President Donald Trump unexpectedly fired Library of Congress head Carla Hayden on Thursday in a move that sent Democrats into a frenzy.
Hayden, the first woman and black individual to serve as Librarian of Congress, received an email late Thursday from the White House’s Presidential Personnel Office stating her termination, as reported by the Associated Press.
“Carla,” the message started. “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to notify you that your position as the Librarian of Congress is terminated immediately. We thank you for your service.”
At 72, Hayden was nominated by former President Barack Obama and approved by the Senate in 2016 to lead the country’s oldest federal cultural institution.
Her 10-year term was going to expire next year, that is, until her abrupt firing late Thursday night.
A spokesperson for the Library of Congress confirmed that the White House told Hayden, who had been in charge of Baltimore’s library system for decades before becoming the Librarian of Congress, that she was fired.
The sudden firing comes after accusations from conservative groups that Hayden promoted children’s books with “radical” leftist agendas.
“The current #LibrarianOfCongress Carla Hayden is woke, anti-Trump, and promotes trans-ing kids,” the American Accountability Foundation tweeted earlier Thursday, just hours before the firing was made public. “It’s time to get her OUT and hire a new guy for the job!”
Democrats were outraged by the move. They credited Hayden for helping to modernize the Library and make it more accessible through initiatives in rural communities and online.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) applauded Hayden as “an accomplished, principled and distinguished Librarian of Congress.”
“Donald Trump’s 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,” he said.
“The Library of Congress is the People’s Library. There will be accountability for this unprecedented assault on the American way of life sooner rather than later,” he added.
Rep. Joseph Morelle of New York, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee that oversees the Library, called Hayden “an American hero.”
The Library of Congress contains a vast collection of the nation’s books and history available to the public and lawmakers. It houses the papers of nearly two dozen presidents and more than three dozen Supreme Court justices.
