{"id":153131,"date":"2026-05-28T15:03:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T23:03:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/05\/28\/todd-blanche-faces-new-york-bar-complaint-after-federal-judge-flags-vindictive-prosecution\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T15:03:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T23:03:36","slug":"todd-blanche-faces-new-york-bar-complaint-after-federal-judge-flags-vindictive-prosecution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/05\/28\/todd-blanche-faces-new-york-bar-complaint-after-federal-judge-flags-vindictive-prosecution\/","title":{"rendered":"Todd Blanche Faces New York Bar Complaint After Federal Judge Flags Vindictive Prosecution"},"content":{"rendered":"

Todd Blanche has spent the last few months trying to make sure state bar regulators can\u2019t investigate ethical breaches by government lawyers. Before Blanche rose to the Acting Attorney General role, the DOJ dropped a new rule proposal<\/a> that would overturn federal statute and strip local disciplinary officials of the authority to police government and former government lawyers for ethics violations committed in their jurisdictions, or even to after-the-fact regulate the law licenses of practitioners caught acting unethically. Then he brought a suit against the D.C. Bar<\/a> for having the audacity to investigate Jeff Clark for allegedly proposing that the DOJ lie about voting irregularities that didn\u2019t exist in order to suppress the will of the electorate. <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s lawyers know that professional discipline is the only accountability they might ever face<\/a>, and they mean to head it off at the pass.<\/p>\n

Despite Blanche\u2019s zeal for scaring disciplinary authorities away from doing their jobs, the Campaign for Accountability<\/a> continues to ask the profession to remain vigilant about protecting the public. This week, the Campaign asked the Attorney Grievance Committee of New York\u2019s First Judicial Department \u2014 and the Committee on Grievances for the Southern District of New York \u2014 to investigate Blanche and his role in the prosecution of Kilmar Abrego Garcia<\/a>. The group also shipped a copy to Tennessee\u2019s Board of Professional Responsibility, since that\u2019s where the bogus indictment actually landed.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s built on the findings of a federal judge who already did the hard part. Now they\u2019re just asking the institutions we rely upon to safeguard the profession to follow through.<\/p>\n

On May 22, Chief U.S. District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw, Jr. dismissed the indictment<\/a> against Abrego Garcia as the unrebutted product of a presumptively vindictive prosecution. Judge Crenshaw did not leave the responsibility floating around in the passive voice the way these opinions usually do. He named a name:<\/p>\n

\n

Instead of investigating the November 2022 traffic stop to identify who was responsible for the human smuggling, Blanche started the investigation to implicate Abrego. He did so to justify the Executive Branch\u2019s decision to remove him to El Salvador.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The administration deported Abrego Garcia to a Salvadoran slave prison in what the government eventually conceded was an \u201cadministrative error.\u201d The DOJ lost in the district court, lost at the Fourth Circuit, lost at the Supreme Court, and then \u2014 having been ordered to facilitate his return and subjected to the indignity of daily status reports documenting its noncompliance \u2014 started lying about what the Supreme Court said<\/a>. As in, the DOJ filed a brief that included a direct quote from the Supreme Court that Trump\u2019s lawyers\u2026 totally made up! <\/p>\n

And when all else failed and the administration had to bring Abrego Garcia back, it went looking for a new way to save face. It settled on bringing new criminal charges against Abrego Garcia to retroactively justify the extraordinary rendition. The judge did not go for it.<\/p>\n

The ethics complaint carefully walks through the chain of events. A previously closed 2022 traffic-stop investigation was reopened within a week of the judge\u2019s noncompliance finding. Then a DHS press release rebranded that stop as a \u201csuspected human trafficking incident.\u201d Aakash Singh \u2014 who reports directly to Blanche \u2014 personally delivering the government\u2019s cooperating witness to the Middle District of Tennessee U.S. Attorney\u2019s office before that office had even opened its own investigation. And an instruction, memorialized in the record, to \u201ckeep close hold until we get clearance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blanche couldn\u2019t even keep his actions under wraps, with Judge Crenshaw finding that Trump\u2019s former personal lawyer admitted that the criminal case only existed because Abrego Garcia succeeded in challenging his deportation.<\/p>\n

