Deputy attorney general who defended Trump in hush money trial named acting librarian of Congress

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who represented President Donald Trump during his 2024 criminal trial, has been appointed acting librarian of Congress, the Justice Department said Monday. Blanche replaces Carla Hayden, the longtime librarian whom the White House fired last week amid criticism from some conservatives that she was advancing a “woke” agenda.

Brian Nieves, a deputy chief of staff and senior counsel in Blanche’s office, was named acting assistant librarian, according to four people familiar with Blanche’s appointment. Paul Perkins, an associate deputy attorney general and veteran Justice Department attorney, is now the acting register of copyrights and director of the Copyright Office, the four people said. He replaces Shira Perlmutter, whom the Trump administration pushed out last weekend.

The four people were not authorized to speak publicly about the acting appointments and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Since returning to office in January, Trump has purged officials he regards as opposed to him and to his agenda. Hayden, nominated by President Barack Obama in 2015 and confirmed on a 74-18 Senate vote the following year, named Perlmutter as head of the Copyright Office in 2020.

The Copyright Office is overseen by the Library of Congress, which holds a vast archive of books and historical documents. Perlmutter’s office recently released a report examining whether artificial intelligence companies can use copyrighted materials to “train” their AI systems and then compete in the same market as the human-made works they were trained on.

The AP obtained an internal memo sent by Robert Randolph Newlen, who had been serving as acting librarian, saying that Congress was “engaged” with the White House about Blanche’s appointment and that the Library had not yet “received direction from Congress about how to move forward.”

Blanche was named the No. 2 Justice Department official after serving as Trump’s criminal defense attorney in two cases brought by the DOJ during the Biden administration. He is a former federal prosecutor who was a key figure on Trump’s defense team in his New York hush money trial, which ended in a conviction on 34 felony counts.

Hayden’s dismissal was widely condemned by Democrats and by many who worked with Hayden, the first Black person and the first woman to be named librarian of Congress. Ada Limon, who served three years as U.S. poet laureate after Hayden chose her in 2022, said last week that “Dr. Carla Hayden is the kindest, brightest, most generous Librarian of Congress we could have hoped for as a nation.”