In some respects, Ed Martin’s potential ascension to being the permanent U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., may be a bit of a curveball for longtime Missouri political observers.
The former St. Louis-area resident didn’t have extensive experience as a prosecutor or a judge before President Donald Trump nominated him for the high-profile post. In the national arena, Martin was known for representing people at the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection — and, more recently, offering to go after people legally who interfere with Elon Musk’s Department of Governmental Efficiency.
Martin’s reemergence into the national public eye is recalling his colorful tenure in Missouri politics. For longtime supporters, Martin’s place in the second Trump administration makes sense given his early backing of the GOP chief executive and his association with the Tea Party movement of the early 2010s.
“He was a movement-oriented politician,” said former state Sen. John Lamping, who became friends with Martin when both men ran for office in 2010. “I think that what was the Tea Party movement was what ultimately evolved into the MAGA movement.”
Martin’s past statements and actions in Missouri are also drawing questions about his temperament and qualifications for the post.
Missouri GOP Sens. Eric Schmitt and Josh Hawley, as well as Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, are set to play major roles in whether Martin will get the necessary votes to stay in his job.
Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that he hopes his colleagues reject Martin’s nomination.
“The mass removals of experienced DOJ and FBI officials represent an outright attack on public safety by President Trump. He is replacing experienced officials with partisan hacks — and Ed Martin is no different,” Durbin said.
Long tenure in Missouri politics
Trump initially picked Martin, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment, to be the chief of staff for the Office of Management and Budget. But the president changed course on Monday when he nominated Martin to be U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. Martin had been serving in an acting capacity since Trump took office.
“Since Inauguration Day, Ed has been doing a great job as Interim U.S. Attorney, fighting tirelessly to restore Law and Order, and make our Nation’s Capital Safe and Beautiful Again,” Trump said in a statement on Truth Social. “He will get the job done.”
While he relocated to Virginia roughly a decade ago, Martin spent more than two decades living in the St. Louis area. Among other positions, Martin worked for the St. Louis Archdiocese, as a member of the St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners and as chief of staff for Gov. Matt Blunt. In the 2010s, Martin served as Missouri Republican Party chairman and as president of Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum.
During a 2015 episode of Politically Speaking, Martin said he felt that he fit into St. Louis shortly after he arrived to go to St. Louis University — where he earned law and master’s degrees.
“If you're a kind of a Catholic kid of a certain era, and probably a Catholic male, you look like you fit in,” Martin said. “You say, what high school did you go to? And you say DeSmet, and you walk away.”
Martin ran unsuccessfully for Congress and Missouri attorney general. He nearly upset then-U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan during the 2010 Tea Party wave but lost badly two years later to Attorney General Chris Koster.
Making headlines
Martin was controversial at multiple points during his time in Missouri politics.
He abruptly departed as Blunt’s chief of staff in November 2007 after he became a central figure in a dustup over retaining emails. And he feuded for years with Schlafly’s children over control of Eagle Forum.
During his time as Blunt’s chief of staff, he made headlines for provocative statements. During a 2007 meeting of the Missouri Housing Development Commission, Martin’s comments about immigrants without legal status working on housing development projects prompted condemnation from Hispanic groups.
And during the 2015 Politically Speaking interview, Martin called for a pause on all immigration — including legal immigration. He contended that technology companies were abusing what’s known as the H1B1 program, which allows people to work in the United States legally. Musk has been a major defender of H1B1 visas, which stoked friction with some longtime Trump supporters such as Steve Bannon.
“We have had in America, in the '20s and '30s after that, a time for people to assimilate,” Martin said in 2015. “It is not an acceptable model for living together to have people come and have their own communities forever. You can speak Italian on the Hill. We love going to the Hill too. But ultimately, the Italian Americans wanted to assimilate. And some of the immigrant communities, not only the Hispanics, but others, are not assimilating. So a pause would let them assimilate.”
U.S. Rep. Wesley Bell, D-St. Louis County, who sits on the House Oversight Committee, which has jurisdiction over the municipal affairs of Washington, said Martin’s 2015 comments add to his concerns about his fitness to be a U.S. attorney.
