The Justice Department is taking notice of inconsistencies when white-collar defense lawyers complain on LinkedIn about softer Trump enforcement only to advocate for client relief, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said.
“It’s remarkable how some members of the white-collar bar seem to have an endless of stream of clients who are each coincidentally victims of both overreach or weaponization, but still publicly draft client alerts suggesting that the department is not prioritizing white-collar cases,” Blanche said at a legal conference packed with Big Law corporate attorneys in Maryland on Thursday. “White-collar cases are a significant priority of President Trump, for the attorney general, and for the department.”
His speech at the American Conference Institute event emphasized that DOJ is maintaining longstanding principles of robust corporate enforcement, without addressing President Donald Trump’s pardons Wednesday of a senior entertainment executive and a sitting congressman as prosecutors were preparing to take both to trial.
Blanche, who represented Trump in state and federal criminal indictments before getting his nomination as DOJ’s second-in-command, spoke during a year in which defense lawyers have repeatedly tried—with mixed success—to appeal to political leadership for client leniency.
He took the stage at the first annual convening of foreign bribery practitioners since Trump’s February executive order halting enforcement of such cases jolted the white-collar bar and drew criticism that the administration would turn a blind eye to global corruption.
Blanche in June directed prosecutors to resume Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigations under a tighter focus.
His guidelines instructed the department to align new FCPA cases with Trump’s intentions by limiting undue burdens on US companies operating abroad and to seek cases linked to cartels and transnational criminal organizations.
Nearly six months later, Blanche said Thursday that the department is now enforcing the foreign corruption law “firmly, fairly, and within the boundaries of reason.”
A day earlier, officials from the department’s Criminal Division addressed the same conference by projecting a return to normalcy in overseas bribery enforcement after a slowdown in the first half of 2025.
Blanche on Thursday also teased that in the coming weeks he’s planning to issue a DOJ-wide corporate enforcement policy to ensure consistency and transparency when prosecutors consider resolving misconduct. In the Biden administration, DOJ published policies with variations between how US attorney’s offices and the Criminal Division would treat companies in negotiations.
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