The assaults on Decide John Barberis within the fall of 2016 appeared on his private Fb web page. They impugned his ethics, criticized a current ruling and branded him as a “politician” with the “LOWEST rating for a judge in Illinois.”
Barberis, a state courtroom decide in an Illinois county throughout the Mississippi River from St. Louis, was presiding over a nasty authorized battle for management over the Eagle Discussion board, the vaunted grassroots group based by Phyllis Schlafly, matriarch of the anti-feminist motion. The case pitted Schlafly’s youngest daughter towards three of her sons, nearly like a Midwest model of the HBO program “Succession” (with out the obscenities).
On the coronary heart of the dispute — and the lead defendant within the case — was Ed Martin, a lawyer by coaching and a political operative by commerce. In Missouri, the place he was primarily based, Martin was broadly referred to as an irrepressible gadfly who trafficked in incendiary claims and trailed controversy wherever he went. In the present day, he’s the interim U.S. legal professional in Washington, D.C., and one of the distinguished members of the Trump Justice Division.
In early 2015, Schlafly had chosen Martin to succeed her as head of the Eagle Discussion board, a crowning second in Martin’s profession. But after only a 12 months in cost, the group’s board fired Martin. Schlafly’s youngest daughter, Anne Schlafly Cori, and a majority of the Eagle Discussion board board filed a lawsuit to bar Martin from any affiliation with the group.
After Barberis dealt Martin a serious setback within the case in October 2016, the assaults started. The Fb consumer who posted them, Priscilla Grey, had labored in a number of roles for Schlafly however was not a celebration to the case, and her feedback learn like these of an aggrieved outsider.
Virtually two years later, the reality emerged as Cori’s attorneys gathered proof for her lawsuit: Behind the posts in regards to the decide was none apart from Martin.
ProPublica obtained beforehand unreported paperwork filed within the case that present Martin had purchased a laptop computer for Grey and that she subsequently supplied to “happily write something to attack this judge.” And when she did, Martin ghostwrote extra posts for her to make use of and coached her on tips on how to make her feedback look extra “organic.”
“That is not justice but a rigged system,” he urged her to jot down. “Shame on you and this broken legal system.”
“Call what he did unfair and rigged over and over,” Martin continued.
Martin even urged Grey to message the decide privately. “Go slow and steady,” he suggested. “Make it organic.”
Grey appeared to take Martin’s recommendation. “Private messaging him that sweet line,” she wrote. It was not clear from the courtroom report what, if something, she wrote at that juncture.
Authorized consultants instructed ProPublica that Martin’s conduct within the Eagle Discussion board case was a transparent violation of moral norms {and professional} guidelines. Martin’s habits, they stated, was particularly egregious as a result of he was each a defendant within the case and a licensed legal professional.
Martin gave the impression to be “deliberately interfering with a judicial proceeding with the intent to undermine the integrity of the outcome,” stated Scott Cummings, a professor of authorized ethics at UCLA College of Legislation. “That’s not OK.”
Martin didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark.
Martin’s authorized and political profession is dotted with questions on his skilled and moral conduct. However for all his years within the highlight, a few of the most critical issues about his conduct have remained within the shadows — buried in courtroom filings, neglected by the press or by no means reported in any respect.
His actions have led to greater than $600,000 in authorized settlements or judgments towards Martin or his employers in a handful of instances. Within the Eagle Discussion board lawsuit, one other decide discovered him in civil contempt, citing his “willful disregard” of a courtroom order, and a jury discovered him chargeable for defamation and false mild towards Cori.
Cori additionally tried to have Martin charged with prison contempt for his function in orchestrating the posts about Barberis, however a decide declined to take up the request and stated she might take the case to the county prosecutor. Cori stated her legal professional met with a detective; Martin was by no means charged.
Such a monitor report may need derailed one other lawyer’s profession. Not so for Martin.
As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump vowed to make use of the Justice Division to reward his allies and search retribution towards his perceived enemies. Since taking workplace, Trump and his appointees have made good on these pledges, pardoning Jan. 6 rioters whereas concentrating on Democratic politicians, media critics and personal regulation corporations.
