Conspiracy theorist-cum-interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin is having a ball with his newfound position. Back in 2021, he was out there leading “Stop the Steal” chants, hyping up the crowd that would storm the Capitol the next day. Now as the top federal prosecutor in Washington D.C. he gets to fire all the career prosecutors involved in enforcing the nation’s general prohibition against taking a dump in the Rotunda.
He’s also having fun writing letters setting out legal gibberish for social media consumption. As one does.
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Earlier today, Martin shared a MASH note he wrote to shadow president Elon Musk promising to use the full force of his office (assuming he still has any FBI agents that haven’t been loyalty purged) to go after anyone getting in the way of DOGE’s mission. Which mostly seems to be sending high school interns on field trips to seize everyone’s social security numbers.
“SENT VIA X.” This is truly the dumbest timeline. Look, DOGE is clearly a real entity because in that place where a serious letter would put an address it says “United States Government.” Cannot argue with that!
The “threats, confrontations, or other actions” alluded to seem little more than people identifying the adolescent Keystone Kops working for Musk and government security guards and senior officials doing their jobs as actual government employees and trying to prevent DOGE from busting into government offices. Martin notes that these actions “may break numerous laws.”
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Which is code for does not break any laws but I need to sound tough. When something actually breaks the law, prosecutors get specific — usually citing a violation similar to but far in excess of what allegedly happened for maximum intimidation value. When they write “I dunno, but that don’t seem legal,” they’re telling you that they have nothing.
No they have not.
It is not illegal just to name a (quasi) government employee. Musk must be asking his AI for legal advice again. Nor is it illegal for security to secure federal buildings from people who aren’t authorized to be there. In fact, if Martin could cite any law being broken it would be a tortured reading of the laws against trespassing on government property or corruptly obstructing an official proceeding — laws that would remind everybody of the time he played cheerleader for a bunch of guys who turned around and busted into Nancy Pelosi’s office. Best not shine a light on the elements of those offenses.
And while Martin’s making up laws for Elon, he also took some time to concoct this goofy threat against Senator Chuck Schumer.
Schumer’s remarks were a rhetorical callback to Kavanaugh’s own statement “I fear that the whole country will reap the whirlwind,” when Kavanaugh bemoaned the possibility that America might actually scrutinize guys like him. And the price Schumer referred to was the shellacking Republicans took at the polls after the Supreme Court took to playing Mad Libs with constitutional law. A whirlwind that Trump just now managed to overcome.
This is not a serious law enforcement inquiry, but trying to bully a sitting Senator can score some social media buzz. Schumer, of course, remembers when public officials were actually threatened by the Capitol rioters that Martin spent the last few years trying to release. On the spectrum of threats against public officials, telling a bloodthirsty audience to “fight like hell” — as Trump did on January 6 — comes much closer to the mark than any of this stuff.
Again, Martin has no interest in pulling that thread.
This isn’t enforcing “law” so much as prosecutorial cosplay. His tenure as interim U.S. Attorney is a taxpayer-funded performance piece. Unfortunately it’s one we’re going to be stuck with for a while.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.