For four years, Ed Martin Jr. has embraced the cause of Jan. 6 rioters, downplayed their violence against police and spread false claims that the far-left or government played a role in the attack on the Capitol.
Now, he’s in charge of carrying out Donald Trump’s order to unravel all lingering Jan. 6 cases. His name appears at the bottom of hundreds of court filings seeking to dismiss ongoing criminal cases stemming from the attack.
Trump tapped Martin — who marched to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 but did not enter the building — to implement the Justice Department’s abrupt U-turn. A lawyer and longtime conservative activist, Martin helped lead an organization raising money for Jan. 6 defendants and even represented a handful of them in court. He was a prominent advocate of claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and that then-Vice President Mike Pence and Congress should overturn the results on Jan. 6.
When Trump returned to the White House, he chose Martin to temporarily lead the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia, which had overseen the sprawling probe and charged nearly 1,600 people for their role in the mob. Now, Martin is carrying out Trump’s directive to dismiss hundreds of pending Jan. 6 cases, even against the most violent perpetrators.
It’s unclear how long Martin will serve in the post. The president has not yet nominated someone to permanently fill the position, which requires Senate confirmation. Trump previously tapped Martin for a top spot in the Office of Management and Budget.
Martin seems to relish the role. He continues to use his X account to embrace the cause of the defendants. He issued a pointed press statement criticizing a judge for trying to prevent Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes from visiting the Capitol. (Martin declared on Twitter in June 2021 that “Oath Keepers are all of us,” after prosecutors expanded the Jan. 6 case against the group’s leaders.)
He has described himself and the other prosecutors in his office as “the President’s lawyers” — a sharp departure from the norm that federal prosecutors maintain distance from the White House and represent the interests of the public, not the president. Even Pam Bondi, Trump’s pick to be attorney general, emphasized at her confirmation hearing that, if confirmed, “The people of America would be my client.”
Martin did not respond to requests for comment. Through a spokesperson at the U.S. attorney’s office, he declined to comment on his prior statements about Jan. 6, whether he’s sought or received ethics guidance based on his involvement in Jan. 6 cases and how those experiences have informed his early decisions as interim U.S. attorney.
Early adopter of election conspiracies
Martin, who describes Jan. 6 defendants as victims of an overzealous federal government, was an active player in the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” effort that followed the 2020 election. His work drew the interest of the Democrat-led Jan. 6 select committee, which subpoenaed him in the early months of its probe. According to the panel’s records, Martin didn’t show up. The panel, however, did not seek to hold him in contempt of Congress.
Another witness, “Stop the Steal” founder Ali Alexander, described Martin as a “mentor” and suggested Martin’s nonprofit played a role in helping manage funds for the effort.
Martin, an acolyte of conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly, was an early adopter of conspiracy theories that antifa and other far-left activists fueled the violence that unfolded at the Capitol on Jan. 6. He was present at the Capitol, and while he said he didn’t witness the worst of the chaos, he has compared the energy to “Mardi Gras” and said it did not seem like a riot.
“We know it was antifa, it was plants,” Martin said in a video he posted on Periscope on Jan. 7, 2021. “I certainly don’t wish any violence … I was disappointed that antifa caused the problems at the Capitol.”
Martin claimed that news media, including Fox News, “ran photographs of the strangest people that were at the protest.”
“The people I saw at the protest were moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas,” he said. “They showed the photographs … of people that looked a little mentally disabled, mentally disordered. They’re wearing hats and horns and things.”
In the ensuing days, Martin acknowledged that some “really stupid Trump supporters” committed violence that day but said “a few bad apples shouldn’t spoil the bunch” and continued to argue that “antifa or communists” were involved in breaking windows and other crimes at the Capitol.
“It’s 10 days after the incident and we’re just now finding out the bad guys were not Trump people,” Martin said on a Jan. 15 podcast.
Downplaying police injuries
Martin has repeatedly emphasized he opposes all violence against police, but he used those early days after the riot to suggest media coverage of attacks on police were overstated.
On Jan. 8, 2021, while Washington was still reeling from the attack, Martin said he wasn’t sure any police officers were “wounded,” which he characterized as different than being “injured.”
“They talk about ‘Police officers wounded,’” he said, describing media coverage of the attack. “I think the word is injured. I’m not sure people were wounded. Maybe, but it sounds like, again, we’re being spun.”
And despite his insistence that he does not condone attacks against cops, Martin said last year that violence by protesters may have been a justified response to the way police used force to quell the riot.
“The more we find out about how staged and managed this was, the more we have to have less judgment for somebody who hits a cop,” Martin said in a March 5, 2024 appearance on Michael Savage’s “Savage Nation” podcast, “especially when we’ve seen they’re firing tear gas into the crowd before it was operationally appropriate.”
Martin also said on that podcast that he’d become an advocate for a blanket pardon of all Jan. 6 defendants because “the whole thing was so rotten.” He mocked the notion, as some Trump critics professed, that the attack was the worst on America’s government since the Civil War.
“They’re right,” he added. “We’ve never had our government act against ‘We the people’ like this. Never.”
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