Todd Wallace Blanche (; born August 6, 1974) is an American-Canadian attorney and former prosecutor who is the 88th United States attorney general, having served in an acting capacity from April 2026 until his confirmation in August. Blanche has also served as the 40th deputy U.S. attorney general from 2025 to 2026 and as the acting librarian of Congress since 2025, although the legality of the latter appointment has been disputed.
Blanche graduated from American University in 1996 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. Blanche represented several figures associated with president Donald Trump and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, including Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, Igor Fruman, and Boris Epshteyn.
In April 2023, Trump hired Blanche to defend him for concealed hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels and he led Trump's defense in the 2024 criminal trial. Blanche later defended Trump in cases involving federal classified documents and election obstruction. In November 2024, following his victory in the 2024 presidential election, President-elect Donald Trump announced Blanche as his nominee for deputy attorney general. Blanche was confirmed by the Senate in March 2025.
In May 2025, Trump dismissed the 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. In April 2026, Trump fired Pam Bondi as attorney general and Blanche became her acting successor. In June, Trump nominated Blanche to serve as attorney general. He was confirmed by the Senate and sworn in the following month.
Early life and education (1974–2003) Todd Wallace Blanche was born on August 6, 1974, in Denver, Colorado. Blanche's father, Richard, was a Canadian hockey player and his mother was a nurse. Blanche was raised in Denver. Blanche's father led a religious congregation, the Faith Bible Fellowship, in his basement. After complaints from neighbors, the congregation was charged with 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 him. The Blanches moved to Gainesville, Florida, in 1987.
Blanche attended the New Mexico Military Institute, where he was an outstanding athlete. In 1992, he attended Louisiana State University, but transferred the following year to Beloit College, where he played on the basketball and baseball teams. By 1994, Blanche had transferred to American University and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1996. He married Kristine, and the couple had two children. Blanche told FT Magazine that he was drawn to American University because of an interest in politics. He also 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.
Legal career Clerk 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 (SDNY) as an assistant United States attorney. Blanche worked in the office's violent-crimes division for eight years, eventually becoming its co-chief. While at SDNY he worked alongside Alvin Bragg who then later was the prosecutor for the Stormy Daniels hush-money case in which Blanche defended Trump. Blanche 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. 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.
Work for Trump (2023–2024)
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. Prior to representing Donald Trump, Blanche was a registered Democrat. In 2024, he switched his party affiliation to Republican.
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.
United States Deputy Attorney General (2025–2026) Nomination and confirmation
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. Blanche also issued a directive titled "Operation Take Back America", which reorganized the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces and Project Safe Neighborhoods to prioritize immigration enforcement, including the removal of undocumented immigrants with criminal records and the prosecution of individuals who obstructed deportations in sanctuary city jurisdictions. 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.
Within two weeks of Blanche becoming deputy attorney general, Joseph Tirrell, the Justice Department's top ethics lawyer, told Blanche he would need to recuse himself from any cases involving Donald Trump in his personal capacity. This was because Blanche had previously served as Trump's personal lawyer, including defending him against criminal prosecution by the Justice Department in the election-obstruction and classified documents cases. Tirrell, who had begun directing the ethics office during Biden's presidency, was fired less than four months after his conversation with Blanche.