Senate Judiciary Committee member Adam Schiff (D- CA) announced on Tuesday his intention to place a hold on the nomination of President Donald Trump’s nominee for D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin.
In an April 1 statement explaining his decision, Schiff said Martin has “demolished the firewalls between the White House and his own office within the Department of Justice.”
“Confirming him to serve permanently in the role he has already abused in his interim capacity would cross the prosecutorial Rubicon that every single Senator would come to regret and that would threaten the rights of Americans from all walks of life,” he added.
Schiff’s announcement comes only a day after a group of about 100 former assistant U.S. attorneys requested that Senate Judiciary Chairman Sen Chuck Grassley (R-IA) “set a public confirmation hearing,” to allow witnesses to testify against Martin’s confirmation, according to reporting from the New York Times.
Senators have the authority to place a hold on a presidential nominee, which can delay consideration of a nominee like Martin for days or weeks at a time, but won’t necessarily prevent it from moving forward.
“For the past nine weeks, Ed Martin has consistently undermined the independence and abused the power of the U.S. Attorney’s office in DC — openly threatening and intimidating political opponents, dismissing charges against his own clients, firing public servants for their roles in legitimate investigations, and using his office as a cudgel to chill dissent and free speech,” Schiff said.
Since Trump has taken office, Martin has consistently gone after Trump’s perceived political enemies as he carries out the president’s retribution agenda.
“No one embodies Donald Trump’s personal weaponization of the Justice Department more than Ed Martin,” Schiff said in his statement.
Earlier this year, as previously reported by TPM, Martin threatened both Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) with potential investigations into remarks they made criticizing the Trump administration, or, in Schumer’s case, years-old remarks criticizing Supreme Court justices. The statute of limitations on Schumer’s speech ultimately ran out before Martin could take the effort any further.
And most recently, Martin launched an inquiry to try to invalidate the pardons Joe Biden issued in the final months of his presidency, according to the New York Times. In an attempt to further undermine Trump’s perceived political enemies, Martin has been sending letters to former Biden-era staffers and Biden family members to build a case proving that Biden was not mentally fit to consent to the pardons that he had issued.
Martin, who has a long history of election denialism and who has himself defended a January 6 defendant, has also retaliated against career prosecutors involved in cases related to January 6 since taking over as interim D.C. USA. Martin recently announced the creation of a special unit, known as the “Special Unit: Election Accountability,” supposedly devoted to investigating the integrity of the country’s election system, while he takes action on another one of Trump’s greatest grievances.
Ed Martin is a complete lunatic, but any replacement is likely to be far more competent in carrying out trump’s campaign of vengeance and destruction.
Oh, the stupid do have their ambitions.
Count on Thune to ignore this hold and proceed. Then we will see if Schiff and his colleagues have the spine to start objecting to EVERY request for unanimous consent, at every stage, in every matter.
So plan on blocking the next and the next…much better than installing one willing to commit crimes.
I don’t recall seeing that in the job description. It wasn’t on my ballot either. It sure looks like a Gestapo tactic.
Definitely not American.