President Trump has fired longtime Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, a congressional source confirmed to CBS News.
Hayden was fired in an email Thursday from Trent Morse, deputy director of presidential personnel.
“On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as the Librarian of Congress is terminated effective immediately,” read the email, which was obtained by CBS News. “Thank you for your service.”
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CBS News has reached out to the White House for comment. A Library of Congress official also confirmed Hayden’s firing to CBS News.
“The White House informed Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden that she has been relieved of her position,” the official said.
The move was blasted by Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who called the “unjust decision to fire Dr. Hayden in an email sent by a random political hack is a disgrace and the latest in his ongoing effort to ban books, whitewash American history and turn back the clock.”
Hayden has been the librarian of Congress since 2016. She was first woman and African American to hold the position.
“Personally, being a person of color, it means so much because people who look like me were forbidden by law to learn to read,” Hayden told CBS News in an interview in 2020. “That means so much that here is a person of color leading the world’s largest library.”
Prior to taking the post, she was CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Maryland, from 1993 until 2016.
In his own statement criticizing the move, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for the “position of Librarian of Congress” to be “appointed by a Congressional commission” and “not by presidents that treat federal appointments like reality TV prizes.”
Democratic Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, the ranking member on the Committee on House Administration, called the firing an “ignorant decision” that “will impact America’s libraries, our copyrighted economic interests, and service to the American people by threatening support for Congress. His decision is a complete disgrace.”
Weijia Jiang
contributed to this report.
