A short time ago, President Trump announced in the Oval Office that he is pulling the nomination of Ed Martin as U.S. attorney for D.C.
Saying he was “disappointed” that Martin’s nomination foundered in the Senate, Trump floated the possibility of bringing Martin into the administration – and specifically into the Justice Department – in some other way.
So we may not be rid of Martin quite yet.
Martin, a Stop The Steal booster who had zero experience as a prosecutor, came in as acting D.C. U.S. attorney with a reputation as a political hack and only embellished his notoriety in his roughly 200 days on the job. His tenure as an acting official ends by law on May 20.
In his short run as acting U.S. attorney, Martin repeatedly violated DOJ guidelines by publicly threatening and confirming investigations. His bizarre but ominous “letters of inquiry after request” were sent to members of Congress, scientific journals, and at least one university.
Martin was the face of the weaponization and politicization of the DOJ in the Trump II presidency. He canned prosecutors who worked on the Jan. 6 cases, and launched an investigation of the investigators for their charging decisions in the Jan. 6 prosecutions, even though many of those cases arose in the waning days of the Trump I presidency.
In one memorable episode, Martin in his role as U.S. attorney moved to dismiss charges against one Jan. 6 defendant whom Martin was still representing as criminal defense attorney. After the egregious misstep, Martin quickly moved to withdraw as defense counsel.
Martin’s nomination was mortally wounded earlier this week when Sen. Thom Tills (R-NC), a Senate Judiciary Committee Republican, said that he could not vote for Martin. While Tillis ran point on scuttling the nomination, there was broader, though not universal, dis-ease within the GOP conference about Martin helming the D.C. U.S. attorney’s office, one of the two or three most important in the country.
Trump said a replacement nominee for Martin has already been selected but did not name the person.
NEW: Ed Martin is OUT as Trump’s nominee for U.S. Attorney for DC.“We have somebody else that we’ll be announcing over the next two days who’s gonna be great.”
— Anna Bower (@annabower.bsky.social) May 8, 2025 at 11:57 AM
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