The fight against the Library of the Donald Trump Congress really concerns the separation of powers
Washington – These are not really books.
The brutal dismissal by President Donald Trump of senior officials of the Congress Library and an equally sudden attempt to appoint a list of loyalists while the replacements have rather transformed into a huge fight against the separation of powers, while the White House is trying to stop control of what has been a legislative institution for centuries.
It is a power struggle with potentially large consequences. The Congress Library stores not only the largest collection of books in the world, but also an office supervising the trains of material protected by copyright of unworthy value.
There is a research institute that has long been protected against external influence. Its servers are home to extremely sensitive information concerning the allegations of violations of the workplace on Capitol Hill, as well as payments and other financial data for more than 30,000 employees in the legislative branch. There are even speculations that the whole case is linked to a continuous debate on the question of whether large technological companies can use copyright protected equipment for artificial intelligence systems.
For this reason, the battle on the control of the Congress Library prompted Republican leaders to Capitol Hill to offer a rare decline against a president who prompted to extend the limits of his own power to adopt his priorities. The head of the majority of the Senate John Thune and other Republicans spoke with the White House of a potential path to Dettete.
All of this left the library in a bizarre state of Purgatory.
For the moment, Trump’s choices for interim library chiefs – notably Todd Blanche, a general assistant who had represented the president in his criminal procedure – did not seem to contest the assertion of the library that one of his veteran officials would be the actor. According to experts,
“This blatant scale of the Legislative Assembly by the Executive Power is simply unjustified and, we think, unprecedented,” said New York representative Joe Morelle, the best democrat of the Chamber’s Administration Committee, who oversees the Congress Library.
The controversy began to take place publicly last week, when the Carla Hayden Congress librarian was dismissed in a laconic email from a White House official. He only left for him at 10 years.
Then this week, Blanche was operated by the White House to be the interim librarian, and two other officials from the Ministry of Justice were chosen for other senior library stations. These officials, Brian Nieves and Paul Perkins, tried without success to participate in the US copyright office on Monday, but left voluntarily after the library officials called the Capitol police.
Thune told the Associated Press that the congress was “not entirely” consulted before the rejection by Trump of Hayden.
Legislators want to ensure that “Congress’s legislative actions are protected,” said Thune. He hypothesized that discussions with the White House to resolve the Shadow Bleeding next week.
The White House said Trump was in his power to reject Hayden, a former Baltimore library system chief. He cited Hayden’s “fairly worrying” behavior involving efforts of diversity, equity and inclusion as well as books for children that the White House found inappropriate.
A copy of almost all books published in the United States is sent to the Copyright Office, then the library decides to include it in the main collection. No one is under the age of 16 can get a reader card to access the collection.
Existing regulations and past practices provide for an acting librarian from the current ranks of the Congress Library if there is a vacancy. But the White House argued that a law governing federal vacancies applies, even if the 1998 law deals with the executive power, according to two familiar people with the discussions.
According to one of the people.
The Oklahoma senator, Markwayne Mullin, who directs the panel supervising the financing of the Congress Library, argued that in practice, the librarian is not an employee of the legislative branch, saying: “It is a appointment by the President of the United States, because we must confirm it.”
However, there is a profound concern among legislators and aid concerning any unjustified intrusion of the administration to the Congress Library and its operations.
The fact of mixing potential of interference with the Congressional Research Service, known as the non -partisan reflection group of Capitol Hill. Each year, it sets around 75,000 requests to members of the Congress for Research, Legal Expertise and other essential information for the development of policies.
The discussions between the legislators and the Congressional Research Service are considered to be so sensitive that they are protected by the discourse clause or the debate of the Constitution, which protects the members of the Congress to be questioned – as in justice – about official legislative acts.
The “public services and reliability of the service would be considerably undermined if these investigations were not protected or if the administration sought to shape the responses to reflect its priorities,” said Hope O’Keeffe, former associate lawyer of the Congress Library.
The library also oversees the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights, which operates as the human resources office of the legislative management, presenting complaints concerning harassment, discrimination and other violations of the workplace. It also stores financial information on employees of the legislative branches, which include not only that of the Congress Library, the legislators and their aid, but employees of the Capitol police, the Capitol and the Government of the Government Government.
Robert Newlen, the main assistant librarian, told Library staff shortly after Hayden’s dismissal that he would serve as an interim librarian. He said in a note this week that even if the White House had appointed its own interim librarian, “we have not yet received from Congress management on how to move forward”, indicating that the library would challenge Trump’s wishes.
California senator Alex Padilla, the best democrat of the Senate rules committee, said this week that Newlen is the acting librarian in the Congress. When asked if Blanche respects this, Padilla said: “It’s my understanding.”
But an official of the White House pointed out on Thursday that Trump chose Blanche to be the interim librarian. The official, has granted anonymity due to private discussions underway with the legislators, said that Trump had chosen Blanche because the president “appoints very qualified people who are wholeheartedly committed to advancing America’s agenda”. The Ministry of Justice did not respond to a request for comments.
Some suspect that copyright office is the real objective of the administration. Installed at the Congress Library with a leader chosen by the librarian, the office accepts millions of copies of copyright protected equipment such as books, works of art and music each year as part of the copyright recording process.
Shortly before the director of the office, Shira Perlmutter, was dismissed, his office published a report that wondered if it was legal for the technology industry to use material protected by copyright to “train” their artificial intelligence systems. Technological companies argue that this is legal when used for educational or research purposes or creating something new. Perlmutter’s report indicates that this, in certain circumstances, would go beyond the established limits of fair use when the content generated by AI is in competition with creative works made by people.
The material is extremely precious. For example, the violation of damage caused by copyright for the existing office of the office – if, for example, technological companies have scratched the equipment for AI purposes and later, was judged responsible for copyright – would probably exceed 1.5 billion of dollars, according to a person familiar with calculations.
Morelle noted that the dismissal came “a day after, and I doubt that there is a coincidence on this subject, a relationship which is in many ways in contradiction with what Elon Musk wants to do around intellectual property and copyright”. Musk is the billionaire of external advisor for Trump who operates his own startup in AI, called XAI. The White House did not respond to a request for comments.
___
The writer Associated Press Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this report.
