UPDATE: Ed Martin says, "Ed, hold my beer"
In a nation full of lawyers, surely there are 1.3 million better choices for U.S Attorney in D.C.
By Sam Bellamy
Ed Martin, the acting U.S. Attorney for Washington, seems to be engaged his own one-man game of “hold my beer,” coming up with new and astonishing ways to do something more stupid than the last astonishingly stupid thing he did.
On Friday, Martin released a “Dear Blue” letter to police officers in the city heralding a new era where “At every turn, we will defend you. You deserve nothing less.”
This, mind you, is from the man who advocated for Donald Trump to pardon the 1,500 cop-beaters and other miscreants who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6th in a failed attempt to stop the lawful certification of Joe Biden’s win.
This is the man who, following Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20th of this year, proceeded to dismiss all charges against every single one of the cop-beaters, vandals and roving defecators – some of whom Martin had helped whip into a frenzy before Jan. 6th, represented in court as a lawyer in private practice and raised money to try to free before Trump’s return to office.
But on Friday, Martin had the gall to say in his letter “we will tolerate no more ‘assaults on police officers’ (APO). If a thug assaults an officer, my office will prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law.”
More batshittery followed: “This USAO will stand up in court against the ‘public defender service’ (PDS) and anyone who maligns our officers for sport or advantage unfairly. We will stand up to judges who allow this conduct.”
For sport or unfair advantage? Whatever that means, he clearly doesn’t think judges should be the judge of that.
At the top of the letter, Martin hails Trump’s pardon of two police officers convicted by a federal jury in connection with their unauthorized high-speed chase of a 20-year-old D.C. man in 2020.
The man, who had no gun, was spotted driving a moped on a city sidewalk and refused orders by the officers to stop. They chased him 10 blocks until he was hit by another motorist and sustained a head injury that led to his death two days later.
You can read about the case here. Evidence showed that the officers denied they’d engaged in a chase and took multiple steps to obscure an investigation, even driving over the point of collision and crushing evidence. They claimed they believed the moped driver was drunk.
For good measure, Martin also declared in his letter, “The radical ‘Defund the Police’ movement by Black Lives Matter is over and BLM Plaza will soon be painted over. Good riddance.”
Trump has nominated Martin to take on the role of U.S. Attorney in D.C. permanently.
Congress needs to say no. Martin’s little one-man “hold my beer” contest is certainly great sport. But he’s dangerous.
The piece below by Sam Bellamy, “Trump's riotously awful choice for U.S. Attorney in D.C.,” appeared March 7 at Fight the Fire:
By Sam Bellamy
There are more than 1.3 million lawyers , in the United States, or about one for every 250 residents, according to the American Bar Association. Yet we’ve ended up with eminently unfit Ed Martin as the interim – and potentially permanent – head of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington D.C.
Martin, a relatively obscure conservative activist and defense lawyer from Missouri who has never served as a prosecutor, gained stature in Trump world when he organized and spoke at Stop the Steal rallies in Washington leading up to the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol by a MAGA mob.
From Martin’s telling, it was an unremarkable scene. He posted on Twitter, “I’m at the Capitol right now. Abd (sic) I was at the POTUS speech earlier. Rowdy crowd but nothing out of hand. Ignore the #FakeNews.” (“Sic,” as you’ll see, follows this man around.)
Afterward, Martin circulated the lie that the riot was “staged,” falsely claimed that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was to blame for not adding more security at the Capitol, represented several rioters (including a member of the ever-charming Proud Boys) in court, raised money for the defense of other rioters and, of course, continued to insist that Trump had really won the election. According to The Intercept, he’s even argued for cash reparations for rioters who spent time in jail or prison.
All of which made for a gleaming resume when Trump’s people were looking for someone – among the nation’s 1.3 million lawyers, one for every 250 Americans – to take over the U.S. Attorney’s Office job in D.C.
Martin got off to a roaring start, dismissing hundreds of pending cases against the rioters after Trump pardoned them. Within hours of a federal judge issuing an order barring Oath Keepers convicted of Jan. 6 crimes from entering D.C., Martin rushed to file a motion on their behalf, eventually winning a reversal.
Soon, Martin launched an investigation into possible misconduct by prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases and demoted several of them to lower-level jobs involving minor crimes.
Others in the office – with the prosecutorial experience he lacks – have drawn Martin’s ire, too. Last month, he ordered a top criminal prosecutor in the office, Denise Cheung, to open a grand jury investigation of climate change-related funding under the Biden administration. She refused, he asked for her resignation, and she gave it.
On Valentine’s Day, Martin posted a threat against a law firm providing pro bono services to Jack Smith, the special prosecutor despised by all Trumpers. “Save your receipts, Smith and Covington. We’ll be in touch soon. #NoOneIsAboveTheLaw.”
A couple of weeks later, Martin hinted that the Associated Press could be in legal trouble, presumably for its failure to call the Gulf of Mexico anything but that. He posted on X, “As President Trumps’ (sic) lawyers, we are proud to fight to protect his leadership as our President and we are vigilant in standing against entities like the AP that refuse to put America first.”
