Todd Blanche

Todd Blanche

Todd Wallace Blanche (; born August 6, 1974) is an American attorney and former prosecutor who has served as the United States deputy attorney general since January 2025. Blanche has additionally served as the acting librarian of Congress since May 2025; the legality of his appointment and tenure is disputed.

Blanche graduated from American University in 1994 and from Brooklyn Law School in 2003. He worked in the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York's violent-crimes division for eight years. In 2017, Blanche became a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. In his personal capacity, he represented several figures associated with president Donald Trump and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, including Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort; the businessman Igor Fruman; and the attorney Boris Epshteyn.

In April 2023, prior to his arraignment, Trump hired Blanche to defend him in the District Attorney's Office of New York County's prosecution of the former president over concealed hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels. Blanche later defended him in the federal classified documents and election obstruction cases. He led Trump's defense in his criminal trial.

In November 2024, following his victory in the 2024 presidential election, Trump named Blanche as his nominee for deputy attorney general. He was confirmed by the Senate in March 2025. In May, Trump dismissed the acting librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, and named Blanche to succeed her. The staff of the Library of Congress and Hayden disputed Trump's authority to appoint Blanche without the consent of the Senate, arguing that Robert Newlen, the principal deputy librarian, was Hayden's lawful successor.

Early life and education (1974–2003)

Todd Blanche

Todd Wallace Blanche was born on August 6, 1974, in Denver, Colorado. Blanche's father, Richard, was a Canadian hockey player, while his mother was a nurse. Blanche was raised in Denver. Richard managed a religious congregation, the Faith Bible Fellowship, in his basement. After complaints from neighbors, the authorities deemed the congregation to be a zoning violation. Richard was cited for contempt but vowed to preach from prison and to appeal the ruling. The Colorado Supreme Court later ruled against Richard. The Blanches moved to Gainesville, Florida, in 1987, over the incident. Blanche attended the New Mexico Military Institute, where New York described him as a "standout athlete". He attended Louisiana State University in 1992, but transferred to Beloit College the following year. Blanche was on Beloit's basketball and baseball teams.

By 1994, Blanche had transferred to American University. That year, he married Kristine, a biology major at Catholic University of America with whom he had two children. Blanche told FT Magazine that he was drawn to American University over an interest in politics and sought to be closer to Kristine, whom he had met in Australia. Blanche interned at the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, a position that later became a full-time job. He later worked as a paralegal in the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and attended Brooklyn Law School at night. Blanche graduated cum laude from law school in 2003.

Career

Clerkships and prosecutorial work (2003–2014)

After graduating from Brooklyn Law School, Blanche worked for Davis Polk as an associate and temporarily clerked for judge Denny Chin of the District Court for the Southern District of New York and judge Joseph F. Bianco of the District Court for the Eastern District of New York. In 2006, he returned to the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York as an assistant United States attorney. Blanche worked in the office's violent-crimes division for eight years, eventually becoming its co-chief. He later ran the district's branch office in White Plains, New York, alongside Mimi Rocah. According to FT Magazine, colleagues believed that Blanche had been marked for a judicial nomination.

Private practice (2014–2023)

After working in the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, Blanche joined WilmerHale as a partner. He joined Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft as a partner in 2017. By June 2019, Blanche had begun representing the political operative Paul Manafort after he was indicted on state mortgage fraud charges in New York. Blanche filed a motion to dismiss the charges on grounds that it violated New York's laws on double jeopardy; the indictment was dismissed on the state's double jeopardy law in December, a decision affirmed by the New York Supreme Court in October 2020. Blanche additionally represented the businessman Igor Fruman, an associate of Rudy Giuliani who was implicated in the Trump–Ukraine scandal, as well as the attorney Boris Epshteyn. According to The New York Times, Blanche represented Manafort and Epshteyn in his personal capacity with the approval of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft.

Trump work (2023–2024)

Blanche leaving the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse after Donald Trump's arraignment

In February 2023, as Trump was set to be indicted in New York over concealed hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, he appointed Epshteyn to find lawyers to represent him. Epshteyn requested that Blanche assist him in the search. In April, one day before he was set to be arraigned, Trump added Blanche to his defense team. That month, Blanche founded Blanche Law. According to The New York Times, Epshteyn and Manafort referred Trump to Blanche. The Times additionally reported that Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft's reputational committee disagreed with Blanche's decision to represent Trump; Blanche, for his part, told associates that he was displeased at the firm's unwillingness to give him latitude. After he was federally indicted for allegedly retaining classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, Trump removed James Trusty and John Rowley from his defense and named Blanche instead. Trump largely relied on Blanche as he remained one of two lawyers, alongside Christopher Kise, to represent him in the case. Blanche continued to represent Trump in the federal election obstruction case against him.

