Dem
47
GOP
53
Do folks remember the name "Ed Martin"? He is the partisan hack with a law degree who was Donald Trump's initial nominee to be U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. Given the nature of the cases that pass through that circuit, that is a position of enormous importance. It also means that if you are someone like Martin—a key architect of "stop the steal"—you're in a position to put the two Dicks, Nixon and Cheney, to shame when it comes to abusing government power in service of persecuting political enemies.
Martin's problem is that the only thing that exceeds his fervor for MAGA is his stupidity. It is Politics 101 that if you are nominee for a key position, you don't do ANYTHING to rock the boat until you are actually confirmed to that position. Then, once you're basically bulletproof, you can go to town. Martin apparently did not grasp this very basic concept, and so he hit the ground running when it came to partisan witch hunts. In so doing, he made himself radioactive enough that even the pliant Senate Republican Conference could not approve him. Let us recall that this is the exact same group of people that was able to swallow hard and give its blessing to Robert Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard and Kristi Noem. You have to be pretty nutty for your nuttiness to be even nuttier than the nuttery of that trio.
When it became clear that Martin had no hope of confirmation, he was moved over to the White House, and put in charge of the Department of Justice's "Weaponization Group." Officially, the job of that group was to investigate prosecutors accused of having weaponized the Justice Department AGAINST Donald Trump. In every accusation there is a confession, of course, and the real purpose of the group was to weaponize the Justice Department FOR Trump.
Yesterday, the news broke that Martin has been demoted, has had all his powers stripped, and will soon be out of a job entirely. The White House is not confirming that, and so it's certainly not saying why he has been demoted and pushed out. However, the administration isn't denying it either, and numerous outlets have confirmed the news with off-the-record sources.
We can think of two plausible explanations for this development. The first, and less likely, is that there's something in the Epstein documents dump that makes Martin look really, really bad. In that case, the administration could be trying to get out ahead of the story, so that if and when the skeletons are discovered, the White House's hands are at least a little cleaner.
The much more likely explanation is that Martin failed spectacularly at the task put before him. In fact, while it hasn't been confirmed if it's real, there is reportedly video footage of him being terminated:
The James and Comey cases are going nowhere. There is nothing upon which to hang an indictment of Jack Smith, or Rep. Ilhan Omar (DFL-MN), or even a smaller fish like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY). The tiny fly in the ointment here is that none of these people have committed—you know—crimes. But that technicality is no excuse, as far as The Donald is concerned. We feel pretty certain that is why Martin's head is rolling now.
If so, that's really very good news. Not that Martin is out of work (although that IS the icing on the cake), but that being willing to abuse the legal system, and having lackeys willing to do the same, will only get you so far. Trump's efforts to persecute his enemies aren't going to get MORE effective. He's not going to find someone more competent than Martin, because competent people don't want to be a part of these shenanigans (which put their law license at risk). Nor is Trump going to find someone more willing than Martin to debase themselves and dishonor their law license. So, at least SOME guardrails are holding. (Z)