Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche Recused From Trump-Related Justice Department Cases

Joseph Tirrell, the Justice Department's top ethics lawyer, delivered the guidance during a meeting that also included Emil Bove, who was then Blanche's top deputy. A printed PowerPoint presentation on ethics rules was provided at the session, according to a former senior Justice ethics official who described the meeting.

The meeting marked the first formal notification to Blanche that recusal would be required. Blanche signed the department's ethics pledge, which bars him for at least one year from participating in any matters involving past clients of the Blanche Law Group, the firm that represented Trump in the criminal cases.

Department regulations also prohibit participation in any criminal investigation or prosecution if he has a personal or political relationship with anyone involved or interested in the matter. Blanche previously served as Trump's primary defense lawyer in two federal prosecutions.

Those cases, one involving classified records in Florida and another related to the 2020 presidential election, were dismissed before reaching full resolution in court. He is now overseeing an investigation into what has been described as a broad conspiracy against Trump, spanning from the 2017 Russian election interference probe to the prosecutions led by former special counsel Jack Smith, which ended in 2024.

Blanche has delegated oversight of the conspiracy investigation to top aides and has not participated in meetings on the probe in recent months, according to people briefed on the matter. Brennan has denied any wrongdoing. The Justice Department spokeswoman said Wednesday that Blanche is complying with ethical obligations.

"He is recused from many cases before DOJ. In any cases that are still ongoing where he previously represented someone, he is recused," the spokeswoman said. After initial publication the department added that to the extent it is investigating something related to the president for which Todd was previously representing him, then hypothetically yes he would recuse.

The department described that scenario as remaining hypothetical.

Around the same period an internal memo raised concerns that Emil Bove had a potential conflict of interest by overseeing the firing of Justice Department lawyers who had worked on Trump-related prosecutions. The memo, written by a top career lawyer and ethics expert, was sent to then-Attorney General Pam Bondi and copied to the Office of Professional Responsibility and Inspector General.

It noted that Bove had previously worked on January 6 Capitol riot investigations as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. The memo's author was pushed out of the department shortly after delivering the document. Bove later left the department to become an appeals court judge.

Conflicts of interest have occurred in prior administrations. In the George W. Bush administration Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the probe into the leak of Valerie Plame's identity due to his political relationships. Benjamin Grimes, a former deputy director of the Justice Department's Professional Responsibility Advisory Office and now a Columbia Law School professor, said it was typical for senior officials to seek ethics advice when conflicts were close calls.