Bloch was born in New York City and grew up in Los Angeles, where his father, who used the name Walter Black, was a writer for a number of popular television shows.

[2] Bloch also served on the Founders' Committee of Wyoming Catholic College from 2002 to 2005, and is a member of the Knights of Malta and a local society of admirers of Hilaire Belloc.

[13] Bloch later retracted his statements and stated his office did not have the legal authority to protect employees from workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

[10] After being embroiled in a related "internal purge" controversy (see below), Special Counsel Bloch testified before a Senate panel on May 24, 2005 and reiterated his original position that he lacked the authority to protect federal employees on the basis of sexual orientation.

[17] In January 2005, controversy ensued when Bloch ordered twelve OSC staffers, including the only two known gay employees, to transfer to distant cities or lose their jobs.

The Washington Blade reported that, according to unnamed sources "familiar with the agency", employees had been targeted partly because of their disagreement with diminishing the jurisdiction of the OSC in prosecuting antigay workplace discrimination.

[7] In October 2005, the US Office of Personnel Management ordered an investigation of claims that Special Counsel Bloch retaliated against employees who disagreed with his policies.

Bloch's deputy issued a memo urging OSC employees to only meet with probe investigaters in a certain conference room and to report their interactions to their supervisors.

Employees reported other attempts to obstruct the investigation including "suggestions that all witnesses interviewed ... provide Bloch with affidavits describing what they had been asked and how they responded.

"[22] Bloch became most notorious for hiring "Geeks on Call", a private technological services company, to perform a "seven level wipe" of his home and office computers in 2007 after becoming involved in litigation with OSC subordinates who accused him of politically motivated harassment.

Bloch pleaded guilty to criminal charges of contempt of Congress in 2010, but was allowed to withdraw that plea in 2011 after being sentenced by the U.S. Magistrate Judge to serve 30 days in jail in addition to other conditions, of which imprisonment (and public chastisement) his attorney, William M. Sullivan Jr. of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP and U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors had not expected.

Bloch later pleaded guilty again in U.S. District Court, this time to the misdemeanor of destroying government property, and was sentenced in June 2013 to serve two years probation and a day in jail, as well as to pay a $5000 fine and devote 200 hours to community service.

[30] The New York Times reported that the investigation concerned whether Bloch had hired an outside company to "scrub" computer files to prevent an inquiry into whether he had violated the Hatch Act by mixing politics with his job, which is to shield whistleblowers.