Blanche Warns Lawyers Who Criticize Justice Department

The Justice Department’s No. 2 official suggested Thursday that lawyers might have a harder time winning lenient treatment for corporate clients if they’ve publicly accused the Trump administration of being lax on white-collar crime.

Speaking to attorneys who advise companies on U.S. laws that ban payment of bribes overseas, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche insisted DOJ is pursuing such cases with “precision and vigor.” And he made clear that top officials were rankled by some lawyers’ comments contending the administration has de-prioritized white-collar enforcement.

“If folks in this room are going to be honest brokers when counseling clients, posting on LinkedIn or writing client alerts, the public narrative should match the private one. If you publicly claim we are not enforcing white-collar crime aggressively enough, but privately insist that your clients are the victims of overreach, we notice that inconsistency,” Blanche told hundreds of lawyers gathered outside Washington for a conference on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

He did not indicate any specific repercussions for those inconsistencies.

“It's remarkable how some members of the white-collar bar seem to have an endless stream of clients who are each coincidentally victims of supposed overreach or weaponization, but still publicly draft client alerts suggesting that the department is not prioritizing white-collar cases,” Blanche said. “Such a statement is wrong. White-collar cases are a significant priority for President Trump, for the attorney general and for the department.”

Trump issued an executive order “pausing” FCPA enforcementearly in his term, apparently in response to businesses’ complaints that overly aggressive enforcement of the law was driving up costs and causing them to lose business to foreign competitors. The law bars U.S.-based companies from offering bribes to foreign officials.

DOJ issued new enforcement guidelines in June. Blanche maintained Thursday that prosecutors are not giving businesses a pass.

“Bribery, whether domestic or foreign, erodes public trust, destabilizes fair competition and creates the very conditions in which other criminal activity flourishes,” the deputy AG said.

However, Blanche suggested some tactics prosecutors used in the past were excessive and some cases inappropriately focused on trivial gifts or entertainment of foreign officials.

“Investigating a longstanding American business is not the same as pursuing a cartel. … .De minimis courtesies and low-value customary business practices should not be the focus of U.S. criminal enforcement,” Blanche said. He also appeared to part with recent DOJ practice of charging schemes involving foreign companies whose primary connection to the U.S. was through the banking system or stock market. “

“Where bribery schemes lack any meaningful connection to the United States and are more appropriately addressed abroad, we may decline to intervene,” Blanche said.