UPDATE: U.S. Attorney nominee pals around with little Timmy Hitler
As a confirmation hearing nears, Ed Martin belatedly tries to distance himself from Nazi sympathizer
By Sam Bellamy
Ed Martin, our stable genius’s repulsive nominee for U.S. Attorney in Washington D.C., is scrambling to distance himself from a Nazi sympathizer and white supremacist he’s praised repeatedly – including at a fundraiser at Donald Trump’s Bedminster golf club last summer.
“It’s one of the goals of many of us to make sure that the world, and especially America, hears more from Tim Hale, because he’s extraordinary,” Martin said at the event, where money was raised to try to free soon-to-be-pardoned Jan. 6th rioters.
The extraordinary fellow in question is Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, a rioter you may recall from previous Fight the Fire pieces here and here. He’s especially memorable for once sporting a Hitler mustache and for frequently spewing antisemitic remarks to former co-workers, including lamenting that the Nazis didn’t “finish the job” of eliminating Jews.
Martin has appeared at numerous events with little Timmy in recent years, including two last summer at Bedminster. At an August soiree, Martin presented an award to Hale-Cusanelli, calling him an “extraordinary leader.”
But in an interview published Thursday in the Forward, a Jewish publication, Martin couldn’t seem to apologize enough for his association with the extraordinary Nazi. He’s clearly worried he’ll lose U.S. Senate approval for his nomination because of his friendship with the man.
“I denounce everything about what that guy said, everything about the way he talked, and all as I’ve now seen it,” Martin told the news outlet. “At the time, I didn’t know it.”
This is, quite obviously, a lie. A tremendous one.
Last July, Martin hosted Hale-Cusanelli on a podcast (listen here) and discussed at length the evidence that the Justice Department presented in its prosecution of his guest for his role in the 2021 insurrection.
Hale-Cusanelli was one of the first people to breach the Capitol that day. He later claimed on the stand at his trial that he didn’t know that Congress met there or that lawmakers were inside trying to certify Joe Biden’s decisive win over Trump. Hale-Cusanelli, who told a friend the riot was “exhilarating,” videotaped himself at various times before and during the riot, including screaming “Fuck you! The revolution will be televised, cunt!” at a police officer guarding the Capitol.
Like almost all the others found guilty of participating in the riot, Hale-Cusanelli was pardoned by Trump on Inauguration Day. Martin, who is currently acting U.S. attorney in D.C., was one of the reprobates in Trump’s inner circle who recommended the mass pardons; he signed documents freeing many of them from incarceration at what he called “the D.C. gulag.”
“I’ve gotten to know him really well,” Martin said on the podcast. “I’d say we’re friends.” He added that the two had grown even closer since Trump’s pardon and that he’d had the opportunity to read Hale-Cusanelli’s writing, which he’d found impressive.
The government’s case against Hale-Cusanelli was strong, as was the evidence that he had a long history of antisemitism and advocacy of violence. Among other things, there was a photograph of him sporting a Hitler mustache, which Martin characterized on the podcast as “not your best moment” and “goofing around.”
As Mother Jones magazine and others have reported, Martin falsely accused prosecutors of “leaking” the photo to the media.
That’s an astounding accusation for someone with Martin’s experience as an attorney and prosecutor. There was no leak; the photo was in public court filings for all to see, along with other documents demonstrating little Timmy’s extremist views. That’s what good prosecutors do – present evidence.
“They used your phone and … leaked the photo to say, ‘Look, these people, these MAGA people are antisemitic,’” Martin said on the podcast. “And the photo was of you … you had, like, a mustache shaped in such a way that you looked vaguely like Hitler.”
Vaguely like Hitler.
This week, Martin claimed “unaware of the full scope” of his friend’s “repulsive behavior.” He told the Forward that the Hitler pose was “clearly far more serious than a singular act that, by itself, might look like a mistake.”
Photographing yourself with a Hitler mustache and hairstyle is, needless to say, not a “mistake,” not a momentary lapse in judgment. There’s no “oops” about cutting your hair to resemble Hitler and posing for multiple photographs. On the podcast, Hale-Cusanelli flippantly refers to his look as “imitation Austrian painter.”
Hale-Cusanelli’s former co-workers at a Naval Surface Warfare Center in New Jersey said this was ordinary behavior for him. The Washington Post reported this week that 34 of 44 colleagues interviewed by Navy investigators described him as “having extremist or radical views pertaining to the Jewish people, minorities and women” and that investigators found many examples of antisemitic and racist content on his phone.
A sentencing memo from September 2022 quotes from a conversation secretly recorded by an unidentified person. In that conversation, Hale-Cusanelli said, “I really fucking wish there’d be a civil war” and that he would like to give Jews and Democrats “24 hours to leave the country” and to have many of them arrested.
Hale-Cusanelli told Martin that he was drunk when he made those statements.
Last month, Martin and Hale-Cusanelli spoke at a fundraiser for a college scholarship fund operated by the Phyllis Schlafly Eagles, a conservative group Martin ran before taking the interim job as U.S. attorney.
According to Mother Jones, Martin delivered the keynote address to the attendees, who included “former members of the far-right Oath Keepers militia who are still appealing their seditious conspiracy convictions in cases overseen by the D.C. United States Attorney’s Office.”
