Category: Trump Administration / Department of Justice — Senior Political Appointee (Dual-Hatted) Role: Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Counsel (later Chief of Staff) to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche (January 2025-2026); concurrently Chief of Staff for Policy, Office of the Associate Attorney General; designated by the White House on May 12, 2025 as Acting Deputy Librarian of Congress; subsequently joined Holtzman Vogel PLLC as Partner and Vogel Group LLC as Principal (June 2026-). Priority: P2 — Executive-branch DOJ political appointee whom the White House installed by letter into a legislative-branch office (Deputy Librarian of Congress) whose leadership requires legislative-branch selection; the attempted installation was rebuffed in real time by Library of Congress staff and U.S. Capitol Police and is the subject of ongoing federal litigation in Perlmutter v. Trump (D.D.C. 2025).

Basis for Inclusion

Subject Classification: Public Official — served as senior political appointee in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General; simultaneously purported Acting Deputy Librarian of Congress per White House designation.

Anchor(s) Met: Anchor E — used documented official federal capacity (Deputy Chief of Staff / Chief of Staff to the Deputy Attorney General) to personally attempt, on May 12, 2025, alongside Associate Deputy Attorney General Paul R. Perkins, to take physical possession of the U.S. Copyright Office pursuant to a White House letter installing him as Acting Deputy Librarian of Congress; the attempt was rebuffed by Library of Congress staff and the U.S. Capitol Police.

What Is NOT the Basis for Inclusion: Nieves’s prior career at the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, and his post-DOJ private practice at Holtzman Vogel PLLC / Vogel Group LLC is background context. His participation in the Trump-Vance Transition confirmation team is described only insofar as it explains his path into senior DOJ leadership.

How Speech Is Treated: Nieves’s public statements and social-media presence (including the @BrianNievesDOJ account he maintained while in office) are context, not scored conduct. Scored conduct is limited to official acts: the May 12, 2025 Library of Congress attempt and any subsequent official acts taken under color of the disputed Acting Deputy Librarian designation.

Overview

Brian D. Nieves is a veteran Republican lawyer and senior DOJ political appointee who, in the second Trump administration, served as Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Counsel — and later Chief of Staff — in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General under Todd Blanche. On the morning of Monday, May 12, 2025, Nieves and Associate Deputy Attorney General Paul R. Perkins arrived at the U.S. Copyright Office in Washington carrying a White House letter announcing (a) that Deputy AG Blanche was being installed as Acting Librarian of Congress, (b) that Nieves would serve as Acting Deputy Librarian of Congress, and (c) that Perkins would serve as Acting Register of Copyrights. Library of Congress staff — after calling the Library’s general counsel and the U.S. Capitol Police — refused entry, and the two officials left after a brief hallway discussion. The Library of Congress is a legislative-branch agency; congressional Democrats and legal commentators characterized the attempt as an executive-branch takeover of a legislative-branch entity without statutory authority. Nieves subsequently departed DOJ and, in mid-2026, joined Holtzman Vogel PLLC as Partner and Vogel Group LLC as Principal.

Background

Before joining the second Trump administration, Nieves served as Deputy Chief Counsel for Oversight on the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, advising Members on constitutional, regulatory, and oversight matters and leading complex congressional investigations. During the Trump-Vance Transition, he helped lead Senate confirmation strategy and preparation for multiple senior Department of Justice nominees. Earlier in his career, he held senior roles at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and served as Director of Appointments in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel during the first Trump administration.

At DOJ in 2025, Nieves helped coordinate department-wide policy and enforcement priorities across DOJ components, federal agencies, and the White House, and concurrently served as Chief of Staff for Policy in the Office of the Associate Attorney General. He left DOJ in 2026 and joined Holtzman Vogel PLLC as a Partner; a related listing shows him as Principal at Vogel Group LLC beginning June 2026.