\n

Blanche stated that the Executive Branch began \u201cinvestigating\u201d Abrego after a judge in Maryland \u201cquestioned\u201d the Executive Branch\u2019s decision to deport him. The Court previously found that Blanche\u2019s \u201cremarkable statements could directly establish that the motivations for Abrego\u2019s criminal charges stem from his exercise of his constitutional and statutory rights,\u201d and that Blanche \u201cdirectly tie[d] HSI\u2019s investigation to Abrego\u2019s Maryland suit.\u201d Blanche\u2019s words directly confirm that the Executive Branch<\/strong> reopened the criminal investigation because the Judicial Branch required the<\/strong> Executive Branch to facilitate Abrego\u2019s return from El Salvador<\/strong>. (emphasis added) (internal citations omitted).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The man went on TV to say this stuff! This is becoming a genre. Blanche keeps going on TV and narrating the elements of the offense, then seems surprised when courts write them down. He did the same thing with the Comey case, going on Meet the Press<\/em> to explain that nobody comparable gets charged for the conduct Comey allegedly committed \u2014 which is roughly the definition of selective prosecution.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d say Blanche\u2019s antics are more in line with a PR strategy than an ethical prosecution, but they\u2019re a pretty shitty PR strategy too.<\/p>\n

But, like jazz, sometimes the best support for a pattern of ethical violation is in the notes you don\u2019t play. Which is to say, the record of attorneys who saw the exact same actions and honored their professional oaths by refusing to participate. Erez Reuveni told the Maryland court the truth \u2014 that the removal was a mistake \u2014 and refused to file a brief asserting, without evidence, that Abrego Garcia was a terrorist. Blanche signed the letter putting Reuveni on administrative leave, and he was fired days later. In Tennessee, Criminal Division Chief Ben Schrader circulated a written memo recommending against the charges and flagging vindictive prosecution. He resigned the day the indictment came down, effective immediately, after 15 years. Lawyers who follow ethical rules leave, and the prosecutors willing to hammer the accelerator on a prosecution that a federal judge would later identify as an abuse of power get rewarded.<\/p>\n

Which is the entire point of the complaint. Campaign for Accountability lays out potential violations of Rules 8.4(c), (d), and (h) \u2014 dishonesty, conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice, conduct reflecting on fitness \u2014 plus 3.4(e) (criminal charges to gain advantage in a civil matter), 5.1(d) (a supervising lawyer responsible for inducing subordinates\u2019 violations), and 3.3(a)(1) (candor to the tribunal).<\/p>\n

The wrinkle CfA addresses head-on is the obvious dodge. In the Emil Bove matter, the same committee punted, referring the complaints to DOJ\u2019s Office of Professional Responsibility<\/a>. But this time, there\u2019s no one at OPR to sheepishly hand it to. The head of OPR, Joseph Tirrell, is gone, having been forced out of his job<\/a>. Tirrell has publicly warned about the DOJ\u2019s ever-lowering ethical guardrails<\/a> and sued challenging the DOJ position that it can fire people at will based solely on the president\u2019s Article II authority. Whatever attorneys remain at OPR are fully on notice that their ongoing employment is at the pleasure of Todd Blanche. Referring a complaint about Blanche to an office Blanche can fire is less an act of accountability and more of a suggestion box with a shredder underneath.<\/p>\n

Abdicating responsibility under these circumstances amounts to New York forfeiting its control over its own bar. The McDade Amendment established that the states<\/em> have jurisdiction over federal lawyers practicing in their borders. New York has authority over Todd Blanche who is licensed here and practiced at Cadwalader. <\/p>\n

The question that this complaint places in front of the First Department is whether New York has the wherewithal to actually govern its lawyers. Or is it just willing to pick low-hanging fruit and duck and cover if the offending lawyer is too powerful? If a federal court finding that a specific lawyer orchestrated a presumptively vindictive prosecution is not enough to pursue an investigation, then there\u2019s not much credibility left to salvage. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s recent reason for cautious optimism. Earlier this month, New York\u2019s Third Department found prosecutorial misconduct<\/a> by another DOJ official, John Sarcone III, on a CfA complaint filed back in August. The machinery, it turns out, still works when somebody tends to the crank.<\/p>\n

