University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School professor Claire Finkelstein testified before Congress against the confirmation of Todd Blanche as United States attorney general last Wednesday.
Finkelstein — the faculty director of Penn’s Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law — was invited by Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) to speak at a July 22 forum opposing the nomination of Blanche, who is the current acting attorney general. At the forum, she raised concerns about how Blanche’s conflicts of interest involving 1968 Wharton graduate and President Donald Trump would undermine the Department of Justice’s independence.
“He appears to apply a litmus test to current and potential DOJ lawyers,” Finkelstein said at the event. “If they are not willing to distort the law in favor of Blanche’s former client, Donald Trump, they will likely be removed.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice directed a request for comment to Blanche’s remarks at his confirmation hearing on July 15.
In an interview with The Daily Pennsylvanian, Finkelstein explained that she was asked to testify as a legal expert after publishing an opinion piece on Blanche’s nomination. She characterized his conflicts of interest as “unprecedented” and said it is “fundamentally problematic to have a former attorney of the president serving as attorney general.”
“Some conflicts of interest here are just baked into his situation based on the fact that he represented the president,” Finkelstein told the DP. “Any attorney in his position would have difficulties because of those conflicts.”
However, she also pointed to Blanche’s actions heading the DOJ as evidence of his abandonment of “all pretense of objectivity.” She drew a contrast with former attorney general Robert F. Kennedy — appointed by his own brother in 1961 — who “tried hard to run the Justice Department according to the law” despite the “problematic” nature of his nomination.
In her testimony, Finkelstein cited Blanche’s initiation of “vengeful prosecution” against individuals such as former FBI director James Comey. She also referenced his April 2025 termination of cryptocurrency investigations, which he ordered despite holding at least $159,000 worth of crypto at the time, as further evidence of his conflicts.
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“An even more serious worry is that Mr. Blanche is motivated by the interests of his former client, President Trump, who has earned billions of dollars in cryptocurrency during his second term in office,” Finkelstein said at the forum.
Finkelstein questioned Blanche’s involvement in Trump’s settlement with the Internal Revenue Service and the resulting “anti-weaponization fund.” Even if Blanche is not confirmed, Finkelstein highlighted election integrity as a particularly important issue that he could influence as acting attorney general leading up to the 2026 midterms.
“Every day that Blanche spends in a senior position in the Justice Department is of concern to me, especially as we approach the midterms, because it is on Todd Blanche’s watch that so much of the attempt to acquire voter information has occurred,” she told the DP.
At his confirmation hearing, Blanche defended himself from similar arguments raised by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In response to a question about the DOJ’s efforts to obtain voter data, Blanche said that “election integrity is extraordinarily important to this administration” and that the department’s actions aimed to uphold “fair and honest elections.”
He additionally stated that “crypto enforcement is way up compared to a year and a half ago, so I didn’t eviscerate anything.”
Blanche testified that the type of settlement between Trump and the IRS is “done regularly” — even if it was the first such case involving a U.S. president — and that “the settlement fund’s just not moving forward.”
When pressed on the ethics of his involvement in the IRS case, Blanche insisted that “there are very technical rules around ethics requirements and I follow them.”
Finkelstein acknowledged Blanche’s legal ability, describing him as “effective and competent” but “also so willing to bend the law.” As a result of his conflicts, “Blanche would have to choose between abandoning his professional integrity and rendering himself ineffectual by his own extensive need to recuse” himself as attorney general, according to Finkelstein.
Blanche is still under consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee, where only one Republican vote in opposition — along with all Democrats — would block his nomination. Otherwise, the entire Senate will later vote on confirming him as attorney general.