In his speech, Martin compared the prosecution of rioters to the internment of Japanese Americans during the World War II. He expressed hope that people who investigated and prosecuted the rioters will someday feel ashameed and “that the culture recognizes … that this was a wrong that was done against American citizens.” He said, “It was done not because of well intentions or anything. It was done truly because of bad, of evil in the world.”
Hale-Cusanelli, in his speech, called the riots a “a psy-op led by three-letter agencies” – repeating a batshit refrain that rioters were somehow duped into beating the hell out of cops and vandalizing the Capitol. He also praised Martin profusely for his work to free the rioters.
Although nominations for U.S. attorneys are often approved without a confirmation hearing, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are asking Republicans to schedule one for Martin.
In normal times, Martin’s nomination would be rejected unanimously, but quisling Republicans won’t do that.
A hearing is vital so that Americans can learn exactly what kind of man he is.
The Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee are Lindsey Graham, John Cornyn, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Thom Tillis, John Kennedy, Marsha Blackburn, Eric Schmitt, Katie Britt and Ashley Wood.
We need to inundate all of them with demands for a hearing.
The number for the Senate switchboard is (202) 224-3121; individual email addresses are available here. Focus on your senators first. Tillis should be among those contacts; he’s been critical of the administration at times.
This is a national issue, not a D.C. one. Martin, even in his interim role, has immersed himself in one vengeful mission after another for Trump, some of which are detailed in the column below. Since then, he’s attacked the New England Journal of Medicine and other medical publications for supposed leftist bias and even gone after Wikipedia, alleging it spreads propaganda from “foreign actors.”
The Trump administration is filled with men and women grossly unfit for their jobs. But removing Martin from office should be a top priority.
The following column, headlined “From Russia with love, love, love/Trump toady Ed Martin, a Putin apologist and rambling ethical wreck, should be rejected by Congress,” appeared April 20 on Fight the Fire.
By Sam Bellamy
Donald Trump has been heavily criticized for hiring so many Fox News personalities and regular guests to fill high-level posts in his administration. But in fairness, he’s not reliant on just one propaganda network – he’s also dipped into Russian state media for a key hire.
Ed Martin, the acting U.S. District Attorney for Washington D.C., made more than 150 appearances on RT American and Sputnik, two TV networks controlled by Vladimir Putin, between 2016 and 2024, The Washington Post recently reported.
On the air in Russia, Martin dismissed evidence that then-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had killed his own people in chemical attack, ridiculed claims that Russian forces were amassing at the Ukrainian border right before their invasion, defended Jan. 6th insurrectionists and blasted prosecutors who tried to hold Trump accountable for election interference.
In Martin’s eyes, it appears neither Putin nor Trump can do wrong. Two weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Martin posted on Twitter, “I’ve read that Putin is a crazy tyrant and that he’s a hero. How do you know what to believe?”
How indeed. Martin could ask all the Putin critics pushed out of upper-story windows, but … they’ve been pushed out of upper-story windows.
Trump has nominated Martin to take over the U.S. attorney’s post in D.C. permanently. I’ve written about how stupendously unfit Martin is for any job in government a few times, including here.
Martin was an enthusiastic participant in Trump’s “Stop the Steal” election denial and defended and raised funds for Jan. 6th rioters. He argued for Trump to free all of them, including the convicted cop beaters, signed the documents to release them, and then wrote a “Dear Blue” letter to police officers in the D.C. region telling them what a wonderful supporter of law enforcement he is.
The man is a rambling ethical wreck. He’s threatened law firms that took on cases against Trump as well as critics of Elon Musk. He’s attacked Georgetown University because some of its law professors have spoken out against Trump.
In Trump’s continuing battle with the Associated Press over its refusal to use the phrase “Gulf of America,” Martin has implied the venerable wire service could face prosecution for disobeying the president.
Displaying his ignorance of both the Constitution and punctuation, Martin 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.”
Recently, Martin has taken it upon himself to police medical journals – a bizarre project that demonstrates just how unhinged this guy is.
Referring to Martin, The New York Times reported this weekend that, “A federal prosecutor has sent letters to at least three medical journals accusing them of political bias and asking a series of probing questions suggesting that the journals mislead readers, suppress opposing viewpoints and are inappropriately swayed by their funders.”
In the letter to Chest, a publication of the American College of Chest Physicians, Martin wrote, “It has been brought to my attention that more and more journals and publications like CHEST Journal are conceding that they are partisans in various scientific debates.”
It has been brought to my attention that more and more …
No supporting evidence. No specifics on which journals are among these “more and more.” Just a variation of Trump’s infantile “I don’t know if it’s true, but people are saying” claims, sprinkled with bad legalese.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., our unstable secretary of health and human services, lurks in the background as Martin launches his Dark Ages assault on medicine.
Kennedy is irked that these journals haven’t embraced his quackery about vaccines, and both Martin and Trump are angry that numerous medical journals have opposed Trump policies, including drastic cuts to scientific research and mass layoffs at HHS and other federal agencies related to public health.
Congress needs to reject Martin’s nomination swiftly, detail why and send a clear message to the Trump that he needs to return with the name of a lawyer – there are more than 1.3 million attorneys in this country – who’s actually fit for the job.
Let Martin return to the fold at Russian state media. For that gig, he’s qualified.
Great article, Sam!