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The Department of Justice's second-in-command tin adhd "librarian" to his résumé. Todd Blanche has been appointed acting Librarian of Congress, the Justice Department confirmed Monday.
Blanche is President Trump's erstwhile idiosyncratic transgression attorney. It is unclear if the vocation lawyer has antecedently done enactment involving the Dewey Decimal System (or the Library of Congress Classification system).
Two different Justice Department officials person besides added Library of Congress positions to their portfolios.
Associate Deputy Attorney General Paul Perkins has been assigned acting registry of copyrights, and Blanche's lawman main of unit Brian Nieves was appointed acting lawman librarian of Congress.
The 3 lawyers present pb the largest room successful the world, lodging millions of books, films, audio recordings, photographs, manuscripts and different documents. The room serves arsenic Congress's superior main probe arm, and the nation's copyright office.
Perkins is replacing Shira Perlmutter, who took implicit arsenic registry of copyrights successful October 2020, during the archetypal Trump administration. Last week, Perlmutter and her bureau issued a lengthy study expressing concerns astir the usage of copyrighted worldly by artificial quality programs.
Blanche served arsenic pb lawyer during Mr. Trump's 2024 New York transgression trial, successful which a unanimous assemblage recovered Mr. Trump blameworthy of 34 felony charges of falsifying concern records. Mr. Trump has denied the allegations and appealed his conviction.
Blanche's assignment comes aft the firing May 8 of Carla Hayden, who had been librarian of Congress since 2016. She was the archetypal pistillate and archetypal Black idiosyncratic to clasp the position.
Hayden told CBS News successful a 2020 interview that the occupation held large meaning to her.
"Personally, being a idiosyncratic of color, it means truthful overmuch due to the fact that radical who look similar maine were forbidden by instrumentality to larn to read," Hayden told CBS News successful an interrogation successful 2020. "That means truthful overmuch that present is simply a idiosyncratic of colour starring the world's largest library."
The room is an bureau of the legislative branch, and Democrats person argued Mr. Trump does not person the authorization to occurrence its apical official.
New York Rep. Joe Morelle, the apical Democrat connected the Committee connected House Administration, has requested an inspector wide reappraisal Hayden's firing.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for the "position of Librarian of Congress" to beryllium "appointed by a legislature commission" and "not by presidents that dainty national appointments similar world TV prizes."
Weijia Jiang is the elder White House analogous for CBS News based successful Washington, D.C. Jiang has covered the White House bushed since 2018including the transitions betwixt statesmanlike administrations. In 2023, Jiang won an Emmy Award for her contributions to "CBS Mornings."
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