When President Donald Trump selected Ed Martin, the Missouri lawyer and political operative, to be the highest U.S. legal professional for Washington, D.C., the choice got here as a shock to present and former federal prosecutors in addition to exterior authorized consultants. Martin had no prosecutorial expertise. He was greatest referred to as a conservative activist, the previous right-hand man to influential anti-feminist icon Phyllis Schlafly and a loyal Trump surrogate.
Since taking cost of the workplace in January, Martin has launched controversial investigations, rushed to defend Elon Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity and vowed to vary how his workplace prosecutes crime within the District of Columbia.
His actions have been met with fierce pushback from Democratic lawmakers, watchdog teams and authorized consultants. There have been a minimum of 4 disciplinary complaints filed towards him with the D.C. and Missouri bars. One of many D.C. complaints has been dismissed; the opposite three look like pending. If Martin has responded to the complaints, his statements haven’t been made public.
Martin didn’t reply to repeated requests for remark.
Listed below are a few of Martin’s most contentious strikes to this point.
Jan. 6 Retribution
At Trump’s course, Martin has presided over the dismissal of excellent circumstances that had been a part of the Justice Division’s investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, riots on the Capitol.
However Martin acquired tripped up by what ought to have been a authorized formality: In one of many circumstances he dismissed, he was nonetheless listed as counsel of report for the defendant, a attainable battle of curiosity. The incident prompted bar complaints towards Martin in D.C. and Missouri. (The D.C. bar’s disciplinary panel dismissed the grievance, saying Martin had been performing on the behest of the president. The Missouri grievance seems to be pending.)
Martin fired greater than a dozen federal prosecutors who labored on Jan. 6 circumstances. He demoted seven senior legal professionals in his workplace, together with the 2 prosecutors who led the Jan. 6 staff, to low-level roles in D.C. Superior Courtroom, which handles native prosecutions. (A lot of the affected attorneys haven’t commented publicly, however those that have are important of Martin’s tenure.)
Martin has opened an investigation into supposed leaks associated to Jan. 6 circumstances, saying the data was used “by the media and partisans as misinformation.” He additionally ordered an investigation into previous charging choices made as a part of the Jan. 6 circumstances. In 2024, the U.S. Supreme Courtroom overturned the DOJ’s use of an obstruction statute in these prosecutions. In an office-wide e-mail obtained by ProPublica, Martin quoted an unnamed contact who in contrast the DOJ’s use of the obstruction statute to President Franklin Roosevelt’s choice to imprison greater than 100,000 Japanese People in internment camps throughout World Warfare II.
DOGE Enforcer
Martin has printed a number of open letters to Musk on the Musk-owned social media platform X.
Within the first letter, dated Feb. 3, Martin requested Musk to “make the most of me and my workers” to guard the folks and the work of DOGE. He vowed to take “any and all authorized motion towards anybody” who impeded DOGE’s work.
“We is not going to act just like the earlier administration,” Martin added, “who seemed the opposite approach because the Antifa and BLM rioters in addition to thugs with weapons trashed our capital metropolis.”
In his second letter, dated Feb. 7, Martin expanded on his pledge to his workplace’s authorized powers in assist of Musk and DOGE’s work. “Please let me reiterate once more: If persons are found to have damaged the regulation and even acted merely unethically, we are going to examine them and we are going to chase them to the tip of the Earth to carry them accountable,” Martin wrote.
He urged his workers to answer Musk’s demand that each one federal workers listing 5 issues they achieved that week, including: “DOGE and Elon are doing nice work! Historic.”
And when DOGE workers tried to grab management of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a personal nonprofit that receives authorities funding, Martin and his workplace assisted in order that DOGE may take over and wind down the nonprofit.
“We Will Defend You”
The U.S. legal professional’s workplace for D.C. is exclusive in that it prosecutes each federal and native crimes. In his tweets and public statements, Martin has vowed to “Make D.C. Protected Once more,” though violent crime has broadly declined within the District lately.
