Senator Elizabeth Warren and six other Senate Democrats are demanding the Department of Justice reverse its decision to dissolve the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET), warning that the move will embolden criminals and raise ethical questions tied to President Donald Trump’s crypto-linked ventures.
In a letter to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the senators called the shuttering of the NCET a “grave mistake” that removes a key barrier against crimes including money laundering, sanctions evasion, child exploitation, and drug trafficking.
“The decision effectively gives a free pass to cryptocurrency money launderers,” the letter said, claiming that crypto mixers and privacy-enhancing tools “remain go-to options for cybercriminals.”
The NCET, launched under the Biden administration in 2021, was disbanded by Blanche on April 7. In a staff memo, Blanche said the Justice Department would no longer serve as a de facto digital assets regulator and criticized previous enforcement efforts as regulatory overreach.
Blanche, a former attorney for President Donald Trump and now the second-highest-ranking official at the DOJ, wrote in the four-page memo that the Justice Department was never intended to serve as a regulator for digital assets.
Warren and her colleagues — Senators Richard Durbin, Mazie Hirono, Sheldon Whitehouse, Christopher Coons, and Richard Blumenthal — sharply rejected Blanche’s rationale. They argued the disbanding of the crypto crime unit creates a “systemic vulnerability” that will be exploited by international adversaries, traffickers, and online fraudsters.
The letter also tied the DOJ’s policy change to President Trump’s growing involvement in the digital asset sector. Warren and the co-signers raised “serious concerns” about what they described as a potential conflict of interest, pointing to recent crypto ventures by the Trump family.
These include World Liberty Financial — a decentralized finance platform reportedly backed by Trump family members — and a proposed stablecoin project tied to the same platform. Trump’s sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., are also working on a U.S.-based crypto mining business called American Bitcoin.
The senators requested a briefing from DOJ officials by May 1 and demanded transparency around the decision to end the department’s primary crypto enforcement division.
The political battle comes at a time when the federal government is weighing a broader crypto legislative package, while Trump-era appointees — including Blanche — continue to reorient federal agencies toward a less interventionist stance on digital assets.
In the memo announcing the NCET’s closure, Blanche accused the Biden administration of misusing the DOJ for “regulation by prosecution,” reinforcing the divide between current and former administrations on crypto policy.
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