Trump Loyalist Ed Martin Brings Upheaval to US Attorney Office

The District of Columbia’s new top prosecutor nearly upended a years-long narcotics case by demoting and removing the lead attorney just days before trial, a source familiar with the situation told Bloomberg Law.

The removal decision was quickly reversed, and prosecutor Meredith Mayer-Dempsey argued the case and convinced a jury last month to convict a Maryland doctor of distributing controlled substances.

But the incident illustrates the tumult inside the Washington US attorney’s office under interim lead Ed Martin, which has cratered staff morale, according to several employees who spoke to Bloomberg Law on condition of anonymity, and has Democrats and former prosecutors questioning his fitness for the job.

Since his appointment on Inauguration Day, Martin has fired or demoted over a dozen of the office’s attorneys while threatening Georgetown’s law school dean over DEI and posting regularly on social media, where he mixes Biblical verses and rhetoric about taking down “thugs with guns.” His officewide emails, frequently leaked, often announce changes to personnel and policies, air grievances, or a combination of both.

“He’s overtly political. He’s very pugnacious,” said Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor now at Georgetown Law, who was among several ex-prosecutors interviewed who likened Martin’s style to that of a partisan district attorney.

The former Missouri Republican Party chairman was a leader in the “Stop the Steal” movement to overturn results of Joe Biden’s presidential election over Donald Trump in 2020. In his new job, Martin has made a point of continuing to show loyalty to Trump, referring to US prosecutors as the president’s lawyers.

Large signs emblazoned with the text of Trump’s “Making the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful” executive order now hang on each floor of the US attorney’s office, employees said.

US attorney’s offices are staffed with career lawyers who work through multiple presidential administrations, and have historically operated somewhat independently. Martin’s actions have drawn special notice, even within a more partisan Justice Department under Trump.

Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats wrote Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Wednesday to push for what would be an unusual hearing on Martin’s nomination so senators could question him under oath.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a Judiciary panel member, has announced plans to put a hold on Martin’s nomination, which would force Republicans to move it through a slower process.

“No one embodies Donald Trump’s personal weaponization of the Justice Department more than Ed Martin,” Schiff said in a statement announcing the hold.

A spokesperson for Martin’s office declined Bloomberg Law’s request for an interview or to answer written questions for this story.

‘What More Can You Ask For?’

As acting leader of the nation’s largest US attorney’s office, Martin oversees more than 300 attorneys prosecuting federal and local criminal cases in the city. After Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people convicted in the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Martin announced an internal investigation into some of the prosecutions his own office spearheaded.

On Friday, he expanded that investigation to include probes of media leaks during Jan. 6 cases, and likened some of those prosecutions to Japanese internment during World War II.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who said he’s known Martin for years, backs him for the job. While Martin’s a “firebrand” and “always has been,” Hawley said, “You want a US attorney to have passion and to want to get out there and get after it.”

But Barbara McQuade, former US attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, questioned Martin’s ability to fairly prosecute crimes independent of politics.

“There are norms to preserve: the fairness, evenhanded administration of justice, and nonpartisanship of a US attorney’s office,” said McQuade. “Some of the conduct Martin has engaged in is inconsistent with those principles and policies and norms.”

The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), has called for a federal investigation into Martin’s conduct. And a group of roughly 100 former federal prosecutors for the DC US Attorney’s office has sent the Senate Judiciary Committee a letter calling Martin “unfit and unqualified” to serve as Washington’s US Attorney, and requesting a public hearing on his nomination.

A spokesperson for Grassley said by email the committee doesn’t hold hearings for US attorney nominees and “will thoroughly review Ed Martin’s background and qualifications, including questions for the record, as part of its standard nominations process.” None of Trump’s US attorney picks have been confirmed yet or scheduled for a vote.

It’s unclear how his nomination will fare. Senate Republicans haven’t publicly voiced concerns about Martin.

Martin has previously criticized some Senate Republicans on his former radio show, including Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who voted to convict Trump during impeachment proceedings, and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a Judiciary Committee member, over his involvement in a bipartisan gun control deal.