As considered one of its first personnel picks, the Trump administration selected Martin to be interim U.S. legal professional for the District of Columbia, one of many premier jobs for a federal prosecutor.
A big selection of former prosecutors, authorized observers and others have raised questions on his {qualifications} for an workplace identified for dealing with high-profile instances. Martin has no expertise as a prosecutor. He has by no means taken a case to trial, in line with his public disclosures. Because the performing chief of the most important U.S. legal professional’s workplace within the nation, he directs the work of lots of of attorneys who seem in courtroom on an unlimited array of topics, together with authorized disputes arising out of Congress, nationwide safety issues, public corruption and civil rights, in addition to homicides, drug trafficking and plenty of different native crimes.
During the last 4 years, the workplace prosecuted greater than 1,500 individuals as a part of the large investigation into the violence on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Whereas Trump has pardoned the Jan. 6 defendants, Martin has taken motion towards the prosecutors who introduced these instances. In simply three months, he has overseen the dismissal of excellent Jan. 6-related instances, fired greater than a dozen prosecutors and opened an investigation into the charging selections made in these riot instances.
Ed Martin speaks on the Capitol in June 2023.
Martin has additionally investigated Democratic lawmakers and members of the Biden household; pressured out the chief of the prison division after she refused to provoke an investigation desired by Trump appointees citing an absence of proof, in line with her resignation letter; threatened Georgetown College’s regulation faculty over its variety, fairness and inclusion insurance policies; and vowed to research threats towards Division of Authorities Effectivity staff or “chase” individuals within the federal authorities “found to have damaged the regulation and even acted merely unethically.”
Martin “has butchered the position, effectively destroying it as a vehicle by which to pursue justice and turning it into a political arm of the current administration,” says an open letter signed by greater than 100 former prosecutors who labored within the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the District of Columbia beneath Democratic and Republican presidents.
Already, Martin has been the topic of at the very least 4 disciplinary complaints with the D.C. and Missouri bars, of which one was dismissed and the opposite three look like pending. Two of the complaints got here after he moved to dismiss expenses towards a Jan. 6 rioter whom he had beforehand represented and for whom he was nonetheless listed as counsel of report. (The primary grievance was dismissed after the D.C. bar’s disciplinary panel concluded that Martin had dismissed the case on account of Trump’s pardons and so didn’t violate any guidelines.) The third was filed in March by a bunch of Democratic lawmakers within the U.S. Senate. The fourth was submitted final week by a bunch of former Jan. 6 prosecutors and members of the conservative-leaning Society for the Rule of Legislation. It argues that Martin’s actions up to now “threaten to undermine the integrity of the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the legal profession in the District of Columbia.” If Martin has responded to any of the complaints, these responses haven’t been made public.
Trump has nominated Martin to run the workplace completely. Senate Democrats, in the meantime, have vowed to pull out Martin’s affirmation, demanding a listening to and establishing a battle over considered one of Trump’s most controversial nominees.
Mannies stated later she believed he was making an attempt to get her fired.
“He was attacking her,” stated Pam Maples, who was managing editor on the time. “He was implying she had an ax to grind, that she wanted to get some big story and that she was not being ethical. And when that didn’t get traction, it was more like ‘this isn’t a story.’ It wasn’t that he said anything about a fact being inaccurate, or he wanted to retract a story; he wanted the reporting to stop.”
The Memogate incident was telling — and Martin’s efforts to have Mannies fired have been by no means reported. “His claim was we were misrepresenting what the law was and what he was doing,” she instructed ProPublica. “I mean, he can get very hyper. He can get very emotional.”
When Martin launched a bid for Congress in 2010, he acted as if Memogate was historic historical past. He made himself obtainable to Mannies, she recalled, at all times taking her calls. Years later, he even appeared, lighthearted and bantering, on a St. Louis Public Radio podcast Mannies co-hosted. She stated Martin might be outlandish and aggressive, however he may be disarmingly enthusiastic about no matter trigger he was pursuing in the meanwhile, usually talking in a frenetic rush. “He just wore people down with his enthusiasm,” she stated.
