Six US senators, Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Chris Coons (D-DE), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, strongly criticizing his April 2025 decision to disband the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET).
Senators say this is a huge conflict of interest because Blanche personally owned a large amount of cryptocurrency at the time he made the decision. The letter claims that he held between $158,000 and $470,000, mainly in Bitcoin and Ethereum, and that Blanche didn’t start selling his holdings until months after the decision.
The argument is that this may break federal ethics laws, which forbid government officials from making decisions that could affect their own money or investments.
Senators have demanded all records and communications about his crypto investments and how the decision was made, with a deadline of February 11, 2026. Reports indicate a formal ethics complaint has also been filed with the DOJ Office of the Inspector General.
Additionally, the lawmakers also point to reports showing illegal crypto activity spiked in 2025, involving hundreds of billions of dollars in crimes such as human trafficking or hacks. They argue this proves how important it is to have a strong federal team fighting crypto crime and that shutting one down is risky.
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});The crypto enforcement team, known as the NCET, was created in 2022 to focus the Justice Department’s efforts on fighting crypto crime like fraud and money laundering. The team led big investigations, including the one into the Binance exchange and its founder, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao.
However, in April 2025, Blanche issued a policy that disbanded the NCET. Legal actions perceived as “regulation by prosecution” were halted, too.
He also told federal prosecutors to focus on crypto used for obvious crimes like terrorism or drug deals, and not go after trading platforms or wallets for breaking financial rules.
Blanche defended his policy by saying that the Department of Justice is not a digital assets regulator, and that such matters should be left to financial regulators rather than the criminal justice system.
Related:
