Ed Martin, in his new role after US attorney nomination fizzled, is reaching out to witnesses in DOJ weaponization probes
CNN
After failing to secure confirmation as the top US attorney in Washington, DC, Ed Martin is now actively serving in multiple new roles inside the Justice Department that give him even more power to punish President Donald Trump’s adversaries and reward his supporters.
After failing to secure confirmation as the top US attorney in Washington, DC, Ed Martin is now actively serving in multiple new roles inside the Justice Department that give him even more power to punish President Donald Trump’s adversaries and reward his supporters. After the Senate torpedoed his nomination, Trump tapped Martin to serve as the director of the department’s Weaponization Working Group, which focuses on investigating officials who prosecuted Trump and to serve as the department’s lead pardon attorney, a historically nonpartisan position. In his first few weeks on the job, Martin has already sent letters, made calls, and even visited some individuals he believes may have relevant information for his investigations into the alleged politicization of the department, according to a source familiar with this work. On her first day in office, Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memo laying out how the weaponization group would focus on examining the state and federal investigations into Trump as well as the prosecutions related to the US Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, and other conservative causes. Martin, the source said, is breathing new life into the effort as he takes control of the project, which has expanded to include subjects such as pardons issued by former President Joe Biden. Trump has remained fixated on the investigations he has faced and having an ally like Martin in these jobs gives him new ways to retaliate. Martin recently sent a letter to the National Archives requesting information about White House operations under the Biden administration, the source said. He is also seeking information related to Operation Crossfire Hurricane, the code name for the investigation into links between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.
As Chad Curry busily ferries his teenage children through the streets of their Chicago neighborhood of West Ridge, he eyes passing vehicles with a skepticism he didn’t have just a few months ago.
Speaker Mike Johnson is a political survivor, weathering crisis after crisis since his unlikely ascent two years ago.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan are well matched, rhetorically forceful opposites. And they have been clashing for more than a decade over an increasingly relevant question of presidential power: How easy should it be for the president to fire the heads of independent agencies?
The Army gynecologist described in a recent lawsuit as a “predator in uniform” is now being held in the Bell County Jail in Texas, “after apparently violating conditions of liberty imposed by his commander,” according to an Army spokesperson.
Brian Walshe on Thursday came face-to-face for the first time with the man who had been having an affair with his wife before her death, as he took the stand to testify in Walshe’s murder trial.
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Texas to use a congressional map that will boost President Donald Trump’s effort to keep Republicans in control of Congress, blocking a lower court decision that found the new boundaries were likely unconstitutional because they were drawn based on race.
The US military carried out a strike Thursday on a suspected drug boat in the Eastern Pacific, killing four people on board, according to a social media post from US Southern Command.
A grand jury voted against indicting New York Attorney General Letitia James after being asked to look at the mortgage fraud case against her a second time, according to multiple people familiar with the development Thursday.
National Guard troops deployed to Washington, DC, can remain there for now, after a federal appeals court on Thursday temporarily froze a judge’s ruling that would have soon required them to leave the city’s streets.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bad week just got worse. That’s after the long-awaited release Thursday of an inspector general’s report on his sharing of highly sensitive military attack plans on the unclassified app Signal earlier this year.
President Donald Trump has hired a new architect for the White House ballroom amid disputes between the president and his architect originally contracted to complete the project, several sources have told CNN.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth risked compromising sensitive military information that could have endangered US troops through his use of Signal to discuss attack plans, a Pentagon watchdog said in an unclassified report released Thursday. It also details how Hegseth declined to cooperate with the probe.
If nothing else, the controversy over the Trump administration’s second strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean has surfaced a long-overdue debate about its already legally dubious first strikes.