Ed Martin’s tenure as the interim DC US Attorney offers no shortage of professional responsibility hypos. He personally dismissed charges against his own client, threatened criminal charges against not one but two legislators for being mean to right-wing figures on TV, pledged to use his office to harass Elon Musk’s critics, retweeted a bonkers Russian conspiracy theory with an implied threat of an investigation, and ran key personnel out of his office by asking them to sign off on baseless investigations.
He also omits — erroneously — the “interim” tag on his DC US Attorney title in social media posts that also reveal a shocking lack of basic grammar sense.
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So it was only a matter of time before the lawyer selected for this job off the strength of riling people up in a “Stop the Steal” lather before January 6 found himself the subject of a disciplinary complaint.
For what it’s worth, this is exactly why having the AG’s brother and Martin’s principle deputy in key DC Bar leadership positions would be a problem. Both are running for president and treasurer of the organization respectively. The jobs they seek don’t actually impact disciplinary matters, and as we wrote before — and Brad Bondi’s follow-up statement (now included in the story) supports — there are tons of apolitical reasons to motivate a run for DC Bar jobs. But it looks bad and appearances matter for an organization’s credibility that is tied to public perception. It might not be fair that either candidate loses out over their connections to the administration… but life isn’t always fair. Republicans spent four years wailing like banshees that Joe Biden’s brother and son had jobs while Biden WAS NOT in office! Sometimes family members (and definitely direct reports) have opportunities curtailed by someone else’s ambitions.
The letter from the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Democrats includes the aforementioned greatest hits, while adding a new allegation that Martin’s been in contact with and counseling January 6 defendants that he didn’t previously represent, arguably making himself a fact witness in future proceedings.
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They even called out the grammar screw up in a level of petty that we greatly appreciate here:
19 See e.g., Mr. Martin has used the official Twitter account of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of
Columbia to describe himself and his colleagues as “President Trumps’ [sic] lawyers” who “fight to protect his
leadership as our President…” @USAO_DC (Feb. 25, 2025, 3:18 PM)….
Bravo.
Read the full letter below.
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.