Ed Martin speaks to supporters at his election watch social gathering Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2010 in St. Louis.
Martin allowed a special St. Louis reporter to shadow him throughout his 2010 run for Congress. The reporter requested in regards to the St. Louis election board, a dysfunctional group that, by all accounts, Martin had helped flip round within the mid-2000s. Martin had fired an worker there named Jeanne Bergfeld, and he or she later sued for wrongful termination. The board settled the lawsuit.
As a part of the settlement, Martin agreed to not speak in regards to the case and the board paid Bergfeld $55,000. Martin and two others issued a letter saying she had been a “conscientious and dedicated professional.”
However speaking to the reporter masking his marketing campaign, Martin stated Bergfeld loved “not having to do anything” and “wasn’t interested in changing.” The day after the story was revealed, Bergfeld sued Martin once more, this time for violating the settlement settlement. Martin denied making the feedback, however the Riverfront Instances launched audio that proved he had.
Martin agreed to pay Bergfeld one other $15,000 however delayed signing the settlement for a number of months. The decide then ordered Martin to pay a few of her authorized prices, citing his “obstinacy.”
Martin misplaced his 2010 congressional bid. He ran for Missouri legal professional common two years later and misplaced once more. After his stint as chair of the Missouri Republican Celebration, he went to work as Schlafly’s right-hand man. Martin grew so hooked up to Schlafly {that a} lawyer for the Eagle Discussion board jokingly referred to as him “Ed Martin Schlafly.”
Because the 2016 presidential marketing campaign ramped up, Martin supported Trump despite the fact that Eagle Discussion board board members, together with Cori, supported Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Cori described Trump on the time as an “egomaniacal dictator.” (In the present day, she stated she helps him.) Cori and different board members have been shocked when Schlafly endorsed Trump, with Martin standing by her facet.
A number of weeks later, a majority of the Eagle Discussion board’s board voted to oust Martin as president; a lawsuit filed by the board cited mismanagement and poor management and described his tenure as “deplorable.” Martin has maintained that he was Schlafly’s “hand-picked successor” and has characterised his elimination as a hostile takeover.
“Every day, they are diminishing the reputation and value of Phyllis,” he stated in a 2017 assertion. She died in September 2016.
Cori and the board’s lawsuit sought to implement Martin’s elimination and demand an accounting of the discussion board’s belongings. That’s the case that wound up earlier than Barberis.
On prime of his efforts to direct Grey’s posts on Barberis’ Fb web page, Martin ready a separate assertion, in line with beforehand unreported information from the case. The assertion referred to as Barberis’ ruling to take away him as Eagle Discussion board president “judicial activism at its worst” that “shows what happens when the law is undermined by judges who think they can do whatever they want.”
In a 2019 sworn deposition, Cori’s lawyer requested Martin questions in regards to the posts on Barberis’ Fb web page and the letter he drafted for Bruce Schlafly. Due to the chance that he might be charged with prison contempt of courtroom, Martin declined to remark, on the recommendation of his personal lawyer, although he acknowledged that attorneys are barred from speaking with judges exterior of courtroom or partaking in conduct meant to disrupt proceedings.
Eagle Discussion board’s workplace in Alton, Illinois.
“What would Trump do in that position?” Andy Schlafly stated of Martin’s present function in Washington. “I would say Trump would be doing just what Ed’s doing. Elections do have consequences.”
Grey declined to remark. She was not a part of the lawsuit.
Dugan declined to take up the prison contempt movement. However he later discovered Martin and John Schlafly in civil contempt of courtroom for having interfered with Eagle Discussion board after Barberis had eliminated them from the group. John Schlafly appealed the contempt discovering and principally misplaced. He didn’t reply to requests for remark. It’s unclear if Martin appealed.
Cori instructed ProPublica she additionally filed an ethics grievance towards Martin with the Missouri Workplace of Chief Disciplinary Counsel, which investigates ethics complaints towards attorneys. She stated she was instructed her grievance must wait till her lawsuit concluded. The workplace stated it might neither affirm nor deny it had acquired a grievance.
Anne Schlafly Cori gained a defamation declare towards Martin in 2022.
