A DOJ official looking for a way to punish President Donald Trump’s enemies when there isn’t enough evidence to prosecute them thinks he’s finally found a workaround: state-sponsored cancel culture.
Ed Martin, the newly-appointed head of the Justice Department’s “Weaponization Working Group‚” told reporters how he plans to go after those he thinks are guilty.
“If they can be charged, we’ll charge them,” said Martin, whose term as interim U.S. attorney for D.C. came to an end recently. “But if they can’t be charged, we will name them. And we will name them, and in a culture that respects shame, they should be people that are ashamed.”
“That’s the way things work,” he added. “That’s how I believe the job operates.”
Trump has a long list of people he wants investigated, arrested, or prosecuted—from Bruce Springsteen and Kamala Harris to pollsters who show his approval rating sinking, as well as prosecutors who have worked on cases against him, such as New York Attorney General Letitia James and former Special Counsel Jack Smith.
But Martin’s plan flies in the face of the DOJ’s mission to prosecute crimes, rather than individuals, and seemingly violates department rules requiring “fair, evenhanded” investigations that protect the privacy and reputation of uncharged subjects.
In fact, during the first Trump administration James Comey was fired from his job as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2017 in part because he gave a “derogatory” press conference regarding the FBI’s investigation into then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Attorney General Pam Bondi created Martin’s group to probe the “weaponization of the federal government” under the Biden administration and root out “abuses of the criminal justice process. Critics warn that Martin’s new post carries a dangerous amount of power.
Barbara McQuade, who served as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan from 2010 to 2017, wrote in an op-ed, “While Martin’s new job may feel fake, the dangers posed by it are very real.”
She argued that his role will allow him to “carry Trump’s water by publicly accusing his accusers of misconduct, even in the absence of evidence that any crime was committed. This is terrible news for prosecutors who have worked on any number of cases Trump may find personally objectionable.”
Martin ended up as “weaponization czar” after Republican senators torpedoed his nomination to continue on as U.S. Attorney for D.C., thanks in part to his support for Trump’s election lies and his involvement in the “Stop the Steal” movement, which sought to overturn the 2020 election.
During his time as U.S. Attorney for D.C., he fired and demoted prosecutors who oversaw cases linked to the invasion of the Capitol in 2021.
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