Blanche led Trump's defense in his criminal trial in New York. He sought to delay the trial past the 2024 presidential election, in which Trump was a candidate, a strategy that Trump's allies saw as successful; judge Juan Merchan granted Trump a limited three-week delay. Blanche developed a close relationship with Trump, and his litigation on behalf of the former president represented several claims that Trump had publicly alleged to discredit the prosecution, including that Trump was a victim of political prosecution. Prior to the trial, Merchan criticized Blanche for using casual language in his court filings, for improperly accusing the District Attorney's Office of New York County of prosecutorial misconduct, and for not directly answering a question. Additionally, Blanche's initial plan involved finding a juror who would force Merchan to declare a mistrial; the jury unanimously decided to convict Trump in May. Blanche's defense strategy involved downplaying the payments and casting Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer, and Daniels as unreliable narrators intent on seeking revenge or financial restitution from Trump. In the trial, he loudly sparred with Cohen. In November 2024, ABC News reported that Blanche's phone had been hacked by Chinese threat actors.

Deputy Attorney General (2025–present)

Nomination and confirmation

Blanche is sworn in as deputy attorney general in March 2025

In October 2024, documents obtained by ABC News indicated that Blanche was being considered as potential nominees for deputy attorney general and White House counsel, in addition to director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, if Trump were to win the 2024 presidential election. Following Trump's victory in the election the following month, Blanche was expected to have a position in his administration. On November 14, Trump named Blanche as his nominee for deputy attorney general. Blanche appeared before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on February 12, 2025. He defended Trump against perceived allegations of prosecutorial impropriety and cited his experience in defending Trump to claim that the president would not ask him to "do anything illegal or immoral". In his testimony, Blanche claimed that he had no knowledge of plans to dismiss the criminal corruption case against New York City mayor Eric Adams; a draft letter by the interim United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon, indicated that Blanche was on the "same page" about dismissing the case. The committee voted to advance his nomination on February 27 in a 12–10 vote along party lines. On March 5, Blanche was confirmed by the Senate in a 52–46 vote largely along party lines.

Initial actions

On March 6, Blanche was sworn in. Hours later, he issued a memorandum shifting hiring for the Department of Justice towards the Mexico–United States border in an effort to bolster Trump's immigration policy. The order sought an exemption from the federal hiring freeze. The following day, he placed two prosecutors involved in the Adams case on leave. He dismissed Liz Oyer, the pardon attorney. Oyer claimed that she was removed after she rejected Blanche's request to add the actor Mel Gibson to a list of individuals who should have their gun rights restored. After The New York Times reported that U.S. intelligence contradicted Trump's assertion that the government of Venezuela was directing the Tren de Aragua syndicate to commit crimes—a finding that was used as the impetus for invoking the Alien Enemies Act—Blanche announced a leak investigation. That month, Blanche proposed combining the Drug Enforcement Administration with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Blanche speaking in June 2025

In April 2025, Blanche dismissed Erez Reuveni, the acting deputy director of the Office of Immigration Litigation, for conceding in court that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man, should not have been deported. That month, he barred the Department of Justice's lawyers from attending American Bar Association events and disbanded the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team; according to financial records, Blanche had several hundred thousand dollars in cryptocurrency. According to camera footage released in a court filing, Blanche ordered the arrest of Newark mayor Ras Baraka over an incident involving an immigration detention center. In a statement in June, Blanche argued that in attorney general Merrick Garland's tenure, the Department of Justice excessively prosecuted cases citing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and that the department would shift from prosecuting bribery cases overseas to conduct that harmed the United States's ability to compete abroad.

As attorney general Pam Bondi sought to fire employees at the Department of Justice, including ten staffers who worked for Jack Smith, the special counsel who indicted Trump twice, Blanche urged Bondi not to fire more employees, according to The New York Times. Concurrently, several Trump loyalists were installed across U.S. attorney's offices in New York and New Jersey. According to the Times, Blanche told Trump that the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York was particularly important as it covered John F. Kennedy International Airport, the largest air passenger gateway into North America, and that he should rely on veteran prosecutors. Blanche disagreed with judges who appointed a federal prosecutor, Desiree Leigh Grace, to succeed Alina Habba as the interim United States attorney for the District of New Jersey, asserting that Trump had the right to remove Grace.

