Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche faced backlash Wednesday over the Justice Department\u2019s (DoJ) enforcement of crypto-related crimes and other actions as President Donald Trump\u2019s former personal attorney appeared before a Senate hearing considering his nomination to lead the agency.<\/p>\n
The ranking Democrat, Senator Dick Durbin, used<\/a> part of his opening statement at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to criticize Trump\u2019s AG pick for what he described as \u201cdismantling DoJ\u2019s enforcement team and shutting down ongoing criminal investigations of the crypto industry.\u201d <\/p>\n Blanche was reportedly behind the disbanding<\/a> of the Justice Department\u2019s crypto enforcement unit in April 2025 as deputy attorney general.<\/p>\n Todd Blanche speaking at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. Source: <\/em>Associated Press<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n The Illinois lawmaker said that Blanche\u2019s order dismantling the DoJ\u2019s crypto unit enable Trump to earn $1.4 billion from his ties<\/a> to the industry, including his family\u2019s business World Liberty Financial. <\/p>\n He also accused former Binance CEO Changpeng \u201cCZ\u201d Zhao of \u201cbroker[ing] a deal to channel $2 billion\u201d into World Liberty, which led to a presidential pardon. The former CEO agreed in 2023 to plead guilty to one felony charge related to the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regime at the exchange. <\/p>\n \u201cEvery smarmy, suspect deal in this administration has cryptocurrency behind the curtain,\u201d said Durbin.<\/p>\n Senate Republicans need a simple majority of lawmakers present to confirm Blanche as AG should his nomination advance in the judiciary panel. With Senator Mitch McConnell still hospitalized after what his team described as a fall that led to pneumonia, the party has a slim 52-47 margin<\/a> to confirm Blanche, who faces pushback over the DoJ\u2019s actions on immigration and its crypto policies, claims that he would facilitate Trump\u2019s attacks on perceived enemies and the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.<\/p>\n Related: <\/strong><\/em>Three US senators oppose CLARITY Act on ethics grounds with vote expected soon<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Blanche also faced crypto-related questions Republican Senator Thom Tillis who said he was \u201cconcerned that the Binance CEO got pardoned.\u201d Blanche said that he would review the pardon process if confirmed.<\/p>\n The Trump AG pick was behind a 2025 memo<\/a> \u201cending regulation by prosecution\u201d in the crypto industry and previously held at least $159,000 worth of digital asset-related investments before divesting them to his children and grandchildren. <\/p>\n He has been serving as acting US Attorney General since Pamela Bondi\u2019s firing in April, telling crypto holders shortly after his appointment that officials would not pursue cases<\/a> into blockchain developers who were not responsible for illicit activity on platforms.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201d[I]f you are developing software, if you are a coder, if you are part of that process and you are not the third-party user, and you are not helping and knowing the third party is using what you developed to commit crimes, you are not going to be investigated and not going to be charged,\u201d Blanche said at the Bitcoin 2026 conference.<\/p>\n The department still has ongoing cases against developers behind platforms allegedly used for illegal activities. Federal prosecutors are expected to retry<\/a> Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm later this year after a jury failed to reach a verdict on two charges in 2025.<\/p>\n Magazine: <\/strong><\/em>Will the crypto lobby\u2019s $189M campaign get CLARITY over the line?<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche faced backlash Wednesday over the Justice Department\u2019s (DoJ) enforcement of crypto-related crimes and other actions as President Donald Trump\u2019s former personal attorney appeared before a Senate hearing considering his nomination to lead the agency. The ranking Democrat, Senator Dick Durbin, used part of his opening statement at the Senate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s3-images.ctmedia.io\/media\/article-covers\/tribune-hearing-congress.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11990],"tags":[3084,4281,3198,2718,22815,6676,18259,720,19761],"class_list":["post-36672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crypto-plug","tag-blasts","tag-crypto","tag-dismantling","tag-doj","tag-nominee","tag-pardon","tag-senator","tag-trumps","tag-unit"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/s3-images.ctmedia.io\/media\/article-covers\/tribune-hearing-congress.jpg",0,0,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/s3-images.ctmedia.io\/media\/article-covers\/tribune-hearing-congress.jpg",0,0,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/s3-images.ctmedia.io\/media\/article-covers\/tribune-hearing-congress.jpg",0,0,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/s3-images.ctmedia.io\/media\/article-covers\/tribune-hearing-congress.jpg",150,150,false],"medium":["https:\/\/s3-images.ctmedia.io\/media\/article-covers\/tribune-hearing-congress.jpg",300,300,false],"large":["https:\/\/s3-images.ctmedia.io\/media\/article-covers\/tribune-hearing-congress.jpg",1024,1024,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/s3-images.ctmedia.io\/media\/article-covers\/tribune-hearing-congress.jpg",1536,1536,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/s3-images.ctmedia.io\/media\/article-covers\/tribune-hearing-congress.jpg",2048,2048,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/s3-images.ctmedia.io\/media\/article-covers\/tribune-hearing-congress.jpg",370,265,false],"kava-thumb-s":["https:\/\/s3-images.ctmedia.io\/media\/article-covers\/tribune-hearing-congress.jpg",150,85,false],"kava-thumb-s-2":["https:\/\/s3-images.ctmedia.io\/media\/article-covers\/tribune-hearing-congress.jpg",230,230,false],"kava-thumb-m":["https:\/\/s3-images.ctmedia.io\/media\/article-covers\/tribune-hearing-congress.jpg",400,400,false],"kava-thumb-m-vertical":["https:\/\/s3-images.ctmedia.io\/media\/article-covers\/tribune-hearing-congress.jpg",370,500,false],"kava-thumb-m-2":["https:\/\/s3-images.ctmedia.io\/media\/article-covers\/tribune-hearing-congress.jpg",570,450,false],"kava-thumb-l":["https:\/\/s3-images.ctmedia.io\/media\/article-covers\/tribune-hearing-congress.jpg",1170,650,false],"kava-thumb-xl":["https:\/\/s3-images.ctmedia.io\/media\/article-covers\/tribune-hearing-congress.jpg",1920,1080,false],"kava-thumb-masonry":["https:\/\/s3-images.ctmedia.io\/media\/article-covers\/tribune-hearing-congress.jpg",600,999,false],"kava-thumb-justify":["https:\/\/s3-images.ctmedia.io\/media\/article-covers\/tribune-hearing-congress.jpg",640,640,false],"kava-thumb-justify-2":["https:\/\/s3-images.ctmedia.io\/media\/article-covers\/tribune-hearing-congress.jpg",1280,640,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"#RiseCelestialStudios","author_link":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/author\/ralph-c\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"CRYPTO PLUG<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche faced backlash Wednesday over the Justice Department\u2019s (DoJ) enforcement of crypto-related crimes and other actions as President Donald Trump\u2019s former personal attorney appeared before a Senate hearing considering his nomination to lead the agency. The ranking Democrat, Senator Dick Durbin, used part of his opening statement at the Senate…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36672"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36674,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36672\/revisions\/36674"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Blanche signals DoJ shift on pursuing coders<\/h2>\n