Jan. 6 attorney out as D.C. prosecutor

The White House has withdrawn its nomination of an attorney who represented Jan. 6 defendants to be in charge of the office that prosecuted them. President Donald Trump said he will pick a new U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia after a key Republican senator said he would not vote to confirm Ed Martin.

Martin is a longtime Trump supporter who goes by the nickname “The Eagle.” A conservative Catholic from Missouri, he worked with the late Phyllis Schlafly, a grassroots conservative activist who rose to national prominence for opposing the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s. Martin was active in the Stop the Steal movement that contested the results of the 2020 presidential election. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., a member of the Judiciary Committee, refused to support Martin’s nomination, effectively killing it at the committee level.

Martin told me that he had a late-night call with Tillis earlier this week to address his concerns, but he respects the Senate process.

“It’s not about doing the job, it’s about embracing the vision of the president and taking that into the job,” Martin said, adding that he has shared a list of recommended replacements with the president.

“I really thought he was terrific, but we are doing so many different things right now that we couldn’t be really focused on [him],” Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday.

On Thursday night, Trump posted to social media that he is nominating Fox News anchor and former judge Jeanine Pirro to take Martin’s place. He’s moving Martin to three areas of responsibility in the Justice Department: deputy associate attorney general, pardon attorney, and director of the new Weaponization Working Group.

During the confirmation process, Tillis questioned Martin about how to prosecute Jan. 6 rioters. Martin posted a photo of crowds at the Capitol on the day of the riot, calling it “like Mardi Gras in D.C.” Tillis maintained that anyone who entered the Capitol deserved punishment, while Martin argued that the justice system was weaponized against conservatives to levy unfair sentences.

“If it were for any other district than the place where Jan. 6 took place, I’d support him,” Tillis told reporters in the Capitol this week.

Who is Ed Martin?

Leader of Phyllis Schlafly Eagles: In 2016 he founded the Phyllis Schlafly Eagles after he was fired from the Eagle Forum, which Schlafly founded. He has said that Schlafly mentored him, and in 2015, she named him to succeed her as head of the Eagle Forum. But the following year, the board fired Martin and banned him from any future association with the organization. So he founded the Eagles, a conservative activist group borrowing his mentor’s name. The nationwide organization has an office on Capitol Hill to advocate for conservative causes. This past summer, Martin helped author rewrites to the Republican Party platform, which cut 50 pages from the document.

Conservative attorney and candidate: Martin has practiced law and politics, mainly based in Missouri, for 20 years. In 2005, he worked for Americans United for Life to represent Illinois pharmacists who were seeking religious exemptions from prescribing abortion pills. He was the state’s Republican Party chairman between 2013 and 2015. Martin has run several unsuccessful campaigns for elected office: one for Missouri’s 3rd Congressional District in 2010 and one for the state attorney general in 2012. In 2018, he moved to Virginia and lost another election for the Fairfax County Board of Commissioners.

Interim U.S. attorney: As interim federal prosecutor for the District of Columbia, Martin said his department contributed to lower crime rates in Washington, though the trend began before Trump took office. Martin credited the decline to heightened prosecution from the U.S. attorney’s office. He also investigated threats against Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency. Martin posted online frequently about Trump’s cabinet nominees and promised legal protection for them. He launched an initiative he called “Make DC Great Again” and promised to pursue more federal prosecutions. Martin also opened federal inquiries into Democratic members of Congress. He said he was investigating statements made in the past few years by Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and Rep. Robert Garcia of California. Both criticized the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson, which Martin said could pose threats to the justices.

Martin’s interim position expires on May 20.

In his words: “I really believe in Donald Trump’s leadership and his vision. I was on the platform committee in Milwaukee when Donald Trump wrote the platform. I mean, a lot of us put the words together, but ultimately, he, at the end of that process, was sitting down. If you look at the 20 bullet points, they were literally written by Donald Trump in his hand. So I saw what his priorities were, and I said, this is the guy that’s got the right priorities for this country. If you look at that list, No. 11 is about making our cities safe and then making D.C. safe. … I just think he’s got a great vision, and I want to serve in his administration.”

Editor’s note. WORLD has updated this story from its initial posting.