Raskin Pushes DOJ To Rein In DC US Attorney Ed Martin

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, is calling for a DOJ Inspector General investigation into acting D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin, who has in his first several weeks on the job made a particular point of probing perceived enemies of President Donald Trump. 

“…since taking office, Mr. Martin has used his office to illegally attack critics and perceived enemies of the Trump Administration while endangering the public safety of the citizens of and visitors to our nation’s capital,” Raskin wrote in a March 12 letter to Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

“Mr. Martin has also threatened to investigate and prosecute critics of the Trump Administration, including journalists, attorneys, peaceful protesters, and Members of Congress, in blatant violation of the First Amendment,” Raskin continued. “Mr. Martin has already fired over a dozen career federal prosecutors assigned to prosecuting violent crimes in Washington, D.C., simply because they had worked on the investigations of the massive lawless attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 — an attack Mr. Martin was personally involved in and publicly supported and praised.”

The nine-page letter, first obtained by the Washington Post, details a series of recent actions taken by Martin that Raskin argues “appear to violate the Constitution, federal statutes, DOJ regulations, and rules of legal ethics.”

In particular, he notes that Martin has tried to illegally freeze $20 billion worth of climate funding, tied to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, that was allocated to environmental non-profit organizations for various climate projects during the Biden administration. 

Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin, who has been pushing the effort to revoke and investigate the Biden-era federal climate funding, announced on Wednesday, weeks after freezing the funds, that it had terminated the $20 billion in climate grants. 

The letter also references the recent resignation of Denise Cheung, who was in charge of the criminal division in the Washington, D.C. U.S. Attorney’s office. In her resignation letter to Martin, Cheung noted that there was insufficient evidence to open a grand jury investigation into these Biden-era funds. She refused to comply with Martin’s order to open such an investigation and instead resigned. 

“In an effort to claw back $20 billion in grants awarded for clean-energy projects awarded under the GGRF, Mr. Martin demanded that the criminal division chief in his office, Denise Cheung, launch a criminal investigation and freeze a contractor’s unspent assets without any probable cause of violation,” Raskin said in his letter. “Mr. Martin’s efforts are consistent with the Administration’s general approach to GGRF. Instead of implementing this program as congressionally directed, the Trump Administration has spread baseless claims and misinformation to halt the program.”

Raskin also highlights in the letter what he refers to as Martin’s “blatant conflict of interest and ethics violations” in the cases related to the January 6th attack on the Capitol. 

“After being an active participant in the January 6th insurrection, Mr. Martin personally served as defense counsel for at least three January 6th rioters, all of whom were found guilty at trial,” Raskin notes. 

Raskin also notes that Martin has retaliated against prosecutors involved in the cases related to January 6, firing over a dozen “career federal prosecutors who were originally hired to assist with January 6th cases and had since been assigned to prosecute violent crimes.”