Who is Todd Blanche, the former Trump lawyer who’s the President’s pick for acting attorney general
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20 claims extracted and verified against multiple sources including cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia.
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“The deputy attorney general Todd Blanche was elevated on Thursday (April 2, 2026) as acting U.S. attorney general after Pam Boondi was fired by the U.S. President.”
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“President Donald Trump was his client before picking Todd Blanche to help lead and now run the Justice Department.”
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— Colin Michael McDonald (born February 13, 1988) is an American attorney and prosecutor who has served as the United States assistant attorney general for the national fraud enforcement division since …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_McDonald_(attorney)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_McDonald_(attorney)
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— Donald Trump assumed office as the 47th president of the United States on January 20, 2025. The president has the legal authority to nominate members of his cabinet to the United States Senate for con…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_cabinet_of_Donald_Trump
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_cabinet_of_Donald_Trump
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— Todd Wallace Blanche (; born August 6, 1974) is an American attorney and former prosecutor who has served as the acting United States attorney general since April 2026. Blanche has also served as the …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Blanche
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Blanche
“Mr. Blanche rose to prominence representing the President in criminal cases that consumed the four years between his first and second terms.”
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wikipedia
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— Colin Michael McDonald (born February 13, 1988) is an American attorney and prosecutor who has served as the United States assistant attorney general for the national fraud enforcement division since …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_McDonald_(attorney)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_McDonald_(attorney)
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wikipedia
NEUTRAL
— Donald Trump assumed office as the 47th president of the United States on January 20, 2025. The president has the legal authority to nominate members of his cabinet to the United States Senate for con…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_cabinet_of_Donald_Trump
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_cabinet_of_Donald_Trump
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wikipedia
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— Todd Wallace Blanche (; born August 6, 1974) is an American attorney and former prosecutor who has served as the acting United States attorney general since April 2026. Blanche has also served as the …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Blanche
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Blanche
“Mr. Blanche, a former federal prosecutor and law firm partner, led Mr. Trump's criminal defense team, representing the Republican in matters including his New York hush money case, which ended in his conviction on 34 felony counts, and a pair of federal cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith, both of which have been abandoned.”
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“As deputy attorney general, Mr. Blanche was the Justice Department’s second-in-command.”
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“Working under Attorney General Pam Bondi, he managed the department’s day-to-day operations and became one of its most vocal defenders and visible public faces. He oversaw the release of government files on Jeffrey Epstein and appeared frequently on TV news programs.”
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“Mr. Blanche, 51, attended Brooklyn Law School at night while working as a paralegal at the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, and graduated cum laude. Originally from the Denver suburbs, he completed his undergraduate studies at American University in Washington, D.C.”
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“Mr. Blanche served as a law clerk for federal judges Denny Chin and Joseph Bianco, both now members of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and was a federal prosecutor for eight years in the same U.S. attorney’s office where he had started as a paralegal.”
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“He spent two years as co-chief of the office’s violent crimes unit, overseeing about two dozen prosecutors and cases involving killings, kidnappings, and other violent crimes.”
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“Mr. Blanche left the U.S. attorney's office in 2014, taking a job in the Manhattan office of the law firm WilmerHale. In September 2017, he moved to Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, where he was a partner in the White Collar Defense and Investigations practice.”
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“In a prelude to his work defending Mr. Trump, Mr. Blanche represented the president's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and in 2019 succeeded in getting a mortgage fraud case against him dismissed in the same New York court where Trump was convicted.”
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“Mr. Blanche argued that the case, brought by the Manhattan district attorney’s office that later prosecuted Trump, was too similar to one that landed Manafort in federal prison and therefore amounted to double jeopardy.”
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“Mr. Blanche left Cadwalader in 2023, telling colleagues he was resigning to represent Mr. Trump. He joined the President's defense team just prior to his arraignment in the hush money case.”
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“In an email announcing his departure, he wrote: “I have been asked to represent Trump in the recently charged DA case, and after much thought/consideration, I have decided it is the best thing for me to do and an opportunity I should not pass up.””
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“Mr. Trump rewarded Mr. Blanche and another of his defense lawyers, Emil Bove, with prominent roles in his new administration's Justice Department, and last summer nominated Bove to be a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.”
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“In addition to the hush money matter, Mr. Blanche represented Mr. Trump in the two cases brought by the special counsel, his 2020 election interference case in Washington and the Florida case accusing the former president of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.”
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“In both cases, Mr. Trump's Blanche-led defense team successfully mounted a legal strategy focused heavily on delaying the cases until after the 2024 presidential election. When Trump won, Smith moved to abandon the cases, acknowledging a longstanding Justice Department policy that says sitting presidents cannot be indicted or prosecuted while in office.”
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“Ten days before Mr. Trump returned to office, Mr. Blanche sat alongside him at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, appearing by video together as a Manhattan judge sentenced the president-elect to no punishment in the hush-money case.”
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““The majority of the American people also agree that this case should not have been brought,” Mr. Blanche told the judge, citing the election results as a verdict of its own.”
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“The American voters got a chance to see and decide for themselves whether this was the kind of case that should’ve been brought,”
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Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.