Via email, Trump fires head of world's largest library: The Library of Congress
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Several senior National Security Council officials fired
The firings of the NSC officials comes after President Trump met with far-right activist Laura Loomer.
President Donald Trump fired the Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, via email, a move that immediately drew sharp condemnation from her supporters.
"President Trump's ignorant decision will impact America's libraries, our copyrighted economic interests, and service to the American people by threatening support for Congress," Rep. Joe Morelle, a New York Democrat, posted to social media shortly after Hayden's firing became public late May 8. "His decision is a complete disgrace."
Added Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat: "Donald Trump just fired my dear friend Dr. Carla Hayden — the Librarian of Congress — via email. This is disgraceful. The Library of Congress represents some of the best America has to offer. Equal access to learning for all."
Hayden was nominated to her position by then-President Barack Obama in 2016, and confirmed by the Senate a year later. She was the first woman and first Black American to lead the nation's official library, which as the world's largest library records and preserves millions of books, films, photos and manuscripts. It's also home to the U.S. Copyright Office.
Hayden appeared before a Congressional committee earlier in the week, facing questions from a library modernization project whose cost has ballooned while completion deadlines have been repeatedly delayed.
Hayden is a professional librarian who first met Obama when she worked at the Chicago Public Library. She had been leading the "Of the People" initiative to bring more works from Black, indigenous, Hispanic or Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander and other communities of color into the library's collections.
Trump has repeatedly targeted programs and people who he considers improperly advancing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. The White House did not immediately offer a statement or comment on Hayden's firing.
Critics of Trump's decision lambasted both the firing itself and the way it was carried out: via an email sent to Hayden at 6:56 p.m. Eastern time.
'While President Trump wants to ban books and tell Americans what to read – or not to read at all, Dr. Hayden has devoted her career to making reading and the pursuit of knowledge available to everyone," New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich, a Democrat, said in a statement.
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