Campaign Legal Center (CLC) is calling for an investigation into yet another blatant example of the Trump administration’s conflicts of interest with cryptocurrency.
In a complaint to the Office of Inspectors General at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), CLC is demanding an investigation into whether Todd Blanche, deputy attorney general and President Donald Trump’s former criminal defense attorney, violated conflict of interest laws by dropping investigations into crypto companies while holding potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in crypto-related assets.
Blanche’s Crypto Assets and Crypto Policy Changes
When a government official has personal financial stakes — like stocks or similar investments — that could lead to biased decision making, there is a conflict of interest.
Ethics laws are designed to help prevent conflicts of interest from influencing the work of public officials. United States Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche promised to abide by these laws by selling his crypto-related assets no later than 90 days after his confirmation to the DOJ; these assets included cryptocurrency holdings up to $485,000.
However, according to media reports and publicly available financial records, before he divested from his cryptocurrency assets, Blanche oversaw dramatic changes to the DOJ’s policies on prosecutions of crypto companies.
Under his direction, the DOJ ended investigations into crypto companies launched during the Biden administration and announced it would no longer pursue certain legal actions against cryptocurrency platforms. Moreover, Blanche’s orders disbanded the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, a task force designed to enforce laws against the digital asset industry.
The prosecutorial changes at the DOJ are widely perceived to have benefited the digital asset industry — an industry in which Blanche was still financially invested when he made these decisions. If Blanche made regulatory decisions that could impact his personal finances, the law must be enforced, and he must be held accountable.
Blanche must be held accountable for violating his ethics agreement, which required him to recuse himself from matters affecting his financial interest in the event he did not immediately divest his conflicting assets. He certified under penalty of law that he complied with those interim recusal requirements, even though his participation in these crypto prosecution decisions suggests he did not comply.
That’s why Campaign Legal Center also sent a letter to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE) and the Designated Agency Ethics Official (DAEO) for the U.S. Department of Justice. The letter asks the agencies to review the initial complaint and determine whether Blanche broke his ethics agreement.
Government by the People, for the People
This is just one example of a concerning trend: The Trump administration has ushered in a culture of self-dealing across the executive branch, where senior government officials can leverage influence, relationships or even digital currency to make the government work for them.
In the first year of Trump’s second administration, CLC has called for accountability for multiple public officials who appear to have violated conflict of interest laws. CLC also works to expose corruption and transactional dealmaking in the executive branch through our corruption tracker, which catalogues instances of apparent pay-to-play transactions between President Trump and his allies.
CLC’s work to highlight alleged violations of our ethics laws that threaten to further undermine public trust and to push for reform continues. Join us today to support the fight for a government that works for the people, not politicians.