Documented Actions

1. Attempted Executive-Branch Takeover of the Library of Congress / Copyright Office (May 12, 2025)

SourceCNN Politics, “Senior Justice Department officials tapped by Trump to run Library of Congress are denied access,” May 12, 2025; CBS News, “Justice Department’s Todd Blanche appointed acting Librarian of Congress,” May 12, 2025; Roll Call, “Trump taps Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as acting head of Library of Congress,” May 12, 2025; The Guardian, “US deputy attorney general Todd Blanche tipped as librarian of Congress,” May 13, 2025; NPR, “The President has named a new Acting Librarian of Congress. It’s his former defense lawyer,” May 12, 2025; American Library Association LHRT discussion, “Robert Newlen, Acting Librarian of Congress — Standoff at LC.”Evidence: Around 9:00 a.m. on Monday, May 12, 2025, Nieves and Associate Deputy Attorney General Paul R. Perkins arrived at the U.S. Copyright Office in the James Madison Memorial Building bearing a letter announcing that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche was being appointed Acting Librarian of Congress, that Nieves was named Acting Deputy Librarian, and that Perkins was named Acting Register of Copyrights. Library of Congress staff members refused entry. Staff called the Library’s general counsel and, according to multiple contemporaneous reports, the U.S. Capitol Police. After a brief discussion in the hallway outside the Copyright Office, the two men left the building. Library staff continued to recognize Robert Newlen as the acting Librarian. The Library of Congress is a legislative-branch agency; the Librarian of Congress position requires presidential appointment and Senate confirmation, and by statute (2 U.S.C. § 136) the Deputy Librarian is selected by the Librarian, not by the President.

Pattern: Executive-branch attempt to install DOJ political appointees into legislative-branch offices, bypassing the statutory selection process for the Deputy Librarian.

2. Named Party / Interested Party in Perlmutter v. Trump (D.D.C., May 2025-present)

Evidence: Days before the May 12, 2025 events, former Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter was fired by the Trump administration. Perlmutter filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking reinstatement and challenging the White House’s authority to install political appointees — including Nieves as Acting Deputy Librarian and Perkins as Acting Register — into legislative-branch offices. The chain of designations announced in the May 12 letter, of which Nieves’s Acting Deputy Librarian designation is one link, is a direct subject of the litigation. As of July 2026 the case remains active, with reported adverse rulings for Perlmutter at certain stages (“Strike Two for Perlmutter in Bid to Return to Copyright Office,” IPWatchdog, July 31, 2025).

SourcePublishers Weekly, “Fired Copyright Chief Sues in Federal Court to Get Job Back,” 2025; IPWatchdog, “Strike Two for Perlmutter in Bid to Return to Copyright Office,” July 31, 2025.Court record: Perlmutter v. Trump, No. 1:25-cv-XXXX (D.D.C., filed May 22, 2025). Complaint published at levin-center.org.

Pattern: Litigation over the legality of the White House’s May 12, 2025 chain of designations into legislative-branch offices.

3. Operational Coordinator for Deputy Attorney General Blanche’s Portfolio (January 2025-2026)

SourceHoltzman Vogel press release, “Holtzman Vogel Adds Brian D. Nieves, Former DOJ Chief of Staff, as Partner,” 2026; LegiStorm biographical entry for Brian D. Nieves; @BrianNievesDOJ on X (public posts).Evidence: As Deputy Chief of Staff and later Chief of Staff to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Nieves helped coordinate department-wide policy and enforcement priorities across DOJ components, federal agencies, and the White House, and advised senior DOJ leadership on high-profile matters involving national security, complex criminal investigations, congressional oversight, and executive action. He concurrently served as Chief of Staff for Policy in the Office of the Associate Attorney General, coordinating policy, regulatory, and enforcement matters across the DOJ’s civil components. Nieves’s own social-media presence during this period (@BrianNievesDOJ) reflected and amplified DOJ leadership announcements.

Pattern: Central operational role in coordinating the Deputy Attorney General’s portfolio during a period marked by unusually aggressive assertions of executive authority.

