Dem
47
GOP
53
In today's reminder that "The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine," also applies to the wheels of justice, Ed Martin is now officially at risk of losing his license to practice law in Washington, DC.
Martin has done a whole bunch of sleazy things in the last 18 months or so, both while he was acting U.S. Attorney for D.C., and then when he took up an "election fraud" position in the White House. What he's in trouble for, at least for the moment, is the letter he sent to Georgetown Law School advising that it better get rid of its DEI programs, and that if it did not, then as long as he was in the U.S. Attorney's office for D.C. (a period of time that ultimately proved to be not very long), that office would not be hiring any Georgetown grads.
Georgetown took exception to this obviously discriminatory behavior (especially since no other schools were targeted) and brought the matter to the attention of Hamilton Fox, the disciplinary counsel for D.C., who basically acts as the prosecutor in such cases. Once Martin knew he was on the hot seat, but before a formal complaint was filed, he wrote letters to several judges on the D.C. Circuit of Appeals (which would have final say in this matter) to complain about Fox. That is a big no-no.
Consequently, the proceedings will focus on the initial letter to Georgetown, and then also on the inappropriate letters to the judges. Since they don't want to take away someone's livelihood half-cocked, the process is long and Martin will have a couple of options for appealing. That said, there's not much ambiguity here—he's clearly guilty of doing what he's charged with doing, and the things he did are clear ethical violations. So, the day will surely come when his license gets yanked.
That day could be several years in the future, mind you. John Eastman was one of the architects of the fake voters scheme, and his case has been "in process" for nearly 5 years now. His law license is suspended in California, but it's not yet terminated. And while he was under indictment for two different fake electors cases, one of them (Georgia) was dropped, and the other (Arizona) does not appear to be close to actually being prosecuted, as yet.
Still, Martin wins the prize for "first Trump v2.0 staffer to face professional sanctions." He won't be the last, you can be sure of that. And while it took until Year Four of Trump v1.0 for staffers to start getting into formal hot water, this time it's begun early in Year Two. That should be at least somewhat heartening for people who like to see miscreants punished for their misdeeds. (Z)