Todd Blanche — the architect of a controversial DOJ crypto enforcement memo — has been named interim U.S. Attorney General, President Donald Trump announced Thursday after removing Pam Bondi.
Blanche, who represented Trump in his New York criminal case before Trump’s 2024 reelection, was tapped as deputy attorney general after Trump retook office. In that role, Blanche ordered the disbanding of the Department of Justice’s National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, a unit created in 2022 under the Biden administration, and authored a four-page memo instructing prosecutors to refrain from pursuing certain regulatory-violation cases in the crypto sector.
That memo has already had real-world effects: the Southern District of New York cited it in the prosecution of Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm, a reference that contributed to the office dropping one charge against Storm. (Storm was later convicted on a separate count and faces retrials on two other charges later this year.)
Blanche’s government ethics disclosure, filed July 10, 2025, says he transferred crypto assets to his children and a grandchild — including holdings in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and Cardano — and that he had previously owned Polygon (MATIC), Polkadot (DOT), Quant (QNT) and Coinbase stock. Reporting from ProPublica says Blanche still held between roughly $159,000 and $485,000 in crypto when he signed the enforcement memo, a detail ProPublica says ran afoul of ethics rules and his pledge to divest before handling crypto-related matters.
Blanche’s elevation to interim AG crystallizes a notable shift in DOJ leadership and policy toward digital assets — and renews scrutiny over potential conflicts between officials’ personal crypto holdings and their authority to shape enforcement.
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