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FILE – Ed Martin addresses an event hosted by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., at the Capitol in Washington, June 13, 2023 (AP Photo/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades, File).
President Donald Trump’s nominee for heading the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, Ed Martin, has been described as an “egregiously unqualified political hack who has never served either as a prosecutor or judge,” by former prosecutors. This sentiment was expressed by 103 former prosecutors who opposed Martin’s nomination in a letter this week.
The former assistant U.S. attorneys are reportedly seeking a rare Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to question Martin about his comments regarding the 2020 election being stolen from Trump and his dismissals of those who investigated the Jan. 6 Capitol attack earlier this year, following his appointment as interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia by the president.
The group of former prosecutors banded together Monday, the same day that Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. — a member of the Judiciary Committee — announced he would be placing a hold on Martin’s nomination, citing his “troubling conduct in his months as Interim U.S. Attorney in the same role.”
While Martin is currently awaiting his Senate confirmation, it is rare for nominees to be subjected to Senate Judiciary Committee hearings before a vote, according to The New York Times, which obtained a copy of the letter from the former prosecutors Monday, along with local NBC affiliate WRC.
“Martin’s flagrant misconduct is a danger to law enforcement, the rule of law, and the United States Constitution itself,” the letter said. “It would be an insult to the rule of law to deny the honorable law enforcement professionals who were unjustifiably thrown under the bus for doing their duty such an opportunity,” the group added, in reference to fired Jan. 6 investigators. “Martin is an egregiously unqualified political hack who has never served either as a prosecutor or judge and who has no meaningful roots in the District of Columbia or even the surrounding area.”
Senate Democrats have joined the former prosecutors in voicing their opposition to Martin’s nomination, some who have been attorneys themselves.
“There are a lot of people nominated to be U.S. attorneys and he’s got to be the least prepared person I’ve seen,” Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md., a former prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington D.C. in the early 1990s, told the Times. “I worked under Clinton and Bush, and the office pretty much ran as an apolitical operation. He’s different.”
In early March, Ivey joined forces with his House Democratic colleagues and sent a letter with them to the Senate Judiciary Committee to oppose Martin’s nomination. In it, Ivey alleged that Martin “has demonstrated time and again that in addition to not having the necessary experience as a prosecutor, he is more interested in picking political fights than enforcing our nation’s laws.”
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Martin, a New Jersey native who is had his own law practice in Missouri and represented Jan. 6 defendants, was nominated by Trump to lead the nation’s largest U.S. attorney’s office in February. He has been accused of going after people who disagree with his politics, including lawmakers.
Martin posted an ominous warning on X Monday — declaring that “no one is above the law” — in response to an incident in which a Democratic congresswoman from Texas was accused of shoving a far-right activist’s cellphone away from her as she was being questioned by the person.
Schiff sent out a statement Monday accusing Martin of “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.” He said Martin has “demolished” the firewalls put in place between the White House and Department of Justice, and confirming him would cross the “prosecutorial Rubicon” that Senate members would come to regret — and that would “threaten the rights of Americans from all walks of life,” Schiff said.
The California senator added, “No one embodies Donald Trump’s personal weaponization of the Justice Department more than Ed Martin. He is unfit to serve as a lawyer, let alone one with the resources — and cover from the Senate — to further twist the power of the law and law enforcement to go after Americans who stand up for the rule of law and for our democracy. With all of the power I am afforded as a United States Senator, I intend to place a hold on his nomination and block attempts to jam through his appointment at every stage.”
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