Normally US attorney nominees are voted out of committee without a hearing and get an up-or-down vote in the full Senate. Federal law states US attorneys can serve up to 120 days in acting capacity, giving Martin until May 20 before he must be confirmed to continue serving.

“He’s been in politics a long time, so I imagine he’ll get asked a lot about his political views and stances and so forth, but that’s how it goes,” Hawley said. “If he’s able to show, ‘Hey, listen, here’s what I’m going to do as a prosecutor, here’s my focus. I’m going to be about prosecuting criminals,’ I mean, what more can you ask for from a US attorney?”

Priorities Shift

Martin has announced initiatives to crack down on threats against judges and against workers with Elon Musk’s government efficiency unit, investigate election violations, and prioritize prosecutions of firearms offenses.

He also wants to revise how the office handles its database on police officers who have committed misconduct and shouldn’t testify in cases.

In an “open letter to our cops” he posted on social media, Martin said he’s “rewriting” the district’s policy on its list of law enforcement officers who have committed misconduct that would be disclosed if they testified in a trial.

The US attorney’s office “will no longer allow judges or others to gratuitously damage your careers because of the outsized impact of inexact characterizations,” Martin wrote.

Such a change “could cover up misconduct,” said Patrice Sulton, executive director of DC Justice Lab and a criminal justice advocate.

“That stood out to me, and I think most defenders, as the craziest part of this,” Sulton said.

Martin’s overseen departures of longstanding career leaders during his brief tenure, including the office’s former criminal division chief who resigned in mid-February over Martin’s handling of an inquiry into a Biden-era government contract.

Mayer-Dempsey’s initial removal from the narcotics case came as she was demoted from her position on Feb. 28 as deputy chief of the federal major crimes section, along with a half dozen other career supervisors.

The supervisors, including some who worked on Capitol riot cases, were sent to the office’s misdemeanors unit, or an office called the early case assessment section. Martin wrote in demotion emails, viewed by Bloomberg Law, that “each US attorney must assess the needs of his office.”

The narcotics case, initially charged in April 2023, involved a Maryland doctor accused of distributing opioids who had been detained pending trial. Taking Mayer-Dempsey off it would have threatened the Justice Department’s ability to proceed with the trial on time, as she was the lead prosecutor and the only lawyer from her office on the docket.

A hearing by telephone was scheduled for the afternoon of Feb. 28, court records show. Leadership ultimately reversed the decision to pull Mayer-Dempsey from the case, according to the source familiar.

Unconventional Pick

Trump initially announced Martin would be chief of staff for the Office of Management and Budget, before deciding to place him as Washington’s chief prosecutor.

Martin would be the first DC US Attorney in decades to have no prosecutorial experience. In his Senate Judiciary questionnaire, obtained by Bloomberg Law, Martin said he’s had to appear in court “occasionally,” and that he has never tried a case to verdict or final judgment.

“The job very much entails supervising potentially high profile sensitive cases, and having done that job, I just can’t imagine trying to do it without having been in the trenches as a prosecutor,” said McQuade.

Martin was subpoenaed by the since-disbanded House committee investigating the events of Jan. 6, but he didn’t comply. At a 2023 hearing held by House Republicans, Martin expressed sympathy for Jan. 6 defendants and “mistreatments” they endured, and slammed the Jan. 6 panel as a “travesty.”

Earlier in his career, Martin served as Human Rights Office Director for the Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis and as an associate at Bryan Cave LLP.

He resigned as chief of staff to Republican Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt in 2008 after it was revealed the office was deleting emails in violation of the state’s records laws.

He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2010 and to be Missouri attorney general in 2012. He was elected chair of the Missouri Republican Party in 2013.

Martin also was president of the Eagle Forum Education and Legal Defense Fund, part of the group founded by conservative advocate Phyllis Schlafly, known for campaigning against the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s. He co-authored with Schlafly the book, “The Conservative Case for Trump” in 2016.