Diamond Hands, Questionable Hands: DOJ's New Top Cop Had a Pretty Loaded Crypto Portfolio

Well, folks, it finally happened. President Trump showed Pam Bondi the door and handed Todd Blanche the Attorney General keys. Blanche, who previously held down the Deputy AG gig, made her bones representing Trump in some pretty spicy criminal cases and spent time as an assistant attorney general. Steady climb up the legal ladder, very impressive resume, nothing to see here.

Here's where our story takes a turn for the crypto crowd.

During her tenure as Deputy Attorney General, Blanche did something that made Bitcoin maximalists stand up and applaud: she pulled the plug on the Justice Department's National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET). You know, that little squad whose whole job was to figure out if your DeFi project was actually a money laundering operation in disguise. Gone. She also put pen to paper on a memo telling prosecutors to maybe, possibly, perhaps not pursue minor regulatory oopsies in the crypto space. Revolutionary stuff.

That very memo somehow ended up on the desk of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York in their case against Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm. And wouldn't you know it—one of the charges got dismissed. Timing really is everything in this industry.

Now, let's talk about everyone's favorite topic: conflicts of interest.

When Blanche put her signature on those crypto litigation guidelines, she was sitting on somewhere between $159,000 and $485,000 in digital assets. We're talking Bitcoin, Solana, Ethereum, and Cardano—basically the blue-chip portfolio of someone who either believes in the future of finance or just really likes watching charts go up and to the right. The delightful part? She signed the memo before doing any sort of divestment. Critics screamed about how this absolutely destroys her promise to clean up her asset situation before taking office and potentially runs afoul of about seventeen different ethical regulations.

But wait—there's a plot twist that would make even the most seasoned soap opera writer proud.

In an ethics filing prepared for public consumption last July, Blanche claimed she'd already transferred all these assets to her kids and grandkids. Transaction complete, nothing to see here, move along. It's almost like she saw the memo coming and made sure her family got those sweet, sweet BTC bags first.

Time will tell if this story holds water or if we'll be reading about this in future ethics investigations.