Ed Martin will leave the federal government after serving a turbulent year and a half as a senior Justice Department official, President Trump said Friday.
Martin, a loyal ally of the president who emerged from Missouri’s Republican political scene, will leave to “fight Legal Battles for the upcoming Midterm Election, and the Presidential Election of 2028,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Martin most recently served as the Justice Department’s pardon attorney.
Martin’s assignments at the department have also included serving as acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia and leader of a so-called weaponization working group formed to take action against government employees deemed hostile to Trump or to conservative ideals. Martin was informed in early December that his role would end at the start of the new year, The Wall Street Journal previously reported.
Martin had enjoyed a direct line to the president, who called him directly to talk about investigations, people familiar with the calls said. Martin wrote on X on Friday that he was “proud to serve.”
“Fight Fight Fight,” he wrote.
Former Attorney General Pam Bondi last year named Martin a special prosecutor to study mortgage fraud allegations against Trump’s perceived Democratic adversaries, such as New York Attorney General Letitia James. James was charged in October, but the criminal case was dismissed by a federal judge.
The prosecutor sometimes courted publicity and controversy, showing up outside James’s Brooklyn home in a trench coat resembling that of TV police lieutenant Columbo.
He also sent a letter to a lawyer for an FBI agent who was among the first on the scene at the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, questioning his role in a defamation lawsuit against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Todd Blanche, then serving as deputy attorney general, told Martin to rescind the letter.
Martin supported Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, organizing rallies that alleged voter fraud tainted the outcome.
He didn’t have experience as a prosecutor before Trump tapped him early in his second term to lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. That office handled many of the prosecutions of people charged with crimes related to storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Some Republican senators opposed Martin’s nomination over the lawyer’s advocacy for the pro-Trump mob that assaulted the Capitol. Trump withdrew the nomination last year, installing Martin instead at the DOJ’s headquarters.
Some people around Trump questioned Martin’s effectiveness in his role leading the weaponization group, the Journal previously reported. The group looked into matters such as whether Biden-era officials improperly investigated those involved in the attack on the U.S. Capitol; wrongly targeted Roman Catholics; and sought to silence parents who spoke out on topics such as how race is addressed in schools.
