The Department of Justice’s second-in-command can add “librarian” to his résumé. Todd Blanche has been appointed acting Librarian of Congress, the Justice Department confirmed Monday.
Blanche is President Trump’s former personal criminal attorney. It is unclear if the career lawyer has previously done work involving the Dewey Decimal System (or the Library of Congress Classification system).
Two other Justice Department officials have also added Library of Congress positions to their portfolios.
Associate Deputy Attorney General Paul Perkins has been assigned acting register of copyrights, and Blanche’s deputy chief of staff Brian Nieves was appointed acting deputy librarian of Congress.
The three lawyers now lead the largest library in the world, housing millions of books, films, audio recordings, photographs, manuscripts and other documents. The library serves as Congress’s primary main research arm, and the nation’s copyright office.
Perkins is replacing Shira Perlmutter, who took over as register of copyrights in October 2020, during the first Trump administration. Last week, Perlmutter and her office issued a lengthy report expressing concerns about the use of copyrighted material by artificial intelligence programs.
Blanche served as lead attorney during Mr. Trump’s 2024 New York criminal trial, in which a unanimous jury found Mr. Trump guilty of 34 felony charges of falsifying business records. Mr. Trump has denied the allegations and appealed his conviction.
Blanche’s appointment comes after the firing May 8 of Carla Hayden, who had been librarian of Congress since 2016. She was the first woman and first Black person to hold the position.
Robert Newlen, a Library of Congress staffer for more than 40 years, was initially tapped to replace Hayden in an acting capacity. In a Monday morning email to colleagues, obtained by CBS News, he addressed the turmoil in the library’s top ranks.
“You may have read that the White House has appointed a new acting Librarian,” Newlen wrote. “Currently, Congress is engaged with the White House, and we have not yet received direction from Congress about how to move forward. We will share additional information as we receive it.”
Hayden told CBS News in a 2020 interview that the job held great meaning to her.
“Personally, being a person of color, it means so much because people who look like me were forbidden by law to learn to read,” Hayden told CBS News in an interview in 2020. “That means so much that here is a person of color leading the world’s largest library.”
The library is an agency of the legislative branch, and Democrats have argued Mr. Trump does not have the authority to fire its top official.
New York Rep. Joe Morelle, the top Democrat on the Committee on House Administration, has requested an inspector general review Hayden’s firing.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for the “position of Librarian of Congress” to be “appointed by a congressional commission” and “not by presidents that treat federal appointments like reality TV prizes.”
