{"id":21599,"date":"2025-04-11T00:22:30","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T00:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=21599"},"modified":"2025-04-11T00:22:30","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T00:22:30","slug":"senate-dems-slam-dojs-decision-to-axe-crypto-unit-as-a-free-pass-for-criminals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=21599","title":{"rendered":"Senate Dems Slam DOJ\u2019s Decision to Axe Crypto Unit as a \u2018Free Pass\u2019 For Criminals"},"content":{"rendered":"
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U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is under fire from Senate Democrats following his recent decision to narrow the Department of Justice\u2019s (DOJ) crypto enforcement priorities and disband its crypto enforcement squad.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In a Thursday letter<\/a> to Blanche, six Senate Democrats \u2014 Sens. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I), Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) \u2014\u00a0blasted his decision to cut the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET) as \u201cgiv[ing] a free pass to cryptocurrency money launderers.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Senators called Blanche\u2019s directive that DOJ staff no longer pursue cases against crypto exchanges, mixers or offline wallets \u201cfor the acts of their end users\u201d or bring criminal charges for regulatory violations in cases involving crypto, including violations of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), \u201cnonsensical.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cBy abdicating DOJ\u2019s responsibility to enforce federal criminal law when violations involve digital assets, you are suggesting that virtual currency exchanges, mixers, and other entities dealing in digital assets need not fulfill their [anti-money laundering\/countering the financing of terrorism] obligations, creating a systemic vulnerability in the digital assets sector,\u201d the lawmakers wrote. \u201cDrug traffickers, terrorists, fraudsters, and adversaries will exploit this vulnerability on a large scale.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In his memo to DOJ staff<\/a> on Monday evening, Blanche cited U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s January executive order on crypto, which promised to bring regulatory clarity to the crypto industry, as the reason for his decision.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Department of Justice is not a digital assets regulator,\u201d Blanche wrote, adding that the agency will \u201cno longer pursue litigation or enforcement actions that have the effect of superimposing regulatory frameworks on digital assets while President Trump’s actual regulators do this work outside the punitive criminal justice framework.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Instead, Blanche urged DOJ staff to focus their enforcement efforts on prosecuting criminals who use \u201cvictimize digital asset investors\u201d or those who use crypto in the furtherance of other criminal schemes, like organized crime, gang financing, and terrorism.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Read more: DOJ Axes Crypto Unit As Trump\u2019s Regulatory Pullback Continues<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

For the Senate Democrats, however, Blanche\u2019s claim doesn\u2019t quite cut the mustard.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cYou claim in your memo that DOJ will continue to prosecute those who use cryptocurrencies to perpetrate crimes. But allowing the entities that enable these crimes \u2014 such as cryptocurrency kiosk operators \u2014 to operate outside the federal regulatory framework without fear of prosecution will only result in more Americans being exploited,\u201d the lawmakers wrote.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The lawmakers urged Blanche to reconsider his decision to dismantle NCET, calling it a \u201ccritical resource for state and local law enforcement who often lack the technical knowledge and skill to investigate cryptocurrency related crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

New York Attorney General Letitia James raised similar concerns in her own letter to Congress<\/a> on Thursday, urging lawmakers to pass federal legislation to regulate the crypto markets. Though her letter itself made no mention of Blanche\u2019s memo or the shuttering of NCET, a press release from her office highlighted that her letter \u201ccomes after the [DOJ] announced the dismantling of federal criminal cryptocurrency fraud enforcement, making a robust regulatory framework all the more critical.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is under fire from Senate Democrats following his recent decision to narrow the Department of Justice\u2019s (DOJ) crypto enforcement priorities and disband its crypto enforcement squad. In a Thursday letter to Blanche, six Senate Democrats \u2014 Sens. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-21599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21599\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}