WASHINGTON — Former federal prosecutors and outside organizations raised alarms this week over the nomination of Ed Martin, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, to take over as the top federal prosecutor in Washington on a permanent basis.
Martin — who backed Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and advocated for defendants in Jan. 6 Capitol riot cases — had no prosecutorial experience before Trump made him interim U.S. attorney on Inauguration Day. And he has taken a number of highly unusual and political actions since he took over the position on a tempor basis.
On Wednesday, Democrats on the Senate Judici Committee called for a hearing on Martin’s nomination, which would break from standard practice for nominees for U.S. attorney positions. Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., announced this week that he would place a hold on Martin’s nomination, which could delay a vote on his nomination.
In a letter sent to the Senate Judici Committee this week and obtained by NBC News, more than 100 former assistant U.S. attorneys who worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia signed a “Statement of Conscience and Principle” laying out why they see Martin as unfit.
“We are determined that the values and norms that were birthed during the tenure of John Thomson Mason and his successors — a commitment to the rule of law, the absence of partisanship in the pursuit of justice, the presence of civility, decency, and fairness — continue unabated now and hereafter,” the statement reads, calling Martin “unworthy of the position.”
Daniel Toomey, a former federal prosecutor who served in the office from 1968 to 1971, told NBC News the letter grew out of a regular Zoom call that started around four years ago involving alumni of the Washington federal prosecutor’s office, many of whom worked there in the late 1960s and the early 1970s.
“When we started to learn about Ed Martin, we, to a man and irrespective of our politics, were appalled,” Toomey told NBC News. “We have never, ever seen anything like this in the U.S. attorney’s office.”
Toomey said that the list of signers leans toward those who have retired from practicing law and that they believe the list would be in the “hundreds” if not for those still in private practice who may be worried about retaliation by the Trump administration.
“I can’t tell you the number of people who would call, and friends of mine would call, who said, ‘I fully agree with you, but I can’t sign this,'” Toomey said.
Toomey said some signers of the letter plan to meet with Senate staffers next week to express their concerns.