In 2022, when a part of Cori’s lawsuit went to trial, a jury discovered Martin chargeable for defaming her and casting her in a false mild — together with by sharing a Fb publish suggesting that she ought to be charged with manslaughter for her mom’s dying. It awarded her $57,000 in damages and likewise discovered Martin chargeable for $25,500 towards one other Eagle Discussion board board member.
Martin argued that the statute of limitations had expired on the defamation claims and that lots of his statements have been both true or obscure hyperbole not topic to proof. He additionally claimed he couldn’t be held liable as a result of he didn’t write the offending publish — he had merely shared one thing written by another person.
In a post-trial movement, he additionally leaned into protections that make it tougher for public figures to win defamation instances. Below that increased authorized commonplace, it’s not sufficient for a plaintiff to indicate {that a} assertion was false. Cori additionally needed to show that Martin knew it was false or acted with reckless disregard for the reality, and he stated she didn’t show it.
However whereas he’s wrapped himself in First Modification protections when defending his personal speech, he’s taken the other stance since being named interim U.S. legal professional by Trump, threatening authorized motion towards individuals after they criticize the administration.
For example, after Rep. Robert Garcia referred to as DOGE chief Elon Musk a “dick” and urged Democrats to “bring weapons” to a political battle, Martin despatched Garcia a letter warning his feedback might be seen as threats and demanding a proof.
With the beginning of Trump’s first presidency, Martin and his household moved to the Northern Virginia suburbs close to Washington, D.C. Martin had no formal function within the new administration, however he turned himself into one of many president’s most prolific and unfiltered surrogates.
CNN employed him in September 2017 to be a pro-Trump on-air commentator, solely to fireplace him 5 months later after a string of controversial on-air remarks. He attacked a girl who had accused Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore of molesting her as a toddler, praised Trump for denigrating Sen. Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas,” and described a few of his CNN co-panelists as “rabid feminists” and “Black racists.”
Unbowed, Martin went on to make greater than 150 appearances on the Russia In the present day TV channel and Sputnik radio, each Russian state-owned media shops, first reported by The Washington Publish. On RT and Sputnik, Martin railed towards the “Russia hoax,” criticized the DOJ investigation led by particular counsel Robert Mueller and questioned American assist for Ukraine after Russia’s invasion by saying the U.S. was “wasting money in Kiev for Zelensky and his corrupt guys.” The State Division would later say RT and Sputnik have been “critical elements in Russia’s disinformation and propaganda ecosystem.” The Treasury Division sanctioned RT staff in 2024. The DOJ indicted two RT staff for conspiracy to commit cash laundering and conspiracy to fail to register as overseas brokers.
Martin’s aptitude for fealty set him aside even from fellow Trump supporters. He cheered the Maine Republican Celebration for contemplating whether or not to censure Sen. Susan Collins for her vote to convict Trump through the second impeachment trial. He singled out Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska in a radio phase titled “America Needs to Go on a RINO Hunt.” He accused Sen. John Cornyn of going “soft” on gun rights after Cornyn endorsed a bipartisan gun-safety regulation after the Uvalde, Texas, mass taking pictures that left 19 kids and two lecturers useless.
On Jan. 6, 2021, Martin joined the throngs of Trump supporters who marched in protest of the 2020 election end result. He in contrast the scene that day to a Mardi Gras celebration and later stated the prosecution of Jan. 6 defendants was “an op” orchestrated by former Rep. Liz Cheney and regulation enforcement companies to “damage Trump and Trumpism.”
Throughout an look on Russia In the present day, Martin stated then-Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi “weaponized” Congress’ response to the Jan. 6 riots by ramping up safety on Capitol Hill, evaluating her to the Nazis. “Not since the Reichstag fire that was engineered by the Nazis have we seen behavior like what Nancy Pelosi did,” he stated.
As an legal professional, he represented Jan. 6 defendants, helped increase cash for his or her households and championed their trigger. Final summer season, Martin gave an award to a convicted Jan. 6 rioter named Timothy Hale-Cusanelli. In keeping with courtroom information, Hale-Cusanelli held “long-standing white supremacist and Nazi beliefs,” wore a “Hitler mustache” and allegedly instructed his co-workers that “Hitler should have finished the job.” (In courtroom, Hale’s legal professional stated his consumer “makes no excuses for his derogatory language,” however the authorities’s description of him was “simply misleading.”)
