WASHINGTON (AP) — For years, conservative activist Ed Martin has promoted Donald Trump's false claims about a stolen 2020 election, railed against the prosecution of the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol and represented some of them in court.
Now he's leading the office that prosecuted the nearly 1,600 defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot before Trump — now back in the White House — with the stroke of a pen.
Martin's first week as the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia ushered in a dizzying sea change for the office's rank-and-file prosecutors. He oversaw the dismissals of hundreds of Jan. 6 cases and celebrated Trump's pardons for police officers and anti-abortion activists who had been prosecuted by attorneys in the office. And on Monday, Martin ordered an internal review of prosecutors' use of a felony charge brought against hundreds of Capitol rioters, directing employees to hand over files, emails and other documents, according to an email obtained by The Associated Press.
The appointment of Martin, the former head of the Missouri Republican Party, underscores Trump's commitment to installing loyalists in key positions at the Justice Department, which the Republican president contends was “weaponized” against him and his supporters by President Joe Biden's administration. Mike Davis, a Trump ally, in a social media post a “bold and fearless” leader who will “clean house" at the office, which Davis described as “an epicenter of the lawfare and political persecution.”
Martin told employees in an email that he was alongside Trump in the Oval Office when the president granted clemency last week to two Washington police officers prosecuted by the U.S. attorney's office for their part in the deadly chase of a man on a moped and the subsequent cover-up. And last week, Martin appeared to describe federal prosecutors as “the President's lawyers.”
“Based on the public reporting, it appears that he is in this role purely to execute on the president’s political priorities more so than the work of protecting public safety in Washington,” said Alexis Loeb, who was deputy chief of the section that prosecuted the Jan. 6 cases before leaving the government last year.
It’s unclear whether Trump intends to nominate Martin to the permanent post, which would require Senate confirmation. A White House spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a text message about Martin on Monday.
The U.S. attorney’s office declined to make Martin available for an interview with The Associated Press on Monday and didn’t immediately respond to questions about the internal review he ordered. In a statement released this week by his office, Martin thanked Trump for trusting him to “help re-establish law and order” in Washington.
“I pledge to work as hard as he does for America, even though no one outworks him,” Martin said of the president.
Shortly after Trump’s sweeping clemency order, Martin’s name showed up last on a flurry of court filings seeking to including cases against people charged with assaulting police officers.
Prosecutors were directed last week to refer to Martin in court papers simply as “U.S. Attorney Ed Martin” after some filed documents describing him as the “acting” top prosecutor, according to a former federal prosecutor who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of persistent threats of violence.
One week later, Martin announced a “special project” to review the use of an obstruction felony charge brought against hundreds of Capitol riot defendants. Prosecutors had to drop the obstruction of an official proceeding charge in many cases after , finding it must include proof that defendants tried to tamper with or destroy documents.
Calling the use of the charge “a great failure of our office,” Martin ordered attorneys to hand over to two supervisors all relevant “files, documents, notes, emails and other information," according to a copy of the email reviewed by the AP. He ordered the supervisors to provide a preliminary report on the matter to him by Friday.
“We need to get to the bottom of it,” Martin wrote. He’s calling it the “1512 Project,” because the offense falls under that section of the law.
Trump's clemency action led to the release of more than 200 people in federal custody, including people seen on camera engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police and violently attacking law enforcement with makeshift weapons.
Vice President JD Vance, , defended Trump's action in a CBS interview that aired Sunday. Vance alleged, without providing evidence, that the Jan. 6 defendants were “denied constitutional protections."
Ashley Akers, who prosecuted dozens of Jan. 6 cases before leaving the Justice Department on Friday, said Vance is “misleading the American public in an attempt to excuse the unjustifiable blanket pardon of rioters who overtook the United States Capitol.”
“It’s telling that he has not identified a single example of how these defendants’ constitutional rights have been violated,” Akers said. "The evidence in the public record speaks for itself.”
After Trump's clemency order, Martin urged a judge to drop and the Capitol building. Martin said that if a judge barred visits to Washington from people pardoned by Joe Biden — like the former president’s brother, Jim, or Gen. Mark Milley — “I believe most Americans would object.”
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta changed course Monday, ruling that Rhodes and other Oath Keepers with commuted prison sentences are not bound by the travel restrictions he ordered last week.
Martin spoke at a “Stop the Steal” rally on the eve of the riot and served on the board of a group called the Patriot Freedom Project, which has raised money to support Jan. 6 defendants and their families. Court filings listed him as an attorney for at least three Capitol riot defendants, including a Proud Boys member who pleaded guilty to felony charges.
A day before the Capitol riot, Martin led an audience in a “Stop the Steal” chant during a rally in Washington.
“What they’re stealing is not just an election. It’s our future and it’s our republic,” he told the crowd.
The next day, Martin attended Trump’s Jan. 6 rally near the White House and posted messages on social media about the crowd.
“I’m at the Capitol right now,” after the riot erupted. “Rowdy crowd but nothing out of hand. Ignore the #FakeNews.”
On a blog, he has parroted some of Trump’s rhetoric about the deep state, a politically weaponized Justice Department and the events of Jan. 6, 2021. Martin said he has watched thousands of hours of video from that day.
“And, if you watch it for a while you realize that 99.9% of it is normal people doing normal things: sauntering around and through the Capitol grounds and building,” he wrote.
