On Inauguration Day, January 20, 2025, Trump installed Ed Martin as interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, the office that had prosecuted the January 6 Capitol attack. “Martin had no prosecutorial experience when Trump named him,” NBC News reported. A former head of the Missouri Republican Party, he “spoke at a 'Stop the Steal' rally on the eve of the riot and served on the board of a group called the Patriot Freedom Project, which has raised money to support Jan. 6 defendants and their families,” the AP reported, and court filings listed him as a lawyer for at least three riot defendants. On January 6, 2021, after the riot began, he posted, “I'm at the Capitol right now,” and “Rowdy crowd but nothing out of hand. Ignore the #FakeNews.”
In office, “He oversaw the dismissals of hundreds of Jan. 6 cases,” according to the AP, and ordered an internal review of prosecutors' use of a felony charge brought against hundreds of rioters, calling it “a great failure of our office.” NPR reported that he “directed the firing of prosecutors who had worked on Jan. 6 cases, launched an internal investigation into their conduct,” and CNN reported he “demoted at least eight senior federal prosecutors who worked on January 6 cases.” He wrote to Elon Musk, “We will not tolerate threats against DOGE workers or law-breaking by the disgruntled,” sent letters to Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and Rep. Robert Garcia over their public remarks, and posted, “Save your receipts, Smith and Covington,” about Jack Smith and a law firm that gave him free legal help. He told Georgetown's law school that its students would not be considered for jobs in his office while it “continues to promote and teach DEI,” which later led to bar discipline charges (Trump's Pardon Attorney Claims Executive Privilege to Evade Personal Ethics Charges, Arguing He and the President Are 'Indistinguishable').
Trump nominated him for the permanent post in February 2025, but Republican Sen. Thom Tillis would not support him: “If Mr. Martin were being put forth as a U.S. attorney for any district, except the district where Jan. 6 happened,” Tillis said, “I'd probably support him. But not in this district.” Trump withdrew the nomination on May 8, 2025, saying, “He wasn't rejected, but we felt it would be very, it would be hard.” The same day he named Martin the Justice Department's pardon attorney and director of its Weaponization Working Group, roles that do not require Senate confirmation. “In these highly important roles, Ed will make sure we finally investigate the Weaponization of our Government under the Biden Regime, and provide much needed Justice for its victims,” Trump wrote.
Attorney General Pam Bondi had created the working group in a February 5, 2025 memo to review “Weaponization by Special Counsel Jack Smith and his staff, who spent more than $50 million targeting President Trump,” the cases brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and New York Attorney General Letitia James, and the January 6 prosecutions, with “quarterly reports to the White House.” At a May 13, 2025 news conference, Martin described how he would treat people who could not be prosecuted: “And if they can be charged, we'll charge them. But if they can't be charged, we will name them.” He added, “It can't be that the system is stifling the truth from coming out because of some procedure.” He was also named a special attorney in mortgage-fraud inquiries into Sen. Adam Schiff and Letitia James, and in the James inquiry he wrote to her urging her to resign, the AP reported.
In February 2026 the Justice Department stripped him of the working group role, NBC News and The Washington Post reported, and the group produced no reports under Bondi (Bondi's Former Chief of Staff Explains Why Trump's Revenge Prosecutions Failed: 'You Need People Who Are MAGA and Really Competent. It's a Very Small Group.'). On August 21, 2026, Trump announced that Martin was leaving the department “to go outside to fight Legal Battles for the upcoming Midterm Election, and the Presidential Election of 2028.” Martin reposted it: “Proud to serve. Fight Fight Fight.”