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Deputy AG Todd Blanche shut down DOJ crypto enforcement while holding up to $485,000 in personal crypto investments

On April 7, 2025, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a DOJ memo, "Ending Regulation by Prosecution," scaling back Biden-era cryptocurrency enforcement and disbanding the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team. A ProPublica investigation found Blanche personally held between $159,000 and $485,000 in crypto-related assets at the time, despite pledging in February 2025 to divest "as soon as practicable"; he did not begin selling or transferring the holdings until nearly two months after the memo, in late May and early June 2025.

Jurisdiction
Federal
Location
Washington, D.C.

Abuses documented

Actors

On April 7, 2025, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a DOJ-wide memorandum, "Ending Regulation by Prosecution," directing prosecutors to stop charging most regulatory violations in digital-asset cases and disbanding the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, which had been created in 2022 to pursue crypto-related crime. A ProPublica investigation later found that at the time Blanche issued the memo, he personally held cryptocurrency and crypto-linked stock worth between roughly $159,000 and $485,000 by ProPublica's accounting, mostly in Bitcoin, along with Solana, Ethereum, and Coinbase stock.

Blanche had disclosed those holdings in a January 18, 2025 financial-disclosure filing and, on February 10, 2025, agreed in writing to divest them "as soon as practicable" after his March 5, 2025 confirmation as Deputy Attorney General. He did not begin doing so until May 31–June 3, 2025 — nearly two months after issuing the enforcement memo — when he transferred crypto holdings to his adult children and a grandchild and sold the remainder. A DOJ spokesperson later said the matter had been "appropriately flagged, addressed, and cleared in advance," without detailing how or by whom.

Updates

2026-01-22 — Campaign Legal Center filed DOJ Inspector General complaint over Blanche's crypto conflict [4]

The Campaign Legal Center asked the DOJ Office of the Inspector General to investigate whether Blanche's issuance of the crypto-enforcement memo while holding digital assets violated the federal conflict-of-interest statute, 18 U.S.C. § 208.

2026-01-28 — Six U.S. senators demanded Blanche answer for the conflict [5]

Sens. Mazie Hirono, Elizabeth Warren, Dick Durbin, Sheldon Whitehouse, Christopher Coons, and Richard Blumenthal sent Blanche a letter citing the ProPublica reporting, stating his conduct "may be a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 208(a)" and that "at the very least" he had "a glaring conflict of interest and should have recused" himself; they demanded records and answers by February 11, 2026.

Why we recorded this

Federal conflict-of-interest law bars officials from acting on matters in which they hold a personal financial stake, precisely so that policy decisions reflect the public interest rather than an officeholder's portfolio. This entry records the Deputy Attorney General directing a major shift in federal cryptocurrency enforcement while personally holding substantial crypto assets he had pledged, and failed for months, to divest. Steering DOJ policy toward an industry in which the decision-maker held an undisclosed personal stake is what the archive's categories of undisclosed financial conflicts and self-dealing are designed to capture.

Sources

  1. DAG Todd Blanche Memorandum: Ending Regulation By Prosecution — U.S. Department of Justice primary accessed July 9, 2026
  2. Top DOJ Official Shut Down Enforcement Against Crypto Companies While Holding More Than $150,000 in Crypto Investments — ProPublica investigative accessed July 9, 2026
  3. Todd Blanche nixed enforcement against crypto firms while holding over $150K in crypto investments — Salon secondary accessed July 9, 2026
  4. CLC Complaint to DOJ Inspector General Regarding Deputy AG Todd Blanche — Campaign Legal Center primary accessed July 9, 2026
  5. Letter from Senators Hirono, Warren, Durbin, Whitehouse, Coons, and Blumenthal to Deputy AG Todd Blanche — Office of Sen. Mazie Hirono primary accessed July 9, 2026

See also