“It is difficult to reconcile the idea of a potential U.S. attorney for Washington who not only participated in and later defended the Jan. 6 insurrection, but also made disturbing comments about honest and hardworking immigrants who followed the rules and came here the right way,” Bell said. “Mr. Martin must decide whether his loyalty lies with the values of our country and the rule of law or with Trump. If the latter, he has no business serving in this role."
Lauren Bartlett, director of the Human Rights at Home Clinic at St. Louis University, said since being in the country without legal status is a civil matter, Martin’s power to enforce immigration law is relatively limited — especially since his jurisdiction in Washington, D.C., is relatively small.
Still, Bartlett said his previous advocacy to pause all immigration is concerning today.
“It may be that the people of Washington, D.C., don't know who he is, have no idea about all of this,” Bartlett said. “And it's on us from Missouri to bring these things to the surface and say, ‘Look at this person who's now your U.S. attorney.’”
Besides his Jan. 6-related actions, Bartlett said that Martin’s other decisions as an interim U.S. attorney — including sending out messages on the social media platform X and making explicit overtures to Musk — are highly unusual.
“You are a person who is supposed to be exercising the power of the people, and that's all people — not just one political party,” Bartlett said.
Missouri and Illinois senators will play role in confirmation
Martin will need confirmation from the GOP-controlled U.S. Senate to keep his job. He’ll go before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which includes Schmitt, Hawley and Durbin as members.
Schmitt spokesman Chris Nuelle said that the GOP lawmaker supports Trump’s nominees but declined to comment further on Martin. Hawley’s spokeswoman didn’t provide a comment about how he’d vote on Martin’s nomination.
U.S. Rep. Bob Onder, a St. Charles County Republican who serves on the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement he supports Martin.
"I've known Ed Martin a long time and he's a great choice to head up the U.S. Attorney's office in D.C. Washington is face to face with the reality that the border isn't 2,000 miles away in Texas anymore, it's at your front door step,” Onder said. “D.C. has its hands full with its own citizens committing heinous crimes, it doesn't need scores of illegal immigrants augmenting that.”
“I'm confident Ed will be able to tackle both and ultimately be able to focus on prosecuting violent offenders from D.C. and clean up the streets of our nation's capital,” he added.
Seven House Democrats have called for the Department of Justice investigator general to look into Martin, particularly on how he dismissed charges against someone accused of Jan. 6-related crimes whom he represented in court.
In his time as acting U.S. attorney, Martin dropped cases against people who participated in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot — and launched an investigation into how the office handled cases against people charged in connection with the insurrection. The day before Jan. 6, Martin spoke at a rally aimed at supporting discredited stolen election assertions.
Durbin cited these actions as reasons for senators to vote Martin down as a U.S. attorney.
“Notably, Mr. Martin was a leader of the so-called ‘Stop the Steal’ movement to overturn the 2020 election who was at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and later downplayed the violence against law enforcement officers,” Durbin said. “He withdrew charges related to Jan. 6 against his own client, a clear violation of professional ethics, and has opened an investigation against the prosecutors in the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office who were his opposing counsel in other prosecutions of Jan. 6 defendants. I urge my Senate Republican colleagues to muster the courage to reject this unqualified extremist.”
Lamping said that Trump likely picked Martin for the interim U.S. attorney job because few other attorneys would be willing to take public criticism for dropping Jan. 6-related cases.
“Ed's willing to do that at risk to any other kind of career, right?” Lamping said. “He’s a perfect warrior because he's willing to give up a traditional legal career. But he may, in fact, not even have a traditional legal career. It seems like he's ideally suited to be pursuing things that are hard to pursue, that require tremendous personal sacrifice.”
Lamping initially didn’t think that Trump would nominate Martin to be the permanent U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. When told of the news, Lamping sent a reporter a GIF of Jon Stewart eating popcorn.
“Be fun to watch,” Lamping said.
