Todd Blanche

Before Todd Blanche was the attorney general of the United States during Pres. Donald Trump’s second term, he was a respected federal prosecutor in one of the nation’s top districts, a partner in one of New York City’s most venerable law firms, and a hardworking, ambitious paralegal by day and law school student by night.

He became Trump’s personal attorney in 2023, calling the chance to represent the former president “an opportunity I should not pass up.” Despite defending Trump in the New York City hush money case that saw him convicted of 34 felony counts, Blanche has retained the president’s faith while dealing with questions about whether his loyalties lie with the president or the laws of the United States. While some of those questions threatened to derail his 2026 nomination to become attorney general, he won narrow approval from the Senate in August 2026.

Early years

Blanche was born in suburban Denver in 1974. His father, Richard, was a former professional hockey player turned preacher, and his mother was a nurse. He grew up in a Republican household but was not religious like his father. He did, however, possess his father’s sports prowess, and Blanche played baseball and basketball at Beloit College in Wisconsin. While on a trip to Australia, he met his future wife, Kristine, who was studying biology at Catholic University, in Washington, D.C. He transferred to American University to be closer to her.

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Living in the nation’s capital for college, Blanche found himself drawn to the politics and policies of Bill Clinton. He would be registered as a Democrat until 2024.

Career beginnings

After graduation he landed a job at the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington before he and Kristine moved to New York, where he got a job working as a paralegal in the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) while attending Brooklyn Law School at night.

Blanche looks back on those days as being formative, telling the Financial Times in 2024, “I went to night law school. At the time, I had no money. I’m not some north-east rich, entitled person. I literally had to work for everything I had.”

New York City prosecutor and private practice

After graduating law school, Blanche clerked for a number of judges before returning to the SDNY as a prosecutor in 2006, where he worked on prosecuting violent crimes and earned praise from his colleagues for his legal and interpersonal skills. Blanche was “very good at reading people,” former colleague Kan Nawaday told New York magazine in 2024.

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He rose to be cochief of the violent crimes unit, supervising the work of some two dozen prosecutors working on cases of murder, rape, and other violent crime. He worked alongside Alvin Bragg, who years later would be the attorney prosecuting a defendant Blanche was representing: Trump. He left SDNY in 2014 for private practice at prestigious Manhattan firms, first WilmerHale and then in 2017 Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, where he was a partner leading the white-collar crimes defense unit. While at Cadwalader, he successfully defended former Trump campaign director Paul Manafort against mortgage fraud charges in 2019.

Defending Trump

In 2023 Blanche resigned from Cadwalader to defend Trump in what became known as the “hush money” case because Trump was accused of paying adult-film actor Stormy Daniels in the days leading up to the 2016 presidential election to stay quiet about an earlier alleged sexual affair between the two. For six weeks in the spring of 2024, Trump was in a New York courthouse with Blanche at his side for what Blanche had described as “a discombobulated package of politically motivated charges.” Despite a combative presence in court, Blanche lost the case and a jury returned convictions on all 34 counts against Trump.

Blanche was more successful in defending Trump against charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith related to classified documents found at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. In both cases Blanche’s strategy was to stall and delay. After Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election, Smith dropped the charges.

Ultimately, Trump and Blanche prevailed in the hush money case as well, when less than two weeks before Trump’s second inauguration Blanche argued successfully for no punishment for Trump, telling the judge in the case:

The American voters got a chance to see and decide for themselves whether this was the kind of case that should’ve been brought. And they decided.

Within weeks of his election, Trump named Blanche to be the deputy attorney general, the country’s number-two law enforcement official.

Government role and controversies

While serving as deputy to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Blanche had a high-profile role in the administration, often appearing on Sunday morning news shows. One of the most high-profile topics in his portfolio was the administration’s handling of the Epstein files, the trove of government documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In July 2025 Blanche conducted what was considered by many in the legal community to be a highly unusual interview with Epstein’s convicted accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell. Shortly after the interview, Maxwell was transferred to a lower-security prison.

Later in 2025 Blanche oversaw the release of documents as mandated by the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which drew criticism from Epstein survivors as being slow, sloppy, and incomplete. After Trump fired Bondi in April 2026, she said of Blanche before a House of Representatives committee: “He was in charge of the process and the entire release of the Epstein files.”

With Bondi gone, Trump named Blanche acting attorney general, but it was unclear if Trump would promote Blanche to the full position. As Blanche lobbied Trump for the job, he announced the indictment of former FBI director James Comey for posting a photo on social media of shells on a beach that spelled out “86 47,” saying that the slang phrase posed a credible threat against the president.

Blanche also oversaw a highly controversial proposal for the Justice Department to administer a $1.8 billion fund to people who say they were mistreated by the government, including those convicted in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. After a judge blocked the plan and as bipartisan backlash grew, the fund seemed to be tabled. Blanche also signed an order pledging that the federal government would not investigate Trump or members of the Trump family for tax crimes.

In June 2026 Trump officially announced Blanche was his pick to be attorney general, but the next month the nomination ran into hurdles in the Senate Judiciary Committee. During his nomination hearing Blanche faced tough questioning from two Republicans on the committee, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas and Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Both demanded that Blanche put in writing that the proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund would never be enacted. Blanche said in his hearing that the DOJ is “not moving forward with the fund,” but has not put that in writing.

Without the votes of Cornyn and Tillis, Blanche’s nomination could not move forward to the full Senate for a vote. Trump said he would consider withdrawing the nomination until after the 2026 midterm elections. In August 2026, the fund was rescinded and the IRS immunity deal limited, and Blanche was confirmed as attorney general on 50–49 vote.