Pattern Analysis

Cross-References

Nieves was the DOJ operational counterpart to Perkins in the May 12, 2025 attempt to bring the Library of Congress under executive-branch control — an attempt documented in real time by CNN, CBS News, NPR, Roll Call, and The Guardian, and the subject of ongoing federal litigation. His designation as Acting Deputy Librarian, alongside Perkins’s designation as Acting Register and Blanche’s as Acting Librarian, materially advanced the structural project of using DOJ political appointees to displace legislative-branch leadership.

Related profiles:

• paul-perkins-profile (fellow DOJ appointee who accompanied Nieves to the Copyright Office on May 12, 2025)
• todd-blanche-profile (Nieves’s principal; named Acting Librarian of Congress in the same May 12, 2025 letter)
• pam-bondi-profile (Attorney General during the relevant period)

Severity Assessment

Immediate harm: Moderate — no forced entry; the takeover attempt was administratively rebuffed by Library staff and the U.S. Capitol Police. Democratic erosion: High — executive-branch attempt to install a political appointee into the statutorily protected position of Deputy Librarian of Congress without statutory authority, currently under federal-court challenge. Authoritarian marker: Cross-branch power consolidation; workaround of the statutory framework (2 U.S.C. § 136) placing selection of the Deputy Librarian in the hands of the Librarian, not the President.

Accountability Status

Current status: Former Chief of Staff to the Deputy Attorney General; departed DOJ in 2026 and joined Holtzman Vogel PLLC as Partner and Vogel Group LLC as Principal (June 2026-). Purported May 2025 designation as Acting Deputy Librarian of Congress remains subject to ongoing federal litigation.

Legal exposure:

• Appointments Clause (U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 2) — legality of executive-branch installation into a legislative-branch position.
• Federal Vacancies Reform Act (5 U.S.C. § 3345 et seq.) — applicability to a legislative-branch agency (contested).
• 2 U.S.C. § 136 (Deputy Librarian selection framework) — the statutory framework being circumvented.
• Anti-Deficiency Act — potentially applicable to any unauthorized exercise of legislative-branch authority under the disputed designation.

Congressional oversight:

• House Administration and Senate Rules — direct jurisdiction over the Library of Congress; ranking members Padilla (D-Calif.) and Morelle (D-N.Y.) publicly disputed the president’s authority to make the appointments on the day of the standoff.
• House and Senate Judiciary — DOJ oversight over Nieves’s underlying ODAG role.
• House Oversight and Accountability — executive-branch overreach.

Public accountability:

• Ongoing Perlmutter v. Trump litigation.
• Investigative journalism actively covering the Library of Congress standoff.
• Legal commentators (First Branch Forecast, Patently-O, IPWatchdog) tracking as a separation-of-powers case study.
• Post-government private-sector reporting via LegiStorm and law-firm press releases.

Truth and Reconciliation Considerations

Investigation priorities

1. Obtain the full May 2025 White House directive and any Justice Department implementation documents authorizing Nieves’s dual appointment as Acting Deputy Librarian of Congress.
2. Determine who at the White House, DOJ, or Office of Legal Counsel selected Nieves as the operational agent for the Deputy Librarian designation, and whether any OLC opinion supported the action.
3. Reconstruct any official acts (regulations, personnel actions, filings, communications) that Nieves took, or purported to take, under the color of the Acting Deputy Librarian designation while the Perlmutter litigation is pending.
4. Document Nieves’s coordination role in the broader May 2025 sequence: firing of Librarian Carla Hayden, firing of Register Perlmutter, and the coordinated dispatch to the Copyright Office.
5. Identify any parallel executive-branch attempts to install DOJ political appointees into other legislative-branch entities (GAO, CBO, CRS, Architect of the Capitol) and Nieves’s role, if any, in coordinating them.

Testimony value

Under use immunity (18 U.S.C. § 6002), Nieves could uniquely reveal: (a) internal deliberations within the Office of the Deputy Attorney General preceding the May 12, 2025 attempt; (b) the operational chain of command that produced the White House letter, including who drafted it and who approved it; (c) legal-opinion authors and internal dissent within DOJ Office of Legal Counsel; (d) coordination with the White House Counsel’s Office and the Office of Presidential Personnel on the Library of Congress designations; (e) any parallel plans targeting other legislative-branch offices; and (f) as Blanche’s chief of staff, the internal decision-making around other high-profile ODAG matters during his tenure.

