richer and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
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