Ex-prosecutors raise alarm over Trump loyalist tapped for key U.S. attorney post
WASHINGTON — Former federal prosecutors and outside organizations raised alarms this week over the nomination of Ed Martin, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, to take over as the top federal prosecutor in Washington on a permanent basis.
Martin — who backed Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and advocated for defendants in Jan. 6 Capitol riot cases — had no prosecutorial experience before Trump made him interim U.S. attorney on Inauguration Day. And he has taken a number of highly unusual and political actions since he took over the position on a temporary basis.
On Wednesday, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee called for a hearing on Martin’s nomination, which would break from standard practice for nominees for U.S. attorney positions. Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., announced this week that he would place a hold on Martin’s nomination, which could delay a vote on his nomination.
In a letter sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee this week and obtained by NBC News, more than 100 former assistant U.S. attorneys who worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia signed a “Statement of Conscience and Principle” laying out why they see Martin as unfit.
“We are determined that the values and norms that were birthed during the tenure of John Thomson Mason and his successors — a commitment to the rule of law, the absence of partisanship in the pursuit of justice, the presence of civility, decency, and fairness — continue unabated now and hereafter,” the statement reads, calling Martin “unworthy of the position.”
Daniel Toomey, a former federal prosecutor who served in the office from 1968 to 1971, told NBC News the letter grew out of a regular Zoom call that started around four years ago involving alumni of the Washington federal prosecutor’s office, many of whom worked there in the late 1960s and the early 1970s.
“When we started to learn about Ed Martin, we, to a man and irrespective of our politics, were appalled,” Toomey told NBC News. “We have never, ever seen anything like this in the U.S. attorney’s office.”
Toomey said that the list of signers leans toward those who have retired from practicing law and that they believe the list would be in the “hundreds” if not for those still in private practice who may be worried about retaliation by the Trump administration.
“I can’t tell you the number of people who would call, and friends of mine would call, who said, ‘I fully agree with you, but I can’t sign this,'” Toomey said.
Toomey said some signers of the letter plan to meet with Senate staffers next week to express their concerns.
The letter ticks through a number of Martin’s actions in office, including the termination of some federal prosecutors who worked Jan. 6 cases; his social media posts about active investigations; and the unusual letters he has sent to Democratic members of Congress suggesting he’s investigating their speech.
“In his ‘tryout’ phase, he has butchered the position, effectively destroying it as a vehicle by which to pursue justice and turning it into a political arm of the current administration,” reads the statement from the former assistant U.S. attorneys.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, said Thursday that Trump had “nominated Ed Martin precisely because he’s confident Mr. Martin will place his blind and unlimited loyalty to Trump above his duty to enforce the law impartially.”
Martin did not respond to a message seeking comment.
Martin recently submitted documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee in connection with his nomination, which indicate he never litigated a trial and show that most of the legal experience he identifies as his most significant matters had to with Jan. 6, including representing three defendants.
Among his 10 “most significant litigated matters,” according to the documents he submitted, which were obtained by NBC News, were four matters he has been involved with as interim U.S. attorney, including making sure cases that were affected by Trump’s pardons — including those of Jan. 6 participants and anti-abortion rights demonstrators — were “disposed of in accordance with President Donald J. Trump’s decision to exercise his powers under Article II of the United States Constitution.”
Martin has an extensive digital footprint, but the Senate questionnaire blows past some of the more noteworthy moments of his career. His speech at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 5, 2021, in which he encouraged “die-hard true Americans” to fight until their “last breath” to “stop the steal,” is not listed. His list of publications also does not include “Can’t Trump this COVFEFE: Top Trump Tweets,” a coloring book that nods to a typo Trump made on social media in 2017. And episodes of Martin’s old podcasts, which he does list on the form, now show up as “temporarily unavailable” on iTunes.
Source link
