The US Justice Department will be assisted by Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, President Donald Trump announced Thursday, after removing Attorney General Pam Bondi from the post.
Blanche represented Trump in his criminal trial in New York ahead of Trump’s re-election as President of the United States in 2024. Trump appointed him Deputy Attorney General after taking office again.
As deputy attorney general, Blanche ordered the disbandment of the DOJ’s National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, which was formed in 2022 under former President Joe Biden, and signed a four-page memo ordering prosecutors not to pursue cases of wrongdoing in the crypto industry.
The document was referenced in the Southern District of New York office’s case against Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm, which ultimately led to the office dropping charges against Storm (Storm was later convicted on a second charge, and faces a retrial on two more later this year).
According to Blanche’s latest disclosure to ethics authorities, dated July 10, 2025, Blanche transferred her holdings of crypto assets to her children and a grandson, including Bitcoin Solana (SOL), and Ethereum (ETH). His disclosure form also noted that he had held Polygon (MATIC), and Quant (QNT), as well as Coinbase (COIN) storage.
According to ProPublica, he still had those cryptos — somewhere between $159,000 and $485,000 in total — when he signed the enforcement memo, which violated ethics rules and his promise to divest before working on crypto-related matters.
