Two officials at the Justice Department selected by Donald Trump to take on positions at the Library of Congress were turned away from the premises on Monday in what was described to the media as a “stand-off” by employees.
After the president abruptly fired Carla Hayden, the Barack Obama-appointed Librarian of Congress, the agency has become the newest target of the White House’s efforts to bring every part of government under the thumb of Trump and his team. Though the Library of Congress is part of the Legislative Branch, its director is appointed by the president, with Senate confirmation.
On Monday, Trump reportedly selected Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to serve as the acting agency director. But employees at the agency, seeking guidance from Congress, refused entry to two other Department of Justice officials tapped for supporting roles at the Library of Congress early Monday morning.
The “stand-off,” as it was described by The New York Times, involved Associate Deputy Attorney General Paul Perkins, who was appointed to serve as acting director of the US Copyright Office, and Brian Nieves, who was set to be acting deputy librarian under Blanche.
Their entry was reportedly refused by the agency’s general counsel and staffers, who called U.S. Capitol Police to defuse the situation. But Nieves and Perkins left the building before police arrived, according to reports, and a statement from a U.S. Capitol Police spokesperson confirmed that officers were not involved in denying anyone entry or escorting anyone from the building.
Democrats say that Trump’s unprecedented move to exert control over the typically independent Library of Congress is related to a race-oriented effort to purge diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) language and rhetoric from the federal government. Hayden was the first Black American and first woman to run the Library of Congress.
“Donald Trump’s termination of Register of Copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, is a brazen, unprecedented power grab with no legal basis. It is surely no coincidence he acted less than a day after she refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models,” Joe Morelle, a New York House Democrat, said in a statement Saturday
“This action once again tramples on Congress’s Article One authority and throws a trillion-dollar industry into chaos. When will my Republican colleagues decide enough is enough?”
On Monday, Morelle escalated his attack. In a new statement, he accused DOGE staffers of having “improper” conversations with Library of Congress employees and requesting the “unauthorized transfer of data” from the agency. He and five other Democrats called for an investigation in a letter to the Library’s Office of Inspector General.
“The Library is part of the legislative branch—an independent and coequal branch of government. The executive has no authority to demand or receive confidential legislative branch data, and the Library has no legal basis to supply such information without authorization from Congress,” the lawmakers wrote in a joint letter to the Library of Congress inspector general.
“The Members request that the IG’s Office investigates … whether the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) or other executive branch entities have requested or otherwise attempted to access or review Library data, including but not limited to communications between the Congressional Research Service and congressional offices,” the letter added.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, on Friday proved that she did not understand the function of the agency as she depicted Hayden and her staff as loaning out books — like a typical public library — as she tried to defend Hayden’s firing during a news conference.
“There were quite concerning things that she had done at the Library of Congress in the pursuit of DEI and putting inappropriate books in the library for children,” Leavitt claimed, without giving examples.
Prior to Hayden’s firing, a president had not removed a Librarian of Congress in more than 100 years.
Agency staffers, according to the Times, are currently recognizing principal deputy librarian Robert Newlen as the library’s acting director until Congress’ Joint Committee on the Library provides clarity. With both chambers of Congress currently in Republican hands, the chair of the committee is GOP Rep. Bryan Steil and the vice chair is Senator Mitch McConnell, formerly his party’s Senate majority leader.