Whereas his public security agenda is gentle on particulars to this point, he has pledged to be a stalwart defender of the D.C. police. In one more open letter posted on X, Martin wrote that the “radical ‘Defund the Police’ motion by Black Lives Matter is over” and that it was “time to get again to defending and supporting our regulation enforcement officers.”
“At each flip, we are going to defend you,” he stated.
But present and former federal prosecutors in D.C. say Martin’s actions to this point have undercut morale within the workplace whereas his proposed reforms may make it tougher, not simpler, for prosecutors to do their jobs.
In February, Martin eliminated the chief and deputy chief of the Federal Main Crimes part, which oversees circumstances involving medicine, firearms possession, baby exploitation, human trafficking and immigration violations. The 2 legal professionals, who had a long time of expertise between them and had been broadly revered, had been demoted to low-level roles; the extra senior of the 2, Melissa Jackson, resigned quickly afterward. (Jackson declined to remark; her deputy didn’t reply to requests for remark.)
Martin additionally stated he was “rewriting” the workplace’s coverage for the so-called Lewis listing, a repository of police officer disciplinary information. Prosecutors seek the advice of the Lewis database after they resolve whether or not to place a police officer on the witness stand. Additionally they use the Lewis listing to determine officers about whom they should disclose info to protection attorneys that bears on a witness’s credibility or potential bias to meet their constitutional obligations.
Martin framed his choice to reform the Lewis listing as a part of a broader shift to be extra pro-police. “USAO will now not permit judges or others to gratuitously harm your careers due to the outsized impression of inexact characterizations,” he wrote.
Michael Romano, a former federal prosecutor within the D.C. workplace, stated that any effort to weaken or get rid of the Lewis listing will solely make it tougher for prosecutors to argue and win circumstances as a result of it might deprive them of data that they need to disclose in court docket. “Gutting the Lewis listing,” Romano informed ProPublica, “makes it much less seemingly that prosecutors will get hold of convictions at trial, makes it extra seemingly that convictions will likely be reversed on attraction and places prosecutors’ licenses to apply regulation in danger.”
Investigating Democrats
Martin has initiated a number of inquiries into critics and opponents of Trump.
Martin requested Rep. Eugene Vindman, D-Va., for details about a enterprise that Vindman and his brother, Alexander, began to assist Ukraine in its struggle towards Russia, The Washington Submit reported. Vindman and his twin brother, Alex, each blew the whistle on Trump’s try to withhold navy help to Ukraine whereas pressuring the nation’s chief to analyze the household of President Joe Biden. Eugene Vindman stated that Martin’s letter was a part of Trump’s “retribution marketing campaign” and that those that wrote the letter and “inspired this bizarre try at intimidation are mendacity.”
Biden’s relations and former officers from his administration obtained letters from Martin’s workplace associated to the ex-president’s choice to grant pardons to folks near him, The New York Occasions reported. Trump has pushed an unproven principle that Biden’s actions weren’t legitimate as a result of he wasn’t mentally competent.
He additionally despatched letters to Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and Rep. Robert Garcia of California, each Democrats, asking them to reply questions on incendiary public feedback that they had made. The inquiries appeared to have fizzled out and didn’t end in any fees.
Concentrating on Medical Journals
On Apr. 14, Martin despatched an inventory of questions to the editor of Chest journal, a medical journal printed by the American Faculty of Chest Physicians. The letter accused the journal and others prefer it of “being partisans in varied scientific debates” and requested a collection of contentious questions, resembling “How do you clearly articulate when you’ve sure viewpoints which might be influenced by your ongoing relations with supporters, funders, advertisers, and others?” and “How do you deal with allegations that authors of works in your journals could have misled readers?”
Two different medical journal publishers obtained related letters, The New York Occasions reported. The letters have raised grave issues about curbing free speech and authorities intimidation of scientific publications.
