By WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has nominated the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia — a “Stop the Steal” organizer who advocated for Jan. 6 defendants — to be the district’s top prosecutor on a permanent basis.
Trump made the announcement less than three days after the nominee, Ed Martin, posted that he would be investigating Jack Smith and a law firm that gave the former special counsel pro bono legal services.
Referring to Martin as “highly respected,” Trump wrote on X that Martin “has been doing a great job as Interim U.S. Attorney, fighting tirelessly to restore Law and Order, and make our Nation’s Capital Safe and Beautiful Again.”
Martin posted Friday on X, the platform owned by billionaire Elon Musk, that his office would be investigating Smith and the law firm of Covington & Burling over pro bono legal services Smith received during a time when Trump was openly vilifying him and suggesting he and his team should be locked up.
“Save your receipts, Smith and Covington,” Martin posted from his official X account Friday evening. “We’ll be in touch soon. #NoOneIsAboveTheLaw.”
Martin called on “die-hard true Americans” to work until their “last breath” to “stop the steal” in a speech at the U.S. Capitol on the eve of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. He was subpoenaed by the House Jan. 6 committee and was on the board of an organization that supported Jan. 6 defendants, and he was a defense attorney for three Capitol attack defendants. As interim U.S. attorney, he launched an investigation into the office’s handing of Jan. 6 cases and fired some assistant U.S. attorneys who worked such cases.
In Washington, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia prosecutes both federal cases in U.S. District Court and local cases in Superior Court. Martin has held the critical position on a temporary basis since Inauguration Day, when Trump mass pardoned violent Jan. 6 rioters like Jose Padilla, who was convicted of assaulting officers and sentenced to six years in federal prison. Martin’s name was on a government motion to dismiss the Padilla case that was submitted a day after Trump’s pardon, but he was still on file as a defense attorney for Padilla. Martin filed a motion this month to withdraw as Padilla’s defense lawyer, but the court soon advised him that he was “not in good standing” and had to renew his membership.
Attorneys who were prosecutors within the Capitol Siege Section before it was disbanded after Trump’s pardons told NBC News that they saw Martin as openly auditioning for the role on a permanent basis, pointing to the unusual letter he wrote to Musk offering up his office’s services.
They also worry that his boisterous social media presence will backfire in the long term and undermine the criminal cases for prosecutors, causing issues with both judges and juries.
“Prosecutors are supposed to speak in court and in filings, but he has shown himself to be incapable of abiding by that rule,” a federal law enforcement official said. “If the chief law enforcement officer is tweeting about criminal allegations and calling people thugs, he’s tainting the jury pool and giving defense attorneys an argument for change of venue or recusal.”
Another law enforcement official said, “There is no bottom.”
Brendan Ballou, a former Justice Department prosecutor who worked on Jan. 6 cases, told NBC News that Martin’s nomination was “extremely concerning” for a number of reasons and that Martin’s lack of prosecutorial experience was showing in his public actions.
“He clearly has an agenda related to the Jan. 6 prosecutions that he’s executing on and potentially violating professional obligations as he does so, when he is, for instance, dismissing cases where he himself represented the defendant,” Ballou said.
Martin did not response to a request for comment about whether he had discussed investigating Smith with Trump before Trump’s announcement Monday.
But he clearly has some sway within the administration. While roughly 20 federal prosecutors who had worked on Jan. 6 cases were fired just over two weeks ago and showed up to their offices just 14 days ago to drop off their computers and pick up their belongings, Martin wrote in an email Friday evening that he had received an exception to the Trump administration’s hiring freeze to bring on new assistant U.S. attorneys. Some of those fired assistant U.S. attorneys had been set to begin working on cases in Superior Court when they were forced out.
“As we continue our fight for our fellow Americans, we need more people to keep D.C. safe and to stand up for the rights of victims,” Martin wrote in the email to his office. “To this end, great news! We are authorized to hire 20 new AUSAs. We are on it and hard — to get job postings up so that we can fill those positions asap!”
