Адвокат Эд Мартин окончательно уволен из Министерства юстиции США

Ed Martin, one of the weirdest and dumbest attorneys in President Donald Trump’s orbit, is out.  No, not out of his job as interim U.S. attorney for Washington D.C. That nonsense ended over a year ago, when it was clear he could never get confirmed. And no, not out of his job as head of the Weaponization Working Group at the Department of Justice. He got demoted from that one earlier this year. This time, he’s out of the DOJ entirely—and, seemingly, for good. On Aug. 21, President Donald Trump issued a little farewell Truth over on Truth Social, reading in part: Ed is now leaving to go outside to fight Legal Battles for the upcoming Midterm Election, and the Presidential Election of 2028. I know he will do an outstanding job, ensure Free, Fair, and Honest Elections, and strongly advance our Constitutional Rights. Gosh, whoever will fill Martin’s shoes as the U.S. pardon attorney? No one, probably, since we know that the only real way to get a pardon is just to bribe Trump. The president’s open corruption of the whole process has made Martin superfluous.  So, to send Martin on his way, let’s take a little stroll down memory lane.  When Martin first popped up during Trump’s second term, he was declaring that he and other U.S. attorney nominees were “President Trump’s lawyers,” and he was firing people in his office who had worked on cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.  Early in his tenure as interim U.S. attorney, Martin dismissed charges against an insurrectionist defendant whom he had represented in private practice. That’s a helluva conflict of interest, but it got worse, because the defendant wasn’t actually his former client. Yes, Martin didn’t bother to withdraw his representation until after he’d dismissed the charges. Quite the auspicious start! Around the same time, Martin used his official role to threaten Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia of California for calling Elon Musk a dick, which even the most inexperienced prosecutor would know is not a crime. Martin also used his official role to protect Republican Rep. Cory Mills of Florida, refusing to issue a warrant to arrest him after he allegedly assaulted a woman.  So, calling someone a dick is a crime, but allegedly assaulting someone is not even worth bothering with. Got it.  To round things out, Martin threatened Georgetown Law School for being full of “DEI,” telling the school that his office wouldn’t hire any clerks from the school. In prior comments, he also not-so-vaguely said the school should lose its federal grants. Martin followed these stellar performances by using his office to investigate alleged voter fraud, spinning up a division called “Special Unit: Election Accountability,” as if he were casting a particularly boring new version of “NCIS.” But Martin never got to fulfill that dream. A few short weeks later, it became clear he would never be the non-interim U.S. attorney for D.C., because even some GOP senators wouldn’t vote to confirm this hot mess express.  After his nomination was yanked, Martin got shuffled over to the DOJ, and let it never be said that he didn’t make the most of his time there.  As the special attorney for mortgage fraud, he joined Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte in ginning up investigations into Trump’s enemies by trolling through mortgage applications. Those efforts hit their weird apex when Martin had himself photographed outside the home of New York State Attorney General Letitia James as he was helming the fake investigation into her. Just as Martin apparently didn’t seem to know that prosecutors are not supposed to dismiss charges against former clients, he also seems to have skipped law school on the days when they taught that prosecutors should not stalk people they are investigating.  And who can forget when Martin decided to write an official letter on behalf of his pal Alex Jones to threaten an investigation into a former FBI special agent who had testified in state defamation cases brought by the families of children murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. What authority did Martin have to muck around in a state civil case? None, of course! Yes, Martin also apparently skipped the day in law school where they taught basic federalism.  Then there was the time the DOJ determined that Martin leaked grand jury materials from one of his sham mortgage fraud investigations. Sigh. Apparently, he was out sick on the day law school covered the secrecy of grand juries.   All of this behavior has, unsurprisingly, resulted in a cavalcade of bar complaints, which, true to form, Martin has handled not only badly but also extremely weirdly. His attack on Georgetown Law School led the D.C. bar to open disciplinary proceedings against Martin after he comically mishandled the initial bar complaint against him.  That bar complaint was filed when Martin was still the interim U.S. attorney for D.C., and he seemed to think that gave him some sort of juice with the D.C. bar and the judicial bench. Rather than responding to the complaint like a normal person, he demanded an ex-parte meeting with the chief judge and other senior judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The judges kept explaining to him that, no, they would not have a secret meeting with him where the D.C. bar was not present. But don’t worry! Martin has offered 40 separate defenses to explain why his behavior was normal and ethical and not the behavior of someone who seems unfamiliar with the ethical requirements of his profession.  It isn’t clear how Martin, in his private and unemployed capacity, will help “ensure Free, Fair, and Honest Elections,” as Trump is insisting he’ll be doing. But a few things are obvious: Ed’s gonna make it weird, he’s gonna make it stupid, and he’s probably gonna make it borderline illegal. He’s been like this all along, but at least we won’t have to pay him taxpayer dollars for this behavior now.  Farewell, Ed.