The D.C. establishment hasn’t been shy about its attempts to defeat several of President Trump’s executive appointees. And the effort to derail the Senate confirmation of U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia nominee Ed Martin is no different.
Earlier this week, nearly 100 former employees for the U.S. attorney’s office in the nation’s capital released a letter voicing their opposition to Martin’s nomination. A former chair of the Missouri Republican Party, Martin was tapped by Trump to serve as acting head of the office shortly after the latter’s inauguration and was further nominated to take over the position permanently in February.
In their whining statement, the former employees smeared Martin as an “unworthy” candidate who is “incapable” of fulfilling the duties required of him. They also hyperbolically claimed that his nomination represents as “an affront to the singular pursuit of justice for which this Office has stood for more than two centuries.”
Written no differently than if it were a Democrat Party press release, the letter cited Martin’s past comments regarding the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol demonstrations as reasons “disqualifying” him from consideration. The authors further fearmongered that, should he be confirmed, Martin would turn the D.C.-based U.S. attorney’s office “into a political arm of the current administration” — something they seemingly had no issue with when it was occurring under the Biden administration.
“There is a time when we all are called to stand for the full and fair administration of justice and the rule of law. For those of us who have served in the Office of the United States Attorney and still have a breath, that time is now,” wrote the former employees in melodramatic fashion.
While their characterization of Martin’s actions since taking over the D.C. office as those “typify[ing] authoritarian and indeed totalitarian regimes” tracks with the rest of their unhinged screed, the authors’ outlandish temper tantrum is a good indication that Martin’s the right man for the job.
As The Federalist’s Joy Pullmann previously reported, Martin has been laser-focused on restoring accountability and transparency to a Department of Justice (DOJ) that was fully weaponized by the Biden administration to target its political opponents.
Alongside the Trump DOJ, Martin has “sought the firing or retirements of numerous top FBI and DOJ personnel, and an accounting of all FBI personnel involved in the Jan. 6, 2021 prosecutions.” He’s also, as Pullmann noted, “direct[ed] an internal probe into the DOJ’s abuse of a post-Enron obstruction statute that the Supreme Court said the department used unlawfully to imprison right-leaning Capitol protesters with help from Constitution-hating federal judges.”
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But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. The acting U.S. attorney for D.C. also appears to be probing the DOJ’s involvement in perpetuating the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.
According to a Tuesday report by independent journalist Julie Kelly, Martin sent a letter last month “to a former member of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team seeking a sit-down to discuss the DOJ’s dirty prosecution of a Trump 2016 campaign aide.” That individual would be Aaron Zelinsky, whom Kelly noted “resigned from the DOJ on January 10 and later whined on social media that he was ‘furious, heartbroken, and disappointed at what the President and his appointees are doing to DOJ,’ [and] handled the cases against George Papadopoulos and Roger Stone.”
“Martin wants to address misrepresentations made by Zelinsky in the prosecution of Papadopoulos, one of the fall guys in the Russian collusion hoax,” Kelly wrote.
(It’s no wonder then that Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. — a prominent Russia collusion hoaxer — is blocking Martin’s confirmation via a Senate procedural hold.)
Contrary to their sensationalized rhetoric, Martin’s biggest opponents aren’t actually outraged about his past comments. Rather, they’re fearful that he’ll fulfill the job he was appointed to do: to clean up the rot and corruption infecting the D.C-based U.S. attorney’s office and the DOJ writ large.
Conservatives wanting to get Martin’s nomination across the finish line will need to make a serious, concentrated effort to pressure weak-kneed Republicans (like North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis) to support his candidacy. Failure to do so could result in Martin’s nomination getting withdrawn, giving the D.C. establishment the exact outcome it wants.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