Institutional reform

• Statutory clarification that the Federal Vacancies Reform Act does not apply to legislative-branch positions.
• Codified prohibition on dual-hatting DOJ political appointees into legislative-branch offices.
• Reaffirmation and clarification of 2 U.S.C. § 136, making clear that the Deputy Librarian of Congress is selected by the Librarian.
• Enhanced legislative-branch protective authority for the U.S. Capitol Police in cross-branch access disputes.
• Post-employment restrictions preventing senior DOJ political appointees who participated in disputed cross-branch actions from immediately entering politically active law-firm or lobbying practices.

Cross-References

Skills: malice-evaluator, patriot-editorial-framework, democratic-health-monitoring, separation-of-powers-legal-expert

Related profiles: paul-perkins-profile, todd-blanche-profile, pam-bondi-profile

Topics: Library of Congress, Copyright Office, Perlmutter litigation, separation of powers, dual-hatted appointment, executive overreach, Deputy Attorney General chief of staff

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Sources

1. CNN Politics, “Senior Justice Department officials tapped by Trump to run Library of Congress are denied access,” May 12, 2025. https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/12/politics/library-of-congress-trump-justice-blanche
2. CBS News, “Justice Department’s Todd Blanche appointed acting Librarian of Congress,” May 12, 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/todd-blanche-trump-attorney-librarian-of-congress
3. Roll Call, “Trump taps Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as acting head of Library of Congress,” May 12, 2025. https://rollcall.com/2025/05/12/trump-doj-todd-blanche-acting-library-of-congress
4. The Guardian, “US deputy attorney general Todd Blanche tipped as librarian of Congress,” May 13, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/13/us-deputy-attorney-general-todd-blanche-tipped-as-librarian-of-congress
5. NPR, “The President has named a new Acting Librarian of Congress. It’s his former defense lawyer,” May 12, 2025. https://www.npr.org/2025/05/12/nx-s1-5395879/trump-todd-blanche-librarian-congress
6. CNBC / AP, “Deputy attorney general who defended Trump in hush money trial named acting librarian of Congress,” May 12, 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/12/deputy-attorney-general-todd-blanche-named-acting-librarian-of-congress.html
7. American Library Association — Library History Round Table discussion, “Robert Newlen, Acting Librarian of Congress — Standoff at LC.” https://connect.ala.org/lhrt/discussion/robert-newlen-acting-librarian-of-congress-standoff-at-lc-1
8. First Branch Forecast, “A Constitutional Confrontation at the Library of Congress.” https://firstbranchforecast.substack.com/p/a-constitutional-confrontation-at
9. Publishers Weekly, “Fired Copyright Chief Sues in Federal Court to Get Job Back,” 2025. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/97839-fired-copyright-chief-sues-in-federal-court-to-get-job-back.html
10. IPWatchdog, “Strike Two for Perlmutter in Bid to Return to Copyright Office,” July 31, 2025. https://ipwatchdog.com/2025/07/31/strike-two-perlmutter-bid-return-copyright-office/
11. Perlmutter v. Trump Complaint (D.D.C. filed May 22, 2025). https://levin-center.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/2025-05-22-Perlmutter-Complaint.pdf
12. Holtzman Vogel PLLC press release, “Holtzman Vogel Adds Brian D. Nieves, Former DOJ Chief of Staff, as Partner.” https://www.holtzmanvogel.com/news-insights/holtzman-vogel-adds-brian-d-nieves-former-doj-chief-of-staff-as-partner
13. LegiStorm, biographical entry for Brian D. Nieves (Vogel Group LLC, Principal, June 2026-). https://www.legistorm.com/person/bio/441256/Brian_D_Nieves.html
14. @BrianNievesDOJ on X (public posts, official DOJ tenure). https://x.com/BrianNievesDOJ

Last Updated: 2026-07-15 Profile Status: Published — under continuing review Next Review: Quarterly