Late last week, Donald Trump took the extraordinary step of firing Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden, despite her impressive record and years of bipartisan support. Soon after, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries released a scathing statement suggesting the president’s decision was not the final word on the story, and it looks like the New York Democrat was correct.
As this week got underway, for example, the administration announced that Todd Blanche — a former Trump defense attorney who’s now the deputy attorney general — would serve as the acting librarian of Congress. He was part of an apparent new team that also included two other Justice Department officials: Brian Nieves, who’ll serve as the acting deputy librarian, and Paul Perkins, who’ll serve as the acting copyright registrar.
But it’s not quite that simple: It wasn’t long before lawyers started asking whether a president can appoint temporary officials to serve in a separate branch of government. What’s more, there are related questions as to whether the appointees could legally work in the executive and legislative branches simultaneously.
If that weren’t quite enough, NBC News reported that things got a little dicey when Trump appointees showed up at what they considered their new offices.
Two Trump administration DOJ officials who claimed to be assigned to the Library of Congress in acting leadership roles were turned away from its offices this morning, three sources familiar told NBC News. [Nieves and Perkins] arrived at 9 a.m. at the U.S. Copyright Office in the Madison Building and presented an email saying they were given the new roles, but the two were not allowed into the offices and left. The two had also presented a letter saying that Todd Blanche, the current deputy attorney general, was being appointed to also be the acting librarian of Congress. The two left after speaking with library staff and security.
In case this isn’t obvious, standoffs like these are not at all common. The New York Times reported that when Nieves and Perkins showed up, staff members at the library “balked and called the U.S. Capitol Police as well as their general counsel, Meg Williams, who told the two officials that they were not allowed access to the Copyright Office and asked them to leave.”
Evidently, at least in this instance, that worked. The controversy is likely to continue — not just because these dubious Trump appointees might try to return to the offices the White House expects them to hold, but also because Democratic lawmakers are pressing the Library of Congress’ inspector general, Kimberly Benoit, to launch an investigation. With this in mind, it’s unlikely that we’ve heard the last of this story. Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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