{"id":9129,"date":"2025-05-12T15:31:58","date_gmt":"2025-05-12T15:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/todd-blanche-doj-no-2-is-now-acting-library-of-congress-chief\/"},"modified":"2025-05-12T15:31:58","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T15:31:58","slug":"todd-blanche-doj-no-2-is-now-acting-library-of-congress-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/todd-blanche-doj-no-2-is-now-acting-library-of-congress-chief\/","title":{"rendered":"Todd Blanche, DOJ No. 2, is now acting Library of Congress chief"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Justice Department\u2019s No. 2 official now has a second job: running the Library of Congress. President Donald Trump has appointed Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as the acting librarian, a DOJ official said Monday.<\/p>\n

The added duties for Blanche come after Trump fired<\/a> Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden on Thursday, about nine years into her 10-year term.<\/p>\n

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Friday that Trump had dismissed Hayden because \u201cshe did not fit the needs of the American people.\u201d Leavitt described as \u201cquite concerning\u201d<\/a> Hayden\u2019s work on diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs.<\/p>\n

The library\u2019s official biography<\/a> of Hayden, who is African American, touts her use of a private grant to engage with \u201cunderrepresented\u201d communities and \u201cadd their perspectives to the Library\u2019s collections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leavitt also claimed Hayden was \u201cputting inappropriate books in the library for children,\u201d a puzzling assertion since the Library of Congress is not a lending library and researchers have to be at least 16.<\/p>\n

Trump on Saturday also dismissed top U.S. copyright official Shira Perlmutter<\/a>, who was appointed by Hayden. The firing came a day after her office released a draft report on use of copyrighted materials in artificial intelligence. <\/p>\n

Congressional Democrats have denounced Trump\u2019s move and called for Congress to pass a law eliminating the president\u2019s power to appoint the top librarian.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must assert our congressional prerogative by making the position of Librarian of Congress appointed by a Congressional commission \u2014 not by presidents that treat federal appointments like reality TV prizes,\u201d Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said.<\/p>\n

Blanche is taking over from Principal Deputy Librarian Robert Newlen, who automatically replaced Hayden on an acting basis last week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Justice Department\u2019s No. 2 official now has a second job: running the Library of Congress. President Donald Trump has appointed Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as the acting librarian, a DOJ official said Monday. The added duties for Blanche come after Trump fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden on Thursday, about nine years into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}