One of the most important jobs in the federal government is that of the DC federal prosecutor. He or she handles important cases related to national security, among other things. Trump has chosen Ed Martin, a MAGA lawyer who has defended the J6 insurrectionists and insisted that the 2020 election was rigged. Now, The Washington Post reports that Ed Martin has been a loyal defender of Russia and Putin and has repeatedly spouted Putin’s propaganda on Russian state media.
Spencer S. Hsu and Aaron Schaffer of the Washington Post report:
Hours before President Donald Trump announced U.S. missile strikes on Syria in response to a chemical attack that killed 90 civilians in April 2017, Ed Martin said on the Russian state television network RT America that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad might not be to blame. Instead, Martin told viewers, the situation was “engineered” in Washington “by the people that want war in Syria.”
In early 2022, Martin told an interviewer on the same arm of RT’s global network that “there’s no evidence” of a Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s borders, criticizing U.S. officials as warmongering and ignoring Russia’s security concerns. Russia invaded nine days later, igniting a war that continues today.
Martin is now interim U.S. attorney for D.C. and Trump’s pick to serve full time in the role. But as a conservative activist and former Missouri Republican official, he appeared more than 150 times on RT and Sputnik — networks funded and directed by the Russian government — as a guest commentator from August 2016 to April 2024, according to a search of their websites and the Internet Archive’s database of television broadcasts.
Martin did not disclose the appearances last month on a Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire, which asks nominees to list all media interviews. Analysis of television archives suggests he went on RT and Sputnik more often than on any major cable network during that span.
Martin’s frequent appearances, reviewed by The Washington Post, drew rebukes from some national security analysts, who accused him of amplifying anti-American propaganda on Russian outlets that the State Department last year said had moved beyond disinformation to engage in covert influence activities aimed at undermining democracies worldwide for President Vladimir Putin’s regime.
Martin’s brief tenure as top federal prosecutor in Washington has stoked controversy. Democrats accuse Martin — a Trump “Stop the Steal” organizer who has called the 2020 election and the 2016 Russian election interference investigation “hoaxes” — of violating the law and legal ethics in threatening to investigate or prosecute lawmakers, protesters, journalists and others whom he perceives as undermining Trump’s agenda.
Former U.S. national security officials and analysts said Martin’s RT and Sputnik appearances, and his failure to disclose them, raise questions about his judgment and candor.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Washington is the largest in the country and has wide jurisdiction to prosecute important national security offenses, former officials said. Its leader should be alert to the threats and risks posed by Russia and other influence operations from overseas, such as the ones the office has prosecuted in recent years involving Russia and other foreign actors, they argued.
Open the link to finish the article.
Based on his views, we can be sure that Mr. Martin will not “be alert to the threats and risks posed by Russia.” Based on his past history, we can expect that he will do what’s best for Russia.