Ex-prosecutors raise alarm over Trump loyalist tapped for key U.S. attorney post
WASHINGTON — Former federal prosecutors and outside organizations raised alarms this week over the nomination of Ed Martin, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, to take over as the top federal prosecutor in Washington on a permanent basis.
WASHINGTON — Former federal prosecutors and outside organizations raised alarms this week over the nomination of Ed Martin, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, to take over as the top federal prosecutor in Washington on a permanent basis.
Martin — who backed Donald Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and advocated for defendants in Jan. 6 Capitol riot cases — had no prosecutorial experience before Trump made him interim U.S. attorney on Inauguration Day. And he has taken a number of highly unusual and political actions since he took over the position on a temporary basis.
On Wednesday, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee called for a hearing on Martin's nomination, which would break from standard practice for nominees for U.S. attorney positions. Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., announced this week that he would place a hold on Martin’s nomination, which could delay a vote on his nomination.
In a letter sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee this week and obtained by NBC News, more than 100 former assistant U.S. attorneys who worked in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia signed a "Statement of Conscience and Principle" laying out why they see Martin as unfit.
"We are determined that the values and norms that were birthed during the tenure of John Thomson Mason and his successors — a commitment to the rule of law, the absence of partisanship in the pursuit of justice, the presence of civility, decency, and fairness — continue unabated now and hereafter," the statement reads, calling Martin "unworthy of the position."
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