{"id":107628,"date":"2025-02-04T09:02:44","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T17:02:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/02\/04\/turning-over-u-s-attorneys-office-to-conspiracy-theorist-working-out-as-expected\/"},"modified":"2025-02-04T09:02:44","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T17:02:44","slug":"turning-over-u-s-attorneys-office-to-conspiracy-theorist-working-out-as-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/02\/04\/turning-over-u-s-attorneys-office-to-conspiracy-theorist-working-out-as-expected\/","title":{"rendered":"Turning Over U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office To Conspiracy Theorist Working Out As Expected"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
From left, Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., Ed Martin, and Jeffrey Clark, former Acting Assistant Attorney General. (Bill Clark\/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Conspiracy theorist-cum-interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin is having a ball with his newfound position. Back in 2021, he was out there leading \u201cStop the Steal\u201d chants<\/a>, hyping up the crowd that would storm the Capitol the next day. Now as the top federal prosecutor in Washington D.C. he gets to fire all the career prosecutors<\/a> involved in enforcing the nation\u2019s general prohibition against taking a dump in the Rotunda.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also having fun writing letters setting out legal gibberish for social media consumption. As one does<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Earlier today, Martin shared a MASH note he wrote to shadow president Elon Musk promising to use the full force of his office (assuming he still has any FBI agents that haven\u2019t been loyalty purged<\/a>) to go after anyone getting in the way of DOGE\u2019s mission. Which mostly seems to be sending high school interns<\/a> on field trips to seize everyone\u2019s social security numbers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

Dear @elon<\/a>, Please see this important letter. We will not tolerate threats against DOGE workers or law-breaking by the disgruntled. All the best. Ed Martin pic.twitter.com\/jIgMPVbPT5<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Ed Martin (@EagleEdMartin) February 3, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cSENT VIA X.\u201d This is truly the dumbest timeline. Look, DOGE is clearly a real entity because in that place where a serious letter would put an address it says \u201cUnited States Government.\u201d Cannot argue with that!<\/p>\n

The \u201cthreats, confrontations, or other actions\u201d alluded to seem little more than people identifying<\/a><\/em> the adolescent Keystone Kops working for Musk and government security guards<\/a> and senior officials<\/a> doing their jobs as actual government employees<\/em> and trying to prevent DOGE from busting into government offices. Martin notes that these actions \u201cmay break numerous laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which is code for does not break any laws but I need to sound tough<\/em>. When something actually breaks the law, prosecutors get specific \u2014 usually citing a violation similar to but far in excess of what allegedly happened for maximum intimidation value. When they write \u201cI dunno, but that don\u2019t seem legal,\u201d they\u2019re telling you that they have nothing.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

No they have not. <\/p>\n

It is not illegal just to name a (quasi) government employee. Musk must be asking his AI for legal advice again<\/a>. Nor is it illegal for security to secure federal buildings from people who aren\u2019t authorized to be there. In fact, if Martin could cite any law being broken it would be a tortured reading of the laws against trespassing on government property or corruptly obstructing an official proceeding \u2014 laws that would remind everybody of the time he played cheerleader for a bunch of guys who turned around and busted into Nancy Pelosi\u2019s office. Best not shine a light on the elements of those offenses.<\/p>\n

And while Martin\u2019s making up laws for Elon, he also took some time to concoct this goofy threat against Senator Chuck Schumer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Schumer\u2019s remarks were a rhetorical callback to Kavanaugh\u2019s own statement \u201cI fear that the whole country will reap the whirlwind,\u201d when Kavanaugh bemoaned the possibility that America might actually scrutinize guys like him. And the price Schumer referred to was the shellacking Republicans took at the polls after the Supreme Court took to playing Mad Libs with constitutional law. A whirlwind that Trump just now managed to overcome.<\/p>\n

This is not a serious law enforcement inquiry, but trying to bully a sitting Senator can score some social media buzz. Schumer, of course, remembers when public officials were actually<\/em> threatened by the Capitol rioters that Martin spent the last few years trying to release. On the spectrum of threats against public officials, telling a bloodthirsty audience to \u201cfight like hell\u201d \u2014 as Trump did on January 6 \u2014 comes much closer to the mark than any of this stuff.<\/p>\n

