Some Wrongs Can’t Be Righted: Nominating Ed Martin to be U.S. Attorney in D.C.
Trump has nominated the interim U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia, whose Twitter handle is @EagleEdMartin, for the permanent position. Martin participated in a Stop the Steal rally and represented January 6 defendants until he went to work for the Justice Department and oversaw the dismissal of their cases. Presumably, the “Eagle” is a nod at his time working with Phyllis Schlafly, whose Eagle Forum promoted conservative values like opposing the Equal Rights Amendment. You can read more about that here, on their homepage.
Martin has made it clear that he does not believe DOJ should maintain its independence from the White House when it comes to making decisions about prosecuting criminal cases and affirmative civil actions. While it’s entirely appropriate for the White House to lead on matters of policy and setting priorities, only banana republics let their chief executive use the power of prosecution to punish enemies and protect friends. But Martin recently amplified the view that DOJ should not be “independent from POTUS.”
Martin has at least twice tweeted to Elon Musk, promising to prosecute anyone who interferes with DOGE and advising he’d opened cases based on referrals from Musk. If this were any other administration, he’d be facing internal discipline, not a presidential appointment.
We need to confront what it means that this is now a Justice Department where people who stand for principle over politics, like Danielle Sassoon, former acting U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, resign. Sassoon and others resigned rather than dismiss the prosecution of NYC Mayor Eric Adams so that Trump could make political hay, ensuring the mayor cooperated with his immigration policies. If Sassoon has been a hero this past week, Martin has been more of a court jester, toadying to Trump and Musk in an effort to get this job. But it’s a job that is too important to be done by someone who lacks a commitment to the rule of law. The U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia can determine who gets prosecuted and who doesn’t in our nation’s capital. You don’t need Kash Patel and his revenge list if you’ve got Ed Martin in place.
In that vein, the news today that Denise Cheung, the criminal chief in the office Martin now hopes to lead, a highly regarded veteran of more than 20 years in the office, resigned Tuesday. She resigned because she did not believe there was sufficient probable cause to open a criminal investigation she was ordered to open. Those orders started with acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove and involve a contract that was awarded by the EPA during the Biden Administration. Martin wanted Cheung to take steps to freeze the funds that were the subject of the investigation. In her resignation letter, she wrote, “Because I believed that I lacked the legal authority to issue such a letter, I told you that I would not do so. You then asked for my resignation.” Like others who have resigned since Trump returned to office, Cheung referred to the oath of office she swore and a prosecutor’s obligation to adhere to legal ethics and the law.
It’s not difficult to understand where this leads. Senator Adam Schiff explains it in one Tweet:
If Trump, or for that matter Musk, can use their access to government information to trump up cases and repopulate the Justice Department with people who are willing to do whatever they are told to, the tyranny is real. Today, maybe, it’s Musk poking at Schiff. But what happens if a few Republican Senators want to vote against one of Trump’s nominees, only to get a call letting them in on what the consequences will be. And it’s not just politics; prosecution is a useful tool in the hands of those willing to abuse it to control people you fear or who you simply don’t like.
A corrupted Justice Department could do wrongs that cannot be righted. Like coercing the mayor of New York to do their political bidding in order to get the prosecution against him dismissed. Pam Bondi claims to be investigating the weaponization of the Justice Department under Joe Biden. But the career prosecutors at Justice are putting the lie to that and showing Americans that the politicization of the Justice Department is happening right now, in front of our eyes.
Over the last week, we’ve seen brave people sacrificing their careers to stand for American principles. People who fight hard to get these difficult-to-come-by Justice Department jobs don’t just walk away from them for no reason. They walk away, even though it would be easy for them to stay, because they understand something important: that the rule of law still matters, that it may, in the end, be the only thing that can protect us, and that we need to wake the country up while there’s still time.
We’re in this together,
Joyce
Many of my friends did not believe me before the election when I said Trump is going to do everything he said, be a dictator on the first day and all the rest. They said oh he’s just all talk , he’ll never do all that. I pointed out that he had some good people with him in the first time around who tried and did succeed in somewhat keeping him in check. I pointed out those people will not be around this time. So it’s cold comfort to say I told you so.
Joyce, how do we counteract this? We have so many good people who are stepping down or who have been removed from their jobs. How do we work together or come together to repair or rebuild? Maybe it is too soon to ask this, but the only thing that gives me hope is that there are so MANY people opposing this coup. Around the world, too. But we're the ones who have to figure out how to deal with it. Any thoughts?