Whether the First Department turns it is the open question.<\/p>\n

(Complaint available on the next page\u2026)<\/em><\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: Pam Bondi Declares Herself God-Empress Of Ethics<\/a>
DOJ Sues D.C. Bar For Holding Trump Lawyers To Ethical Rules<\/a>
The Justice Department Is Lowering Its Ethical Guardrails<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Todd Blanche Faces New York Bar Complaint After Federal Judge Flags Vindictive Prosecution<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Todd Blanche has spent the last few months trying to make sure state bar regulators can\u2019t investigate ethical breaches by government lawyers. Before Blanche rose to the Acting Attorney General role, the DOJ dropped a new rule proposal<\/a> that would overturn federal statute and strip local disciplinary officials of the authority to police government and former government lawyers for ethics violations committed in their jurisdictions, or even to after-the-fact regulate the law licenses of practitioners caught acting unethically. Then he brought a suit against the D.C. Bar<\/a> for having the audacity to investigate Jeff Clark for allegedly proposing that the DOJ lie about voting irregularities that didn\u2019t exist in order to suppress the will of the electorate. <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s lawyers know that professional discipline is the only accountability they might ever face<\/a>, and they mean to head it off at the pass.<\/p>\n

Despite Blanche\u2019s zeal for scaring disciplinary authorities away from doing their jobs, the Campaign for Accountability<\/a> continues to ask the profession to remain vigilant about protecting the public. This week, the Campaign asked the Attorney Grievance Committee of New York\u2019s First Judicial Department \u2014 and the Committee on Grievances for the Southern District of New York \u2014 to investigate Blanche and his role in the prosecution of Kilmar Abrego Garcia<\/a>. The group also shipped a copy to Tennessee\u2019s Board of Professional Responsibility, since that\u2019s where the bogus indictment actually landed.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s built on the findings of a federal judge who already did the hard part. Now they\u2019re just asking the institutions we rely upon to safeguard the profession to follow through.<\/p>\n

On May 22, Chief U.S. District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw, Jr. dismissed the indictment<\/a> against Abrego Garcia as the unrebutted product of a presumptively vindictive prosecution. Judge Crenshaw did not leave the responsibility floating around in the passive voice the way these opinions usually do. He named a name:<\/p>\n

\n

Instead of investigating the November 2022 traffic stop to identify who was responsible for the human smuggling, Blanche started the investigation to implicate Abrego. He did so to justify the Executive Branch\u2019s decision to remove him to El Salvador.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The administration deported Abrego Garcia to a Salvadoran slave prison in what the government eventually conceded was an \u201cadministrative error.\u201d The DOJ lost in the district court, lost at the Fourth Circuit, lost at the Supreme Court, and then \u2014 having been ordered to facilitate his return and subjected to the indignity of daily status reports documenting its noncompliance \u2014 started lying about what the Supreme Court said<\/a>. As in, the DOJ filed a brief that included a direct quote from the Supreme Court that Trump\u2019s lawyers\u2026 totally made up! <\/p>\n

And when all else failed and the administration had to bring Abrego Garcia back, it went looking for a new way to save face. It settled on bringing new criminal charges against Abrego Garcia to retroactively justify the extraordinary rendition. The judge did not go for it.<\/p>\n

The ethics complaint carefully walks through the chain of events. A previously closed 2022 traffic-stop investigation was reopened within a week of the judge\u2019s noncompliance finding. Then a DHS press release rebranded that stop as a \u201csuspected human trafficking incident.\u201d Aakash Singh \u2014 who reports directly to Blanche \u2014 personally delivering the government\u2019s cooperating witness to the Middle District of Tennessee U.S. Attorney\u2019s office before that office had even opened its own investigation. And an instruction, memorialized in the record, to \u201ckeep close hold until we get clearance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blanche couldn\u2019t even keep his actions under wraps, with Judge Crenshaw finding that Trump\u2019s former personal lawyer admitted that the criminal case only existed because Abrego Garcia succeeded in challenging his deportation.<\/p>\n

