Todd Blanche Reveals How Trump DOJ Will Protect Its Attorneys Facing Ethics Complaints From Left-Wing Orgs

WASHINGTON — Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche revealed Friday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) would be taking a new approach when its attorneys face activist bar complaints.

Under the new policy, which Blanche noted is not yet fully in effect, the DOJ will handle complaints against its attorneys “in-house.”

“We’re changing the regulation so that if there is a complaint against one of our trial attorneys or our AUSAs, we will look at it with our ethics department,” he said during a fireside chat at the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention. “The bar doesn’t need to look at it.”

The room erupted in applause when Blanche called the D.C. Bar “one of the most activist, obnoxious bars when it comes to going after conservative lawyers.” (RELATED: Left-Wing Groups Weaponize Bar Complaints Against Trump Admin Attorneys)

Blanche said multiple department lawyers are fighting bar complaints for privileged internal communications that leaked. The DOJ is supporting its attorneys, including by paying for outside counsel if desired, and encouraging them to “fight as hard as they can,” he said.

Dozens of ethics complaints have been filed against members of the Trump DOJ, including high-level officials like Attorney General Pam Bondi to Acting New Jersey District Attorney Alina Habba as well as federal prosecutors who are not in positions of leadership. Most have been filed by the same few left-wing organizations.

Blanche himself is the subject of a complaint filed by the Legal Accountability Center, whose leader Michael Teter also led a group that filed complaints against President Donald Trump’s attorneys after the 2020 election.

“It’s just another way that there’s a liberal side that doesn’t like what we’re doing,” Blanche said. “They don’t like the success that we’re having, the changes that we’re making, and the good things that are happening.”

Deputy AG Todd Blanche on “weaponization” of DOJ during 4 years of Biden admin:

“I’m going to say, it’s a Latin term: batshit crazy.”

“When I read now that we’re weaponizing, I feel like I’m being gaslit. Because we’re doing exactly the opposite.” pic.twitter.com/LAP4Np2CIP

— Katelynn Richardson (@katesrichardson) November 7, 2025

During the hour-long discussion, America First Legal President Gene Hamilton asked Blanche to respond to accusations that Trump’s DOJ is “weaponized.”

The DOJ has indicted former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James and former National Security Advisor John Bolton. Media reports have frequently characterized indictments as efforts to target political opponents.

“When I read now that we’re weaponizing, I feel like I’m being gaslit,” Blanche told the audience. “Because we’re doing exactly the opposite.”

Blanche, who previously represented Trump from prosecutions brought by former special counsel Jack Smith and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, called what happened during the four years of the Biden administration “batshit crazy.”

“Nearly every member of President Trump’s last administration, some of them who are in this room, had to go in front of a grand jury over one reason or another,” he said. “His Secret Service detail had to go in front of a grand jury, some of them twice.”

“I hope that time heals wounds and I hope that we move forward as a country, and we will, back to where the Department of Justice is doing justice. And I think we’re doing that now,” Blanche said. “But I take umbrage at the idea that the work that our prosecutors are doing is weaponization because I have receipts. I know what happened the past couple years. I lived it.”

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