Congressional Librarians Tell Trump 'Appointees' To Wrong Branch Of Government To Get F*cked
And welcome to your new master librarian, Trump's personal criminal defense attorney, and this horse.
How shallow is the administration’s pond of loyalists? Trump is now trying to appoint his former personal lawyer, the current number two at the attorney general’s office, screamy/crying little shit Todd Blanche, as Librarian of Congress!
But the current person holding the post of librarian, Robert Randolph Newlen, does not recognize the appointment as legitimate, and is waiting for Congress to tell him what to do. Library staff won’t let the new guys in the door, and even Republicans are concerned. Said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, congressional leaders “want to make sure we’re following precedent and procedure.”
Because this is neither, and a direct FU to Congress’s authority.
The Librarian of Congress is not supposed to be impulse-fired, and the position has to be confirmed by the Senate, because the Library is part of Congress, not the Executive branch. It says so right there in the name!
Blanche, of course, is that cup of lukewarm coffee from the Jiffy Lube who repped Trump in four of the cases against him, and even though they didn’t technically win any of the cases, and his client is a 34-time-convicted felon now, all his work crafting legal filings of Trump campaign talking points and glowering and hollering at Trump enemies did eventually lead to the Supreme Court declaring Trump was legally allowed to send Seal Team Six to shoot Joe Biden on Fifth Avenue.
The current Librarian Carla Hayden’s 10 year term was not over. Nevertheless, last Thursday Trump told her she was YER FIRED in a two-sentence email, leaving her number-two, Newlen, in charge. And then on Saturday, Trump fired Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter, coincidentally right after Perlmutter’s office opined in a report that it would be illegal to let Elon Musk and friends plunder copyrighted materials and use them to train their AI-bots:
The Copyright Act grants copyright owners a set of exclusive rights: to reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, and publicly display their works, as well as the right to prepare derivative works. Establishing a prima facie case of infringement requires two elements: “(1) ownership of a valid copyright, and (2) copying of constituent elements of the work that are original.” Creating and deploying a generative AI system using copyright-protected material involves multiple acts that, absent a license or other defense, may infringe one or more rights.
Indeed, if you legally can’t Xerox more than 10 percent of a book under fair use, how could it possibly be legal to copy 100 percent of one, for the entire purpose of making a derivative work that you’re going to profit off of?
And, notably, the Library of Congress doesn’t just hold the world’s largest collection of books, plus periodicals, recordings, documents, and 2,000 musical instruments. At least as important to Trump’s fascist takeover is how it provides free and confidential legal research and advice to members of Congress.
More than somebody who knows how to library or copyright, Trump needs somebody to tell any congresspeople seeking legal advice that oh yeah, whatever it is Trump is trying to do is totally legal, totally cool. And somebody who will rat out any congresspeople who might be asking too many of the wrong legal questions, and snitch to the Executive what they’ve been talking about! Who could be better for that than loyalist frowning fartsack Todd Blanche?
America’s pissiest person, Karoline Leavitt, naturally claimed Hayden’s firing was not for no reason, it was because she was doing illegal DEI, and giving porn books to children:
The library does not lend materials, and one must be at least 16 to do research there, low-energy lie, sad.
But of course taking over the library, and all the historic record and all the cultural institutions is the very pulp of fascism. Time to Fahrenheit 451 anything that might not please Martha-Ann Alito’s sensibilities, and give Trump a copy of the Declaration of Independence to hang in his Mar-a-Lago shitter. Maybe Trump spiritual adviser Paula White would like their copy of the Gutenberg Bible to pound on.
And so now there is a standoff!
On Monday, Paul Perkins, an associate deputy attorney general, and Brian Nieves, a deputy chief of staff and senior policy counsel, showed up at the Copyright Office with a letter proclaiming them as acting register of copyrights/director of the Copyright Office and acting deputy librarian, respectively. Library staff was like fuck no and called the Capitol Police on them, and the Library’s General Counsel Meg Williams told the two interlopers they were not allowed. And so they left on their own.
Still, you know those fuckers will be back. Politico’s Jordain Carney reported on X that the temporary appointees are expected to meet with Senate Rules Committee today.
And inquiring Democratic minds would also like to know, has the Executive been sniffing around and getting any of that confidential information about Congress that the Library has?
Rep. Joe Morelle, the top Democrat on the Committee on House Administration, has sent a request to Library of Congress Inspector General Kimberly Benoit, wondering if dirty business has already gone on:
… seeking an investigation and continued monitoring of potential improper communications between the Library of Congress—a legislative branch agency—and the executive branch, including the possibility of the unauthorized transfer of congressional or Library data to executive branch agencies and personnel. [...] The executive has no authority to demand or receive confidential legislative branch data, and the Library has no legal basis to supply such information without authorization from Congress.
Yes, that WOULD be interesting to know. Put nothing past ‘em!
Welp, may your every effort to burn the place down get thwarted, Toddy Two-Jobs! Keep your greasy fingers out of the stacks!
[Rolling Stone / Daily Beast / NYT]
I’m a librarian. I am fairly chill, but if you fuck with my patrons or fuck with my collection, I will nice-white-lady you into the ether. You want to do what? You’re going to have to follow proper protocols and procedures, and until they’re followed to the T and documented, nothing will change. Libraries and archives are not the place to “move fast and break things” when it comes to information access and preservation.
On the early shift here today, I noted that Musk was tagging along on Trump's trip to Saudi Arabia.
You will absolutely not in a million years guess what just dropped!
𝐄𝐥𝐨𝐧 𝐌𝐮𝐬𝐤 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐒𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐢 𝐀𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐚 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐝𝐨𝐦.