Top federal prosecutor in Washington previously defended Jan. 6 rioters

The top federal prosecutor in Washington D.C. has an unusual backstory.

He has no prior experience prosecuting violations of the law. Instead, he has defended people accused of breaking it, after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6.

Ed Martin advanced bogus claims about election fraud in swing states in 2020, and he spoke at a boisterous rally in Washington the day before the siege on the Capitol.

“Thank you for standing with all of the patriots next to you,” Martin told the crowd four years ago. “And thank you for standing for our president. But remember, what they’re stealing is not just an election. It’s our future.”

The Justice Department went on to charge more than 1,500 people with crimes at or near the Capitol. And Martin went on to defend a few of them in court, and to sit on a board that offered financial support to their families.

Last year he told the Unimpressed podcast that 99% of the Capitol defendants were normal people.

“I’ve never seen anything so unfair in terms of … how these people are characterized, you know, insurrectionists and felonious, all this stuff,” Martin said.

Now back in office, President Trump has granted clemency to all of the Jan. 6 defendants. And he picked Martin as the interim U.S. attorney in D.C.

Martin has fired about two dozen prosecutors who worked on those Jan. 6 cases. They had fewer job protections because they were on probationary status. And he launched a review over how the Justice Department used an obstruction charge against many of the rioters.

“This review of the use of the obstruction charge is outrageous and nonsense,” said Randall Eliason, who led the public corruption unit in the D.C. U.S. attorney’s office for years.

“There was no grave injustice here, no misconduct by the people in doing these cases,” said Eliason, who now teaches law at George Washington University. “They were doing their jobs. And to have the new U.S. attorney come in, and you know … just sort of purge the office and suggest that the entire thing was some kind of misconduct. I can’t imagine what that’s going to do to the morale in the office.”

Martin has been posting on the social media site, X. He’s promised to investigate people who get in the way of or threaten the DOGE team making cuts to federal agencies. He wrote billionaire Elon Musk that he would chase people who acted illegally or unethically “to the ends of the earth” to hold them accountable.

Eliason said prosecutors build criminal cases. They don’t investigate breaches of ethics.

“I mean, if you look at Martin’s background, he has no experience as a prosecutor,” Eliason said. “He’s a politician and that’s exactly how he’s acting.”

This week, seven House Democrats wrote the Justice Department watchdog, asking him to investigate Martin for possible ethics violations. They said after he joined the government, Martin moved to dismiss one Capitol rioter’s case, while he was still listed on paperwork as the man’s defense attorney.

Martin did not return a request for comment for this story. But in an interview with WJLA, a TV station in Washington, he said it was an honor to serve as U.S. attorney. And that he’s been in close contact with police in D.C. about how to make the streets safer for kids and elderly residents.

Martin said he wants to protect the community. But longtime defense lawyers here say some of Martin’s social media posts could wind up as evidence in court, if he moves to prosecute critics of Musk and DOGE.

Sara Kropf, of the Kropf Moseley law firm, said juries could be an important check on prosecutors in the city.

“It’s a smart jury pool, it’s a focused jury pool, it’s an open-minded jury pool but it’s one that also understands the politics of what’s happening,” Kropf said.

Now more than ever, she said, it’s important for people in D.C. to show up for jury duty.