Washington Post: In rare move, Congress pushes back on Trump over Library of Congress
By Paul Kane and Meryl Kornfield
In a rare bipartisan effort to defend its institutional authority, Congress is quietly resisting President Donald Trump’s attempt to assert control over the Library of Congress — a move that experts say threatens the separation of powers and the integrity of the legislative branch’s premier research body.
Pushing back on Trump’s designation of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as acting librarian, lawmakers said Tuesday that control of the institution remains with its top career official, Robert R. Newlen. Newlen told staff at the library that he is the acting head, according to an email obtained by The Washington Post.
The president installed Blanche — a close Trump ally and his former defense attorney — as the acting head of the library just days after he abruptly fired Carla Hayden, the first woman and African American to serve as librarian of Congress, on Friday, nine years into her 10-year term.
The White House has not publicly announced Blanche’s new role, but a Justice Department official confirmed it, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel matters.
The Library of Congress declined to comment. The White House press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Capitol Hill, Democrats said Tuesday they did not believe that Blanche was the acting librarian — and Republicans, who have repeatedly deferred to Trump even as he has wrested control of federal spending from authorities, indicated that they wanted to maintain their power around the library, which is part of the legislative branch even though the president nominates its leader.
“We made it clear that there needs to be a consultation around this — that there are equities that both Article I and Article II branches have [with] the Library of Congress,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) told reporters Tuesday, referring to the legislative and executive branches, adding that Trump administration officials had met with members of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, which oversees the library.
Still, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) attacked Republicans as “a compliant rubber stamp” for Trump’s agenda and said Democrats would “look into” the president’s firing of Hayden. He hinted at possible litigation.
“It’s the Library of Congress, not the library of the executive branch,” Jeffries told reporters. “This is an example of executive overreach.”
Sen. Alex Padilla (California), the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, said administration officials understood that the institution remains under the control of Newlen, not Blanche.
“For the time being, the acting librarian is the acting librarian,” Padilla said in an interview Tuesday. “The folks that President Trump is trying to put in place seem to be respecting that, and we continue to talk to our Republican colleagues on defending the legislative branch.”
Padilla met Tuesday afternoon with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), the chair of the Rules Committee, to discuss a bipartisan response to the administration’s move.
McConnell’s office declined to comment on the meeting and did not address the nature of the standoff.
Newlen told library staffers Monday that he was waiting to hear from Congress about the next steps in the leadership transition, but he referred to himself as the acting head.
“You may have read that the White House has named a new acting Librarian,” Newlen wrote, according to a copy of one email obtained by The Post. “Currently Congress is engaged with the White House, and we have not yet received direction from Congress on how to move forward. We will share additional information as we receive it.”
The issue is simmering inside the Democratic caucus, where senators discussed the matter during their weekly policy luncheon Tuesday.
Padilla said some senators raised concern about potential abuse by the administration, including worries about the copyright office that the library controls, but the overarching issue was about defending an institution controlled by Congress from a hostile takeover by the president.
“This is the Library of Congress, not the library of the president,” he said, explaining his remarks to his colleagues during the closed-door meeting. “To be clear, this is not a Democrat versus Republican thing. This is a separation-of-powers, co-equal-branches-of-government discussion.”
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