Todd Blanche is Trump’s pick to run Justice Department day to day
President Donald Trump elevated defense attorney Todd Blanche to acting U.S. attorney general on Thursday, moving a former federal prosecutor who previously represented Trump in criminal cases into the Justice Department’s No. 2-level leadership role.
Before taking the job to help lead and then run the department, Blanche had been Trump’s lawyer. The Associated Press described Blanche as someone Trump elevated from deputy attorney general to acting U.S. attorney general, placing him in charge of the Justice Department’s day-to-day operations under Attorney General Pam Bondi. In that prior role, the AP said Blanche managed the department’s operations and became one of its most visible defenders and public faces.
Blanche had a career that blended government and private practice before returning to the department. The AP reported that he attended Brooklyn Law School at night while working as a paralegal at the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan and graduated cum laude. The AP said Blanche later served as a law clerk for federal judges Denny Chin and Joseph Bianco, and spent eight years as a federal prosecutor in the same U.S. attorney’s office where he had started.
After a stint as co-chief of the office’s violent crimes unit, the AP reported, Blanche moved into private practice in 2014, joining WilmerHale’s Manhattan office. In September 2017, the AP said he moved to Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, where he became a partner in the firm’s White Collar Defense and Investigations practice.
From DOJ work to Trump defense
Blanche’s time in private practice included legal work that later fed into his relationship with Trump. The AP reported that before defending Trump, Blanche represented Paul Manafort’s former campaign chairman and helped obtain a dismissal in a mortgage fraud case against Manafort in the New York court that later prosecuted Trump. In the AP account, Blanche argued that the case was too similar to a matter that had landed Manafort in federal prison and therefore amounted to double jeopardy.
In 2023, the AP reported that Blanche left Cadwalader, telling colleagues he was resigning to represent Trump. In an email announcing his departure, the AP said Blanche wrote: “I have been asked to represent Trump in the recently charged DA case, and after much thought/consideration, I have decided it is the best thing for me to do and an opportunity I should not pass up.”
Blanche joined Trump’s defense team ahead of the hush-money case arraignment, the AP said. The account said Trump, despite Blanche’s side losing at trial with a conviction on 34 felony counts in that case, remained impressed by Blanche’s tenacity and how he handled witnesses, judges, and TV appearances.
Roles in Trump’s criminal cases and the Justice Department
The AP reported that Trump rewarded Blanche in the new administration’s Justice Department with prominent roles, along with another defense lawyer, Emil Bove. Blanche then became deputy attorney general while working under Bondi and later took on the acting attorney general role.
During Trump’s years in the criminal courts, the AP said Blanche defended Trump in a “slew” of cases beyond the New York hush-money prosecution. Those included cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith: Trump’s 2020 election interference case in Washington and the Florida case accusing the former president of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
In both Smith cases, the AP said Blanche-led strategy focused heavily on delaying proceedings until after the 2024 presidential election. After Trump won that election, the AP said Smith moved to abandon the cases, citing a Justice Department policy that says sitting presidents cannot be indicted or prosecuted while in office.
Ten days before Trump returned to office, the AP reported, Blanche appeared with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. The AP said the appearance happened by video together as a Manhattan judge sentenced the president-elect to no punishment in the hush-money case, and that Blanche addressed the court by arguing that the majority of American voters agreed the case should not have been brought.
Blanche told the judge, the AP said: “The majority of the American people also agree that this case should not have been brought,” citing the election results as a verdict of its own. The AP further reported that Blanche added: “The American voters got a chance to see and decide for themselves whether this was the kind of case that should’ve been brought,” concluding, “And they decided.”