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This story was originally published by ProPublica.

Before Todd Blanche could be confirmed as the second-highest official at the Justice Department, he had to satisfy the concerns of ethics officials.

Blanche, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney during his New York criminal trial last year, was a cryptocurrency investor with holdings of between $159,000 and $485,000, records show.

To prevent possible violations of the federal conflicts of interest statute, Blanche promised to dump his digital assets no later than 90 days after his Senate confirmation in March, according to his government ethics agreement. He also pledged not to participate in any matter that could have a “direct and predictable effect on my financial interests in the virtual currency” until his Bitcoin and other crypto-related products were sold.

But about a month into the job — before divesting — Blanche issued a memo that ordered an end to investigations into crypto companies, dealers and exchanges launched during President Joe Biden’s term. He also eliminated an enforcement team dedicated to looking for crypto-related fraud and money-laundering schemes. And his memo said the Justice Department would assist Trump’s crypto working group of experts and Cabinet members that went on to issue a list of recommendations aimed at making the United States the global leader in digital coins.

Blanche’s directives, while he still owned significant crypto investments, violated the conflicts of interest law and his ethics agreement, legal experts and former federal ethics officials told ProPublica.

“If you are invested in that industry and now making a decision that could affect whether or not the DOJ is gonna pursue prosecutions, that’s an obvious conflict of interest,” said Virginia Canter, who served as an ethics lawyer at the White House, Treasury Department and Securities and Exchange Commission during the presidencies of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Even when he did ultimately divest his crypto interests, Blanche’s ethics records show he did so by transferring them to his adult children and a grandchild, a move the experts said is technically legal but at odds with the spirit and intent of the law.

Blanche’s actions illustrate the ethical problems posed as the Trump administration relaxes regulation of digital money to make good on the president’s vow to make the U.S. “the crypto capital of the world.” In less than a year, Trump has nominated at least 216 political appointees who owned — either by themselves or with their spouses — cryptocurrency investments worth between $175 million and $340 million at the time of their nomination, a ProPublica review of federal financial disclosure records found. By contrast, in the first two years of his presidency, Biden appointed about two dozen people who, combined, held less than $7 million in crypto investments.

Trump’s crypto-friendly appointees include several who head agencies with regulatory authority over the industry.

Among them is Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Until this year, Lutnick was CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, a financial services firm with billions in crypto investments. The firm is also the primary banker for Tether, among the world’s largest issuers of stablecoins — a type of crypto pegged to the dollar or another asset to avoid wild swings in value.

After signing an ethics agreement, Lutnick transferred his stake in Cantor Fitzgerald to his children, including his two adult sons who now run the firm. The transfer was completed in October. By then, Lutnick had taken several........

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