Todd Blanche, Deputy Attorney General and longtime Trump loyalist, dropped a rhetorical anvil on the white-collar bar this week at a conference on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. According to reporting by POLITICO, while addressing hundreds of lawyers whose job is literally to advise clients on how to avoid prosecution, Blanche warned about the dangers of being publicly critical of the Trump Administration’s white-collar enforcement efforts.
He didn’t even try to subtle-code it. He just… said the thing out loud:
“If folks in this room are going to be honest brokers when counseling clients, posting on LinkedIn or writing client alerts, the public narrative should match the private one. If you publicly claim we are not enforcing white-collar crime aggressively enough, but privately insist that your clients are the victims of overreach, we notice that inconsistency.”
The nation’s second-highest law enforcement official telling lawyers that DOJ “notices” when their public commentary displeases the government is the kind of thing that, not too long ago, would set off every alarm bell in the rule-of-law universe. Now it’s a Thursday.
Blanche wasn’t done. Not even close.
“It’s remarkable how some members of the white-collar bar seem to have an endless stream of clients who are each coincidentally victims of supposed overreach or weaponization, but still publicly draft client alerts suggesting that the department is not prioritizing white-collar cases. Such a statement is wrong. White-collar cases are a significant priority for President Trump, for the attorney general and for the department.”
Nothing chilling about that at all.
Let’s not forget that, via Executive Order, Donald Trump paused FCPA enforcement altogether early in his second term, claiming that American businesses were being unfairly burdened by enforcement “stretched beyond proper bounds.” DOJ’s revised guidelines now openly emphasize not inconveniencing U.S. companies operating abroad. Providing this relevant context to clients *is* the job.
For the lawyers in the room, Blanche’s remarks were both uncomfortable and clarifying: the Administration is building a world where criticism of the government carries professional risk. White-collar lawyers know the stakes. Their clients live or die on prosecutorial discretion. Telling them that their commentary is being monitored for loyalty to the Administration? That’s coercion.
Blanche was already busy last month announcing “war” on judges who rule against the Administration, which is decidedly not a normal thing for a Deputy Attorney General to say out loud unless he’s auditioning for a future Ken Burns documentary titled The Day the Rule of Law Died.
Now he’s extending this war footing to lawyers themselves. Judges, lawyers, journalists, anyone who could check power is suddenly in Blanche’s rhetorical crosshairs.
Blanche’s recent moves would be aggressive taken separately. Together, they’re a gameplan for authoritarianism.
MAGA has blown straight past insulating itself from criticism, to actively threatening the people who provide it.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.
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