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 specialists. Martin had no prosecutorial expertise. He was greatest often called 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 alter 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 specialists. There have been not less than 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 seem 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 have 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 doable 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 appearing 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 attorneys in his workplace, together with the 2 prosecutors who led the Jan. 6 workforce, to low-level roles in D.C. Superior Court docket, which handles native prosecutions. (A lot of the affected attorneys haven’t commented publicly, however those that have are essential 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 Court docket 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 Individuals in internment camps throughout World Battle 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 employees” to guard the individuals 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 help 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 top of the Earth to carry them accountable,” Martin wrote.
He urged his staff to answer Musk’s demand that each one federal staff checklist 5 issues they achieved that week, including: “DOGE and Elon are doing nice work! Historic.”
And when DOGE staff tried to grab management of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a non-public 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. Secure Once more,” despite the fact that 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 medication, firearms possession, youngster exploitation, human trafficking and immigration violations. The 2 attorneys, who had many years of expertise between them and have been extensively revered, have 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 checklist, a repository of police officer disciplinary information. Prosecutors seek the advice of the Lewis database after they determine whether or not to place a police officer on the witness stand. In addition they use the Lewis checklist to determine officers about whom they should disclose data to protection attorneys that bears on a witness’s credibility or potential bias to satisfy their constitutional obligations.
Martin framed his choice to reform the Lewis checklist as a part of a broader shift to be extra pro-police. “USAO will not enable judges or others to gratuitously injury 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 checklist will solely make it tougher for prosecutors to argue and win circumstances as a result of it might deprive them of data that they have to disclose in court docket. “Gutting the Lewis checklist,” Romano advised ProPublica, “makes it much less possible that prosecutors will get hold of convictions at trial, makes it extra possible that convictions shall be reversed on attraction and places prosecutors’ licenses to observe 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 help Ukraine in its warfare towards Russia, The Washington Submit reported. Vindman and his twin brother, Alex, each blew the whistle on Trump’s try to withhold army assist to Ukraine whereas pressuring the nation’s chief to research 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 acquired letters from Martin’s workplace associated to the ex-president’s choice to grant pardons to individuals near him, The New York Instances 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 they’d made. The inquiries appeared to have fizzled out and didn’t end in any prices.
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 School 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 will have 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 might have misled readers?”
Two different medical journal publishers acquired comparable letters, The New York Instances reported. The letters have raised grave issues about curbing free speech and authorities intimidation of scientific publications.
