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.
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.
“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
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.
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