Handling of the Epstein case and Maxwell meeting

In July 2025, criticism over the Department of Justice's handling of the Epstein files, a set of documents associated with the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, mounted. The controversy led to an open dispute between Bondi and the leadership of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, particularly its deputy director, Dan Bongino. Blanche wrote on X that he had signed off on the memorandum determining that "no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted" in the investigation into Epstein alongside Bongino and the bureau's director, Kash Patel; the post insinuated that Bongino and Patel were as responsible for closing the inquiry as Blanche and Bondi. Bondi and Blanche later requested that a court unseal grand jury testimony from his second federal indictment. According to The Wall Street Journal, Bondi and Blanche informed Trump that his name was in the Epstein files in May.

In leading certain responsibilities of the handling of the Epstein files, The New York Times described Blanche as having an "unusual, Janus-faced position". Although Blanche's involvement with Trump, an Epstein associate, was not believed to be a conflict-of-interest, it presented a complex situation. According to the Times, he personally signed the Department of Justice's motion to unseal grand jury testimony in the case against Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's accomplice, after the prosecutor who worked on the Epstein and Maxwell cases, Maurene Comey, was fired. Additionally, Blanche had a personal relationship with David Oscar Markus, Maxwell's counsel. In July, Blanche requested a meeting with Maxwell. In preparation for the meeting, Blanche allowed Markus to access grand jury testimony, a move that could have allowed Maxwell to obtain information useful in seeking an appeal for her conviction.

The meeting between Blanche and Maxwell led to concerns from some opponents of Trump, including Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, that Blanche may have offered Maxwell a favorable deal to ensure she would not mention Trump. Dick Durbin, the ranking member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, requested transcripts of Blanche's two-day meeting with Maxwell. In August, the Department of Justice released transcripts of the interview, indicating that Maxwell affirmed the official narrative of the Epstein case, though she stated that she believed Epstein's death was a murder, not a suicide. Maxwell additionally stated that she had not seen Trump "in any inappropriate setting in any way."

One week after the meeting, Maxwell was transferred to a less restrictive minimum security prison. Democrats and victims of Maxwell criticized the move arguing the transfer "appears to violate" DOJ and Bureau of Prisons policy of housing sex offenders in higher-security facilities. Blanche defended Maxwell's transfer claiming Maxwell has suffered "numerous threats against her life." Democrats on the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees are investigating the transfer and reports that Maxwell received preferential treatment in the new location.

Department conflicts

In July 2025, Bloomberg Law reported that Chris Kise, who represented Trump alongside Blanche in the classified documents case, had appealed to Blanche to give leniency to former Puerto Rico governor Wanda Vázquez Garced, arguing that Vázquez Garced was the victim of political prosecution. Blanche agreed and ordered prosecutors to strike a deal with Vázquez Garced's defense. The following month, Bondi and Blanche conflicted with Ed Martin, the director of the Weaponization Working Group, over his stunt requesting that New York attorney general Letitia James resign and going to her residence to personally inspect her property. Bondi and Blanche defended Erik Siebert, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, against claims that Siebert had not done enough to investigate James and James Comey, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation whom Trump had dismissed in May 2017 and the father of Maurene Comey. In particular, Blanche and Siebert questioned the validity of a criminal case against James as Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, sought to have her indicted on allegations of mortgage fraud, according to The New York Times.

After Trump appointed Todd Gilbert as the United States attorney for the Western District of Virginia in July, officials within the Department of Justice directed him to open an investigation into the handling of classified documents in the Mueller special counsel investigation. After Gilbert stated that he did not believe there was sufficient evidence for a grand jury indictment, aides to Bondi and Blanche accused Gilbert of consulting with Zachary Lee, whom they alleged was serving the interests of the prior Biden administration. Blanche spoke with Gilbert and encouraged him to pursue the case, offering additional resources. That month, Blanche threatened to prosecute officials in California who arrest federal officers. Additionally, after Trump appointed Lindsey Halligan to prosecute James in October, neither Bondi nor Blanche were informed of James's indictment in advance.

Librarian of Congress appointment

Todd Blanche

On May 12, 2025, after dismissing Carla Hayden as the librarian of Congress, Donald Trump appointed Blanche to succeed her. The appointment led to a standoff at the James Madison Memorial Building, when two officials at the Department of Justice sought access to the Copyright Office, claiming that Blanche was the acting librarian of Congress. Staff members at the Library of Congress called Capitol Police and Meg Williams, the library's general counsel; Williams informed the officials that the library recognized Robert Newlen, the principal deputy librarian, as the acting librarian of Congress and that they were not permitted to enter.