Politics

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s principal focus in recent weeks has been lining up support on Capitol Hill ahead of his upcoming Senate confirmation hearings, with a specific focus on winning over GOP skeptics. But Donald Trump’s controversial former defense attorney has more troubles than lining up 51 votes.

As this week got underway, Democracy Defenders Fund, Lawyers Defending American Democracy and a group of 101 former federal and state judges filed a complaint against Blanche with the New York State Bar, which included a formal request for an ethics investigation.

The 73-page complaint specifically focused on three areas of alleged misconduct:

• Blanche’s role in orchestrating the creation of a $1.776 billion compensation fund, widely panned as a “slush fund,” and an IRS audit shield for the president and his family.
• Blanche’s role in “abusing the investigative and prosecutorial powers” of the Justice Department to target the president’s perceived political enemies, including former FBI Director James Comey.
• Blanche supervising the DOJ’s “flawed response to the Epstein Files Transparency Act, including the disclosure of thousands of records containing sensitive victim information.”