After hugging and thanking Hale-Cusanelli on the ceremony, Martin instructed the viewers that considered one of his targets was “to make sure that the world — and especially America — hears more from Tim Hale, because he’s extraordinary.”
In his three months as interim U.S. legal professional for D.C., Martin has used his place to situation a sequence of threats. He’s vowed to not rent anybody affiliated with Georgetown Legislation until the varsity drops any DEI insurance policies. He vowed to Musk that he would “pursue any and all legal action against anyone who impedes your work or threatens your people.” He publicly instructed former particular counsel Jack Smith and Smith’s attorneys to “[s]ave your receipts.” And in one other open letter addressed to Musk and Musk’s deputy, Martin wrote that “if people are discovered to have broken the law or even acted simply unethically, we will investigate them and we will chase them to the end of the Earth to hold them accountable.”
As a rule, Martin’s threats have gone nowhere.
A month into the job, he introduced “Operation Whirlwind,” an initiative to “hold accountable those who threaten” public officers, whether or not they’re DOGE employees or judges. One of many “most abhorrent examples” of such threats, he stated, have been Sen. Chuck Schumer’s 2020 remarks that conservative Supreme Courtroom justices had “released the whirlwind” and would “pay the price” in the event that they weakened abortion rights.
Regardless that Schumer walked again his incendiary feedback the subsequent day, Martin stated he was investigating Schumer’s practically 5-year-old remarks as a part of Operation Whirlwind. Regardless of Martin’s bravado, the investigation went nowhere. No grand jury investigation was opened. No expenses have been filed. That the probe fizzled out got here as little shock. Authorized consultants stated Schumer’s remarks, whereas unwell suggested, fell effectively wanting prison conduct.
In one other occasion, when considered one of Martin’s prime deputies refused to open a prison investigation into clean-energy grants issued by the Biden administration, Martin demanded the deputy’s resignation and superior the investigation himself. When a subpoena arrived at one of many focused environmental teams, Martin’s was the one title on it, in line with paperwork obtained by ProPublica.
Kevin Flynn, a former federal prosecutor who served within the D.C. U.S. legal professional’s workplace for 35 years, instructed ProPublica that he didn’t know of a single case by which the U.S. legal professional was the only real authorizing official on a grand jury subpoena. Flynn stated he might consider solely two explanation why this might occur: The matter was of “such extraordinary sensitivity” that the workplace’s chief took unique management over it, or no different supervisor or line prosecutor was keen to log out on the subpoena “out of concern that it wasn’t legally or ethically appropriate.”
And when the dispute between the environmental teams and the Justice Division reached a courtroom, federal Decide Tanya Chutkan requested a DOJ lawyer defending the administration’s actions for any proof of doable crimes or violations — proof, in different phrases, that might have justified the probe initiated by Martin. The DOJ lawyer stated he had none. “You can’t even tell me what the evidence of malfeasance is,” Chutkan stated. “There are still rules that even the government has to follow, last I checked.”
Martin’s tenure has induced a lot consternation that in early April, Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., put a maintain on Martin’s nomination. Sometimes, the Senate Judiciary Committee approves U.S. legal professional picks by voice vote and not using a listening to. However in Martin’s case, all 10 Democrats on the committee have requested for a public listening to to debate the nomination, calling Martin “a nominee whose objectionable record merits heightened scrutiny by this Committee.”
Even the method of submitting the requisite paperwork for Senate affirmation has tripped him up. In keeping with paperwork obtained by ProPublica, he has despatched the Judiciary Committee three supplemental letters that right omissions about his background. In an earlier submission, Martin didn’t disclose any of his appearances on Russian state-owned media. However simply earlier than The Washington Publish reported that Martin had, in actual fact, made greater than 150 such appearances, he despatched yet one more letter correcting his earlier statements.
“I regret the errors and apologize for any inconvenience,” he wrote.
Sharon Lerner contributed reporting.
