Thom Tillis, a key Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Tuesday that he would not support the nomination of Ed Martin, the interim U.S. attorney for Washington who has been nominated to hold that post, dealing a major blow to one of President Trump’s most polarizing nominees.
Mr. Tillis, who faces a potentially difficult re-election campaign in North Carolina next year, told reporters at the Capitol that he had informed the White House that he could not back Mr. Martin, a 2020 election denier, because as a lawyer in private practice he had defended rioters who stormed the building on Jan. 6, 2021.
That would leave the committee deadlocked at 11 to 11, with all 10 Democrats on the panel opposing Mr. Martin. He was on the grounds of the Capitol, supporting Mr. Trump’s false claims of a stolen election, the day the violent mob broke through the cordon of police officers.
Mr. Martin’s nomination has been teetering amid revelations that in 2021 he appeared on a podcast hosted by a white nationalist and compared former President Biden to Adolf Hitler. Mr. Tillis’s action could spare reluctant Republicans from casting a “yes” vote for a nominee many privately see as ill-suited, even unfit, for the job.
“Most of my concerns are related to Jan. 6,” said Mr. Tillis, who met on Monday with Mr. Martin, a conservative lawyer from Missouri, describing him as “a good man.”
Mr. Tillis said Mr. Martin had made a compelling case that some of those prosecuted for Jan. 6 might have been treated too harshly, but failed to allay his larger concerns.
“Where we probably have a difference is, I think anybody that reached the perimeter should have been in prison for some period of time, whether it’s for 30 days or three years, which is debatable,” Mr. Tillis added. “But I have no tolerance for anyone who entered the building.”
Mr. Martin, a Missouri Republican who has used social media to threaten critics of Mr. Trump and Elon Musk, has upended one of the most important U.S. attorney’s offices in the country. He has purged nonpolitical career staff involved in the investigations of the Jan. 6 attack.
Mr. Trump has been working the phones, according to administration officials, to assuage concerns within his own party about Mr. Martin, who has ingratiated himself to Mr. Trump by using the power of his office to threaten the president’s enemies.
But a significant indication that effort was falling short emerged in recent days when the committee’s chairman, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, did not include a vote on Mr. Martin’s nomination on this week’s calendar as expected.
White House officials gave no sign that they intended to pull Mr. Martin’s nomination, or what they planned to do if his nomination failed, as is now likely.
If his interim appointment expires on May 20, it would fall to the Federal District Court in Washington to fill the vacancy until the administration names a new nominee.
“Ed Martin is a fantastic U.S. attorney for D.C. and will continue to implement the president’s law-and-order agenda in Washington,” Alex Pfeiffer, a Trump spokesman, said in a statement. “He is the right man for the job and we look forward to his confirmation.”
The Republican leadership of the Senate could intervene and bring the nomination to the floor. But that is unlikely, considering the growing opposition on both sides of the aisle to a novice prosecutor who has used his office to threaten academic institutions and Democrats — to the delight of the president, aides said.
While Mr. Trump’s support for Mr. Martin could prove decisive, his prospects remain uncertain, with four to five Republican senators, including Mr. Tillis, suggesting they might oppose him on the floor.
Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, told CNN on Tuesday that the announcement by Mr. Tillis “would suggest that he’s not probably going to get out of committee.”
Glenn Thrush covers the Department of Justice for The Times and has also written about gun violence, civil rights and conditions in the country’s jails and prisons.
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