Todd Blanche

Quick facts

Key positions

Biography

Todd Blanche was born August 6, 1974, in Denver, Colorado; his family relocated to Gainesville, Florida, in 1987. He earned a B.A. from American University in 1994 and a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School in 2003. He served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York’s violent-crimes division (2003–2017) before moving into private practice as a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft in 2017, where he built a white-collar criminal-defense practice.

The defining inflection in Blanche’s career came in April 2023, when he left Cadwalader to found his own firm, Blanche Law, after his firm declined to represent Donald Trump in the New York hush-money case (Bloomberg Law; Newsweek, April 2023). The new firm was effectively built around the Trump representation. Blanche went on to serve as lead criminal-defense counsel to Trump in the Manhattan hush-money case (a 34-count guilty verdict on May 30, 2024) and as co-counsel in the Mar-a-Lago classified-documents case (dismissed July 15, 2024) and the federal January 6 / election-obstruction case (dismissed November 25, 2024). At Cadwalader he had also represented Trump-orbit figures including former campaign manager Paul Manafort, Giuliani-network businessman Igor Fruman, and attorney Boris Epshteyn.

On January 20, 2025 — the day Trump took office — Blanche was sworn in as Deputy Attorney General. On April 2, 2026, the same day Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi over the handling of the Epstein files, Blanche became Acting Attorney General under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (CBS News). On June 4, 2026, Trump formally nominated him for permanent Attorney General; the nomination drew documented Republican resistance, with Senate Majority Leader John Thune saying it was “Hard to say” whether Blanche could win confirmation, and no hearing had been scheduled as of June 9, 2026. The professional pivot of one criminal-defense lawyer to one client became, within three years, the leadership of the second-term Department of Justice.

As Acting Attorney General, Blanche disclosed cryptocurrency holdings valued at $159,000–$485,000 (ProPublica, March 8, 2026), reported during the same period in which, as Deputy AG, he had ordered an end to inherited crypto-company investigations and disbanded the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team — an unresolved potential conflict flagged in that reporting.

Sources

• Wake Up Call: Blanche Leaves Cadwalader to Represent Trump — Bloomberg Law, April 2023
• Who Is Todd Blanche? Trump’s Newest Attorney — Newsweek, April 2023
• What to know about Todd Blanche, Trump’s pick for acting attorney general — PBS NewsHour, April 2026
• Trump fires Pam Bondi as attorney general, installs Todd Blanche as acting AG — CBS News, 2026-04-02
• ProPublica Reveals Top DOJ, DOD Officials Hold Financial Interests in Sectors They Regulate — ProPublica, 2026-03-08
• Todd Wallace Blanche bio — LegiStorm