As the Department of Justice becomes the Department of Revenge:
Outgoing acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin is moving to a new Justice Department effort named the “Weaponization Working Group,” and he’s already issuing threats, NBC News reported on Tuesday. However, legal experts have their own comments, and one has citations.
Martin, a defense attorney who represented several Jan. 6 defendants, could not garner support from a top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee for the U.S. attorney post. So, he has been shifted to the Justice Department for the working group that aims to investigate anyone involved in the probes into President Donald Trump and his allies, NBC said.
In a news conference on Tuesday, Martin told reporters, “There are some really bad actors, some people that did some really bad things to the American people. And if they can be charged, we’ll charge them. But if they can’t be charged, we will name them. And we will name them, and in a culture that respects shame, they should be people that are ashamed. And that’s a fact. That’s the way things work. And so that’s, that’s how I believe the job operates.”
It’s a move that side-steps long-standing Justice Department protocols, NBC News said, and legal experts caution that it could lead to lawsuits.
“I mean, if the government wants a slew of Privacy Act lawsuits, I guess that’s their business,” said national security lawyer Bradley P. Moss on Bluesky.
…
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who serves as the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, called for Martin to be pulled from working anywhere in government.
“Ed Martin is unfit to serve in the federal government. His ties to Nazi sympathizers and antisemitic extremists make American Jews feel less safe. Trump must rescind this dangerous appointment immediately and never allow Ed Martin to serve in any position in the United States government,” he wrote on X, while also sharing a letter also signed by Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Brad Schneider (D-IL).
A past precedent:
Semafor reporter David Weigel pointed to a key quote in the report by Ryan Reilly: “The justification given for Trump’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey was that Comey had given a press conference in which he released ‘derogatory information’ about then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016.”
https://www.rawstory.com/department-of-justice-2672000423
And here’s a U.S. Senator who is less than enchanted with Trump’s nomination of Ed Martin to be the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C.:
https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/ed-martin-2671901204