When the previously unnamed teenagers in Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency were identified by the media and government watchdogs, Martin reacted angrily and threatened on X to prosecute anyone who doxed or threatened DOGE staffers. He posted a copy of a letter to Musk stating, “We will chase them to the end of the Earth to hold them accountable. Noone (sic) is above the law.”
Martin also launched an investigation called “Operation Whirlwind” to look into the use of violent rhetoric by Democrats. He reached back five years to focus on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s remark that two of Trump’s Supreme Court nominees, Brett Kavanagh and Neil Gorsuch, would “pay the price” for voting against abortion rights. Schumer had apologized soon after he said, stating “I shouldn’t have used the words I did, but in no way was I making a threat. I never — never — would do such a thing.”
Martin wrote three letters to Schumer’s office about the incident, and this week the investigation ended without charges.
Also this week, The Washington Post reported that Martin has been waging a little war against the Georgetown Law School, whose alumni include more than four dozen sitting federal judges, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell, and countless interns and lawyers throughout the Justice Department and other government offices.
On social media, Martin has been promoting a recent American Spectator article headlined, “Hoyagate: Georgetown Law is Vatican of Trump Hatred.” The piece calls for elimination of the university’s $1 billion in federal grant, loan and research fees over six years because some of its professors have spoken against Trump.
According to The Post, Martin sent a letter last month to the dean of the Georgetown Law School warning that his office would not hire graduates from the university as long as it had diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
It turns out the letter was misaddressed – presumably by a highly qualified white person – so it had to be resent this week.
Georgetown officials are rather annoyed, as you can imagine.
“The letter inquires about Georgetown’s curriculum and classroom teaching, which is protected by the First Amendment,” university spokeswoman Meghan Dubyak said in a statement. “Restricting or suppressing legally protected speech would contradict the First Amendment, contravene the University’s mission, and undermine the educational experience that prepares students to navigate an increasingly complex world.”
I’m guessing more than 1.3 million lawyers, one for every 250 Americans, could have told Martin that.
Not surprisingly, Trump loves this.
Last month, he nominated Martin to take over the D.C. office permanently. “Since Inauguration Day, Ed has been doing a great job as Interim U.S. Attorney, fighting tirelessly to restore Law and Order, and make our Nation’s Capital Safe and Beautiful Again,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “He will get the job done.” Martin will have to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate first.
Vox and CNN have both done excellent pieces delving into Martin’s past. Nothing in it makes him a good choice to restore Law and Order. Or even to leave it well enough alone.
Martin served as chief of staff for then-Gov. Matt Blunt in Missouri from 2006 to 2007. Martin resigned after a lawsuit was filed over his failure to abide by state open-records laws and release emails related to an investigation into allegations he used his office to influence political groups against political opponents. Newspapers eventually got the emails, which showed Martin had done exactly that.
Martin proceeded to lose a bid for Congress in 2010 and for state attorney general in 2012, then was named chair of the Missouri Republican Party, which he left in debt after two years. He later ran – and lost – a race for the Board of Supervisors in Fairfax County, Va., outside of D.C.
Martin also resumed his work on behalf of conservative causes, including anti-abortion efforts, allied himself with anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly, and – what else? – hosted a talk radio show.
CNN listened to dozens of episodes of the shows so we wouldn’t have to and heard, among other things, Martin suggesting that women might someday face charges for obtaining abortions. “Could be criminal, could be a jail sentence, I suppose,” he said.
According to CNN, Martin called for a national abortion ban without exceptions for rape and incest. In one show, he cited the case of a 10-year-old girl from Ohio who was raped in 2022. “I have said over and over again the examples that shouldn’t be the rule, right?” he opined. “You can’t let the exceptions be the rule.”
Martin also claimed, outrageously, it is “an absolute scientific fact that no abortion is ever performed to save the life of the mother.” There are, incidentally, more than 1.1 million physicians in the United States. He isn’t one of them.
During Trump’s first term, Martin also served briefly as a talking head on CNN but was dismissed after he called two of his co-panelists “Black racists” and “rabid feminists.”
Blessedly, Martin’s path to Senate confirmation will be a rocky one. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, one of few Republicans showing signs of an intact spine, has already expressed doubts about the nominee’s fitness.
And this week, according to The New York Times, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee asked the D.C. Bar’s disciplinary counsel to investigate Martin for abusing his prosecutorial power to threaten political opponents. Among other things, the complaint also alleges that Martin dismissed charges against a Jan. 6 rioter he was still listed as representing as a private attorney.
Additionally, more than 50 former prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office drafted a letter to the Senate this week calling for rejection of Martin’s nomination, saying he’s “unworthy” of the job.
You probably drew that conclusion around paragraph two of this column. The Senate – we’re looking at you, Republicans – needs to tell Trump to find someone else among the 1.3 million possibilities.