Without Senate confirmation of Ed Martin as permanent U.S. Attorney, a court led by Chief Judge James Boasberg will pick his replacement.
President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington is facing steeper odds after a key Senate Republican announced he won’t support the confirmation of Ed Martin—putting the nomination in jeopardy just two weeks before a critical deadline.
“I’ve indicated to the White House I wouldn’t support his nomination,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, told reporters on Capitol Hill on May 6.
Martin, a conservative attorney and longtime activist, was appointed acting U.S. attorney by Trump on Jan. 20. His interim term expires on May 20, and without Senate confirmation, the decision on a permanent replacement will fall to a panel of federal judges on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, led by Chief Judge James Boasberg.
Boasberg, who is overseeing litigation challenging the government’s use of wartime powers to send deportees to an El Salvador prison, has drawn criticism from Trump, who has called for the judge’s impeachment.
Martin’s chances of Senate approval narrowed considerably on Tuesday when Tillis said he would oppose the nomination, potentially dooming it in the Judiciary Committee, where Republicans have a razor-thin 12–10 majority.
Martin, known for representing defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol, defended his past advocacy in a meeting with Tillis on Monday evening. While the senator said Martin “did a good job” of explaining that some individuals were “over prosecuted,” he said “there were some—two or three hundred of them—that should have never gotten a pardon.”
After Trump returned to office and issued clemency for nearly all of the 1,600 Jan. 6 defendants, Martin launched a review of how prosecutors in Washington handled those cases. He criticized the use of obstruction charges as “a great failure”—a sharp break from his predecessor, Matthew Graves, who spearheaded the largest Jan. 6 prosecution effort.
Tillis told reporters on Tuesday that his objection to Martin was less about qualifications or actions as interim U.S. attorney than the context of the D.C. role itself.
“If Mr. Martin were being put forth as a U.S. Attorney for any district except the district where January 6 happened, the protest happened, I’d probably support him, but not in this district,” he said.
The senator said he believes that anyone who breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, should serve prison time.
By Tom Ozimek
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Contact Senator Thom Tillis at (704) 509-9087
