DJT Withdraws Nomination of Martin for U.S. Attorney in DC

Donald Trump withdrew Ed Martin’s nomination for U.S. Attorney in Washington, DC after Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) said he would not vote to allow to leave the Senate Judiciary Committee, effectively blocking confirmation.

The committee has 10 Democrats and 12 Republicans. With Tillis and all the Democrats on the committee opposing Martin’s nomination, a vote would have been a tie and the nomination would have failed to go to the Senate floor with backing from the committee.

Martin was a vocal proponent of Trump’s 2020 Stop the Steal movement, represented January 6 defendants, and pushed for less and shorter sentencing of them. He has been on Russian state media multiple times.

On his podcast The Pro America Report, Martin hosted Timothy Hale-Cusanelli a few times. Hale-Cusanelli has been known to dress like Nazi führer Adolf Hitler. Court filings say he drew cartoons “depicting Jewish people as pigs,” and he has said he would “kill all the Jews and eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner.” Martin told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he is not closely connected with Hale-Cusanelli and knows nothing about his opinions.

As interim U.S. Attorney, Martin has aggressively wielded the power of the role to pursue retribution again perceived adversaries or critics of Trump or Trump’s largest financial backer Elon Musk. He has attacked the investigation into the 6 January 2021 storming of the Capitol, fired prosecutors who worked on cases from that event, threatened criminal investigations into Democrats and academic institutions, and failed to step aside as counsel for a January 6 defendant after he became interim U.S. Attorney and therefore also stood on the prosecutorial side of the case.

On 14 April 2025 the Society for the Rule of Law formally requested that Disciplinary Counsel for the D.C. Bar examine his actions for ethical breaches.

The same day, Martin wrote to a number of medical journals to inquire about misinformation, possible undisclosed advertisers and undisclosed sponsors. Then his letter went even farther overboard, asking “Do you accept articles or essays from competing viewpoints?” The editor-in-chief of CHEST (the Journal of the American College of Chest Physicians) revealed Martin’s letter publicly.

Trump allies in the Senate have been quietly nudging for nomination of someone else for the post. Only Tillis has been willing to publicly speak out.

After withdrawing Martin’s nomination, Trump announced he is putting Martin in three roles:

• director of the Weaponization Working Group at the Department of Justice
• associate deputy attorney general
• pardon attorney

The working group to which Martin is now assigned is intended to investigate purported weaponization of the federal government by former President Biden, looking for reasons to prosecute people who were involved in activities Trump claims were persecution such as prosecuting those who stormed the Capitol.

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