Washington – It’s not about books.
President Donald Trump’s abrupt shot of High officials of the Congress Library and I also try sudden To name a loyal list as replacements On the other hand, it has become a huge struggle for the separation of powers, since the White House tries to snatch control of what has been a legislative institution for centuries.
It’s a Power struggle with potentially vast consequences. The Congress Library not only stores the world’s largest book collection, but also an office that supervises the resumes of material with unhappy value copyright.
There is a research institute that has been protected for a long time from external influence. Its servers house extremely confidential information about Rape claims at the workplace at Capitol Hillas well as payments and other financial data for the more than 30,000 employees of the legislative branch. It is even speculated that the whole matter is linked to an ongoing debate about itself Large technology companies can use copyright For artificial intelligence systems.
Because of this, the battle for the control of the Congress Library has led the Republican leaders in Capitol Hill to deliver a rare rejection against a president who has pressed to expand the limits of his own power to promulgate his priorities. Leader of the Senate John Thune And other Republicans have been talking to the White House on a potential path towards detente.
All this has left the library in a strange state of purgatory.
For now, Trump’s elections for the leaders of the interim library, more markedly Todd Blanche, an deputy attorney general who had represented the president in Your criminal procedures – They have not seemed to challenge the affirmation of the library that one of its veteran officials would be the chief of action. According to experts, it would be unheard of that an executive branch official, such as Blanche, simultaneously serves in the legislative branch, according to experts.
“This atrocious to the legislature by the Executive Branch is unjustified and, we believe, unprecedented,” said New York representative Joe Morelle, the main democrat of the Chamber Administration Committee, which supervises the Library of Congress.
The controversy began to develop publicly last week, when Congress librarian Carla Hayden was fired In a brief email of a White House official. He had only one year left in his 10 -year mandate.
Then, this week, Blanche was used by the White House to be the interim librarian, and two other officials of the Department of Justice were chosen for other senior library positions. Those officials, Brian Nieves and Paul Perkins, tried to enter without success the United States copyright office on Monday, but they voluntarily left after the library officials called the Capitol Police.
Thune told The Associated Press that Congress was “not quite” accessed before Trump’s dismissal to Hayden.
Legislators want to ensure that “the actions of the legislative branch of Congress are protected,” Tune said. He speculated that discussions with the White House to resolve the confrontation would bleed next week.
The White House has said that Trump was within his authority to say goodbye Hayden, an old head of library systems in Baltimore. He cited the “quite worrying” behavior of Hayden that involves efforts of diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as books for children that the White House found inappropriate.
A copy of practically all the books published in the US. No one under 16 can get a reader card to access the collection.
Existing regulations and past practices require an interim librarian to come from the current ranges of the Congress Library if there is a vacancy. But the White House has argued that a law that governs federal vacancies is applied, despite the fact that the 1998 law deals with the executive branch, according to two persons familiar with discussions.
When Nieves and Perkins appeared on Monday, they celebrated a letter invoked by the Vacancies Law to justify their appointments, according to one of the people.
The Senator of Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, who directs the panel that supervises the funds for the Library of Congress, argued that in practice, the librarian is not an employee of the legislative branch, who says: “It is an appointment of the president of the United States, because we have to confirm it.”
However, there is a deep concern among legislators and assistants about any unjustified intrusion of the administration in the Congress Library and its operations.
Especially worrying for them is a potential interference with the Congress Research Service, known as the group of non -partisan experts of Capitol Hill. Campa approximately 75,000 requests from Congress members every year for investigations, legal experience and other critical information for policy formulation.
The discussions between the legislators and the Congress investigation service are considered so sensitive that they are protected by the discourse or debate clause of the Constitution, which protects the members of the Congress from being questioned, as in the Court, on official legislative acts.
The “usefulness and reliability of the service would be substantially stopped if these consultations were not protected or the administration sought to shape the answers to reflect their priorities,” said Hope O’Keeffe, a former general advisor associated in the Library of Congress.
The Library also supervises the Office of Labor Rights of Congress, which functions as the Human Resources Office of the Legislative Branch, presenting complaints about harassment, discrimination and other violations of the workplace. It also stores financial information about the employees of the Legislative Branch, which include not only those in the Library of Congress, legislators and their assistants, but the employees of the Capitol Police, the architect of the Capitol and the Government’s responsibility office.
Robert Newlen, the main deputy librarian, told Library employees shortly after the dismissal of Hayden that will serve as an interim librarian. He said in a note this week that, although the White House had appointed its own interim librarian, “we have not yet received the direction of Congress on how to advance,” indicates that the library was challenging Trump’s wishes.
The Senator of California, Alex Padilla, the main Democrat in the Senate Rules Committee, said this week that Newlen is the interim library of Congress. When asked if Blanche was respecting that, Padilla said: “That is my understanding.”
But a White House official emphasized Thursday that Trump selected Blanche to be the interim librarian. The official granted anonymity due to the ongoing private discussions with the legislators, said Trump chose Blanche because the president is “designating highly qualified people who are of all my heart committed to advancing in the United States agenda first.” The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comments.
Some suspect that the copyright office is the true objective of the administration. Located in the Library of Congress with a leader chosen by the librarian, the office accepts millions of copies of copyright, such as books, works of art and music every year as part of the copyright registration process.
Shortly before Office director, Shira Perlmutter, was firedHis office published a report that questioned if it was legal for the technology industry to use copyright to “train” its artificial intelligence systems. Technology companies argue that doing so is legal when used for educational or research purposes or create something new. Perlmutter’s report said doing so, in some circumstances, would go beyond the established limits of use just when the content generated by AI competes with the creative works carried out by people.
The material there is extremely valuable. For example, the violation of the copyright damage to the existing collection of the office, if, for example, the technological companies scrape the material for the purposes of AI and were then found responsible for the violation of copyright, would probably exceed $ 1.5 billion, according to a person familiar with the calculations.
Morelle said the dismissal came “a day later, and I doubt that there is a coincidence for this, a report that is in many ways to disagree with what Elon Musk wants to do around intellectual property and copyright.” Musk is the external billionaire advisor for Trump, who operates his own startup of AI, called XAI. The White House did not respond to a request for comments.
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Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this report.
