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President Donald Trump has withdrawn the nomination of Ed Martin to serve as the U.S. attorney for Washington.
The withdrawal of Martin, who has served as the interim U.S. attorney, comes after pushback from Republican senators. North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis announced Tuesday that he would not support Martin’s nomination because of his backing of rioters involved in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
“We have somebody else that will be great,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. “I just want to say, Ed is unbelievable, and hopefully we can bring him into, whether it’s DOJ or whatever, in some capacity.”
“To me, it was disappointing, I’ll be honest. I have to be straight,” the president added. “I was disappointed, a lot of people were disappointed, but that’s the way it works sometimes … We felt … it would be hard, and we have somebody else we’ll be announcing over the next two days who’s gonna be great.”
Martin has used his authority to get revenge on Trump’s opponents as he has threatened to investigate Democrats, academic institutions, and some critics of billionaire and Trump adviser Elon Musk. He has also worked to pick apart the January 6 investigation.
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Tillis, an important Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, blocked Martin’s path to confirmation. The panel is be tied at 11 votes each, as all 10 Democrats on the committee opposed his nomination.
“Most of my concerns are related to January 6,” said Tillis on Tuesday.
Martin is a conservative attorney who backed Trump’s 2020 Stop the Steal movement, pushed for lesser sentencing of January 6 defendants, and has appeared on Russian state media on several occasions.
California Democratic Senator Adam Schiff took to X to criticise Martin as someone who has “abused his position as interim U.S. Attorney to advance a dangerous agenda that places the president’s personal interests above those of the public, tramples the rule of law, and puts our democracy at risk.”
Martin will be relatively easy to replace with someone with similar, but less extreme, priorities, Republican aides told The New York Times. The announcement from Tillis prompted aggressive pushback from rightwing influencers that Trump likes to appease, and there were people in the West Wing who wanted to fight for Martin, according to the paper. People in Trump’s inner circle have considered a range of positions for Martin in the last few days, such as another position in the Department of Justice.
Early on Thursday, Martin still appeared to be trying to hold on to the post, writing “fight, fight, fight,” on social media.
Martin’s interim appointment is set to come to an end on May 20. If no successor has been named by that point, Washington’s Federal District Court judges will name a new U.S. attorney.
Tillis has noted that the White House could choose an acting U.S. attorney to extend their time to select a new person for the role.
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The insurrection may have been the biggest issue for the North Carolina senator, but it was Martin’s connection to a January 6 defendant who prompted many to oppose his nomination.
On a number of occasions in the last few years, Martin has had Timothy Hale-Cusanelli on his podcast. Hale-Cusanelli has dressed up like Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, with court filings stating that he has drawn cartoons “depicting Jewish people as pigs” and once said that he “would kill all the Jews and eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”
In a recent submission to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Martin said he did not have a close connection to Hale-Cusanelli and didn’t know anything about his views.
Allies of Trump in the Senate, such as South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, have pushed the president to nominate someone else.
Trump has started to contact possible successors, two people who are aware of the situation told The Times.