Again, Martin has no interest in pulling that thread.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t enforcing \u201claw\u201d so much as prosecutorial cosplay. His tenure as interim U.S. Attorney is a taxpayer-funded performance piece. Unfortunately it\u2019s one we\u2019re going to be stuck with for a while.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Turning Over U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office To Conspiracy Theorist Working Out As Expected<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
From left, Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., Ed Martin, and Jeffrey Clark, former Acting Assistant Attorney General. (Bill Clark\/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Conspiracy theorist-cum-interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin is having a ball with his newfound position. Back in 2021, he was out there leading \u201cStop the Steal\u201d chants<\/a>, hyping up the crowd that would storm the Capitol the next day. Now as the top federal prosecutor in Washington D.C. he gets to fire all the career prosecutors<\/a> involved in enforcing the nation\u2019s general prohibition against taking a dump in the Rotunda.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also having fun writing letters setting out legal gibberish for social media consumption. As one does<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Earlier today, Martin shared a MASH note he wrote to shadow president Elon Musk promising to use the full force of his office (assuming he still has any FBI agents that haven\u2019t been loyalty purged<\/a>) to go after anyone getting in the way of DOGE\u2019s mission. Which mostly seems to be sending high school interns<\/a> on field trips to seize everyone\u2019s social security numbers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cSENT VIA X.\u201d This is truly the dumbest timeline. Look, DOGE is clearly a real entity because in that place where a serious letter would put an address it says \u201cUnited States Government.\u201d Cannot argue with that!<\/p>\n

The \u201cthreats, confrontations, or other actions\u201d alluded to seem little more than people identifying<\/a><\/em> the adolescent Keystone Kops working for Musk and government security guards<\/a> and senior officials<\/a> doing their jobs as actual government employees<\/em> and trying to prevent DOGE from busting into government offices. Martin notes that these actions \u201cmay break numerous laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which is code for does not break any laws but I need to sound tough<\/em>. When something actually breaks the law, prosecutors get specific \u2014 usually citing a violation similar to but far in excess of what allegedly happened for maximum intimidation value. When they write \u201cI dunno, but that don\u2019t seem legal,\u201d they\u2019re telling you that they have nothing.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

No they have not. <\/p>\n

It is not illegal just to name a (quasi) government employee. Musk must be asking his AI for legal advice again<\/a>. Nor is it illegal for security to secure federal buildings from people who aren\u2019t authorized to be there. In fact, if Martin could cite any law being broken it would be a tortured reading of the laws against trespassing on government property or corruptly obstructing an official proceeding \u2014 laws that would remind everybody of the time he played cheerleader for a bunch of guys who turned around and busted into Nancy Pelosi\u2019s office. Best not shine a light on the elements of those offenses.<\/p>\n

And while Martin\u2019s making up laws for Elon, he also took some time to concoct this goofy threat against Senator Chuck Schumer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Schumer\u2019s remarks were a rhetorical callback to Kavanaugh\u2019s own statement \u201cI fear that the whole country will reap the whirlwind,\u201d when Kavanaugh bemoaned the possibility that America might actually scrutinize guys like him. And the price Schumer referred to was the shellacking Republicans took at the polls after the Supreme Court took to playing Mad Libs with constitutional law. A whirlwind that Trump just now managed to overcome.<\/p>\n

This is not a serious law enforcement inquiry, but trying to bully a sitting Senator can score some social media buzz. Schumer, of course, remembers when public officials were actually<\/em> threatened by the Capitol rioters that Martin spent the last few years trying to release. On the spectrum of threats against public officials, telling a bloodthirsty audience to \u201cfight like hell\u201d \u2014 as Trump did on January 6 \u2014 comes much closer to the mark than any of this stuff.<\/p>\n

Again, Martin has no interest in pulling that thread.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t enforcing \u201claw\u201d so much as prosecutorial cosplay. His tenure as interim U.S. Attorney is a taxpayer-funded performance piece. Unfortunately it\u2019s one we\u2019re going to be stuck with for a while.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From left, Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., Ed Martin, and Jeffrey Clark, former Acting Assistant Attorney General. (Bill Clark\/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images) Conspiracy theorist-cum-interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin is having a ball with his newfound position. Back in 2021, he was out there leading \u201cStop the Steal\u201d chants, hyping up the crowd that would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":107620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Headshot-300x200-vUMVy4.jpeg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}