\n

Blanche stated that the Executive Branch began \u201cinvestigating\u201d Abrego after a judge in Maryland \u201cquestioned\u201d the Executive Branch\u2019s decision to deport him. The Court previously found that Blanche\u2019s \u201cremarkable statements could directly establish that the motivations for Abrego\u2019s criminal charges stem from his exercise of his constitutional and statutory rights,\u201d and that Blanche \u201cdirectly tie[d] HSI\u2019s investigation to Abrego\u2019s Maryland suit.\u201d Blanche\u2019s words directly confirm that the Executive Branch<\/strong> reopened the criminal investigation because the Judicial Branch required the<\/strong> Executive Branch to facilitate Abrego\u2019s return from El Salvador<\/strong>. (emphasis added) (internal citations omitted).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The man went on TV to say this stuff! This is becoming a genre. Blanche keeps going on TV and narrating the elements of the offense, then seems surprised when courts write them down. He did the same thing with the Comey case, going on Meet the Press<\/em> to explain that nobody comparable gets charged for the conduct Comey allegedly committed \u2014 which is roughly the definition of selective prosecution.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d say Blanche\u2019s antics are more in line with a PR strategy than an ethical prosecution, but they\u2019re a pretty shitty PR strategy too.<\/p>\n

But, like jazz, sometimes the best support for a pattern of ethical violation is in the notes you don\u2019t play. Which is to say, the record of attorneys who saw the exact same actions and honored their professional oaths by refusing to participate. Erez Reuveni told the Maryland court the truth \u2014 that the removal was a mistake \u2014 and refused to file a brief asserting, without evidence, that Abrego Garcia was a terrorist. Blanche signed the letter putting Reuveni on administrative leave, and he was fired days later. In Tennessee, Criminal Division Chief Ben Schrader circulated a written memo recommending against the charges and flagging vindictive prosecution. He resigned the day the indictment came down, effective immediately, after 15 years. Lawyers who follow ethical rules leave, and the prosecutors willing to hammer the accelerator on a prosecution that a federal judge would later identify as an abuse of power get rewarded.<\/p>\n

Which is the entire point of the complaint. Campaign for Accountability lays out potential violations of Rules 8.4(c), (d), and (h) \u2014 dishonesty, conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice, conduct reflecting on fitness \u2014 plus 3.4(e) (criminal charges to gain advantage in a civil matter), 5.1(d) (a supervising lawyer responsible for inducing subordinates\u2019 violations), and 3.3(a)(1) (candor to the tribunal).<\/p>\n

The wrinkle CfA addresses head-on is the obvious dodge. In the Emil Bove matter, the same committee punted, referring the complaints to DOJ\u2019s Office of Professional Responsibility<\/a>. But this time, there\u2019s no one at OPR to sheepishly hand it to. The head of OPR, Joseph Tirrell, is gone, having been forced out of his job<\/a>. Tirrell has publicly warned about the DOJ\u2019s ever-lowering ethical guardrails<\/a> and sued challenging the DOJ position that it can fire people at will based solely on the president\u2019s Article II authority. Whatever attorneys remain at OPR are fully on notice that their ongoing employment is at the pleasure of Todd Blanche. Referring a complaint about Blanche to an office Blanche can fire is less an act of accountability and more of a suggestion box with a shredder underneath.<\/p>\n

Abdicating responsibility under these circumstances amounts to New York forfeiting its control over its own bar. The McDade Amendment established that the states<\/em> have jurisdiction over federal lawyers practicing in their borders. New York has authority over Todd Blanche who is licensed here and practiced at Cadwalader. <\/p>\n

The question that this complaint places in front of the First Department is whether New York has the wherewithal to actually govern its lawyers. Or is it just willing to pick low-hanging fruit and duck and cover if the offending lawyer is too powerful? If a federal court finding that a specific lawyer orchestrated a presumptively vindictive prosecution is not enough to pursue an investigation, then there\u2019s not much credibility left to salvage. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s recent reason for cautious optimism. Earlier this month, New York\u2019s Third Department found prosecutorial misconduct<\/a> by another DOJ official, John Sarcone III, on a CfA complaint filed back in August. The machinery, it turns out, still works when somebody tends to the crank.<\/p>\n

Whether the First Department turns it is the open question.<\/p>\n

(Complaint available on the next page\u2026)<\/em><\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: Pam Bondi Declares Herself God-Empress Of Ethics<\/a>
DOJ Sues D.C. Bar For Holding Trump Lawyers To Ethical Rules<\/a>
The Justice Department Is Lowering Its Ethical Guardrails<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Todd Blanche Faces New York Bar Complaint After Federal Judge Flags Vindictive Prosecution<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Todd Blanche has spent the last few months trying to make sure state bar regulators can\u2019t investigate ethical breaches by government lawyers. Before Blanche rose to the Acting Attorney General role, the DOJ dropped a new rule proposal that would overturn federal statute and strip local disciplinary officials of the authority to police government and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-153131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}