{"id":116858,"date":"2025-04-28T15:02:43","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T23:02:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/04\/28\/dc-prosecutor-ed-martin-goes-after-wikipedia-for-exercising-first-amendment-rights\/"},"modified":"2025-04-28T15:02:43","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T23:02:43","slug":"dc-prosecutor-ed-martin-goes-after-wikipedia-for-exercising-first-amendment-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/04\/28\/dc-prosecutor-ed-martin-goes-after-wikipedia-for-exercising-first-amendment-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"DC Prosecutor Ed Martin Goes After Wikipedia For Exercising First Amendment Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ed Martin, the improbable acting US Attorney for DC, is at it again. This time he\u2019s menacing Wikipedia for the dastardly crime of not citing The Federalist as a reliable source, which is apparently a capital offense these days.<\/p>\n

As first reported by The Free Press<\/a>, Martin sent one of his signature nastygrams<\/a> to the Wikimedia Foundation.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a nonprofit corporation, which is incorporated in the District of Columbia, the Wikimedia Foundation is subject to specific legal obligations and fiduciary duties consistent with its tax-exempt status,\u201d he announced. Which is true, as far as it goes, although his suggestion that \u201cthe public is entitled to rely on a reasonable expectation of neutrality, transparency, and accountability\u201d from the nonprofit is perhaps straying outside his own lane.<\/p>\n

Martin never worked as a prosecutor before Trump tapped him to run the biggest US Attorney\u2019s Office in the country, and his main claim to fame before coming into Trump\u2019s orbit was breaking<\/a> Phyllis Schlafly\u2019s Eagle Forum. But he did represent a bunch of January 6 rioters, which is more than enough qualification in this administration.<\/p>\n

Martin\u2019s brief tenure has already been eventful. When he\u2019s not threatening<\/a> sitting members of Congress, he\u2019s dismissing a case<\/a> against his own former client. Or swearing fealty<\/a> to DOGE. Or putting experienced prosecutors on the misdemeanor docket to punish them for their perfidy in the January 6 cases. Or trying and failing<\/a> to get a grand jury to indict climate activists after pushing out<\/a> the experienced prosecutor who said there was no probable cause. He\u2019s been busy!<\/p>\n

But Martin still made time to harass the people at Wikipedia. <\/p>\n

\u201cWikipedia\u2019s operations are directed by its board that is composed primarily of
foreign nationals, subverting the interests of American taxpayers,\u201d he intoned ominously, warning that \u201cinformation received by my Office demonstrates that Wikipedia\u2019s informational management policies benefit foreign powers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which foreign powers he did not say \u2014 odd considering the number of times Martin appeared on RT<\/a>, the Kremlin\u2019s propaganda network. Also odd is Martin\u2019s LARPing as head of the IRS, who would normally be responsible for policing non-profits.<\/p>\n

The letter comes in the wake of a series of conservative attacks on Wikipedia for supposed pro-Palestinian and anti-conservative bias. The New York Post\u2019s editors called<\/a> for Big Tech to \u201cblock Wikipedia until it stops censoring and pushing disinformation.\u201d The board professed to be shocked to discover that \u201cWikipedia refuses its stamp of approval to 100% of right-leaning media sources versus only 16% of left-leaning ones.\u201d The source for this stat is the Media Research Center, an outfit which works \u201cto expose and counter the leftist bias of the national news media.\u201d MRC is, of course, a 501(c)(3), just like the Wikimeda Foundation.<\/p>\n

As is his MO, Martin made a raft of demands which are wholly antithetical to the First Amendment. How does Wikipedia manage its content moderators? What does the organization do to ensure \u201cthat content submissions, editorial decisions, and article revisions reflect a broad spectrum of viewpoints, including those that may be in tension with the views of major financial or institutional backers?\u201d Shouldn\u2019t the website ban anonymous mods and editors?<\/p>\n

And he demanded \u201call documents, memoranda of understanding, contracts, or related agreements\u201d pertaining to AI scraping or licensing agreements. <\/p>\n

The letter was cordial, if ridiculous. But on social media, Martin was (even) less professional.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey @Wikipedia: you can run but you can\u2019t hide!\u201d he tweeted<\/a>, linking to a post on his own letter. And then he went back to refreshing the Google search for his own name that is permanently running in the background of his computer.<\/p>\n

\n

Liz Dye<\/a>\u00a0lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos\u00a0substack<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The post DC Prosecutor Ed Martin Goes After Wikipedia For Exercising First Amendment Rights<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

Ed Martin, the improbable acting US Attorney for DC, is at it again. This time he\u2019s menacing Wikipedia for the dastardly crime of not citing The Federalist as a reliable source, which is apparently a capital offense these days.<\/p>\n

As first reported by The Free Press<\/a>, Martin sent one of his signature nastygrams<\/a> to the Wikimedia Foundation.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a nonprofit corporation, which is incorporated in the District of Columbia, the Wikimedia Foundation is subject to specific legal obligations and fiduciary duties consistent with its tax-exempt status,\u201d he announced. Which is true, as far as it goes, although his suggestion that \u201cthe public is entitled to rely on a reasonable expectation of neutrality, transparency, and accountability\u201d from the nonprofit is perhaps straying outside his own lane.<\/p>\n

Martin never worked as a prosecutor before Trump tapped him to run the biggest US Attorney\u2019s Office in the country, and his main claim to fame before coming into Trump\u2019s orbit was breaking<\/a> Phyllis Schlafly\u2019s Eagle Forum. But he did represent a bunch of January 6 rioters, which is more than enough qualification in this administration.<\/p>\n

Martin\u2019s brief tenure has already been eventful. When he\u2019s not threatening<\/a> sitting members of Congress, he\u2019s dismissing a case<\/a> against his own former client. Or swearing fealty<\/a> to DOGE. Or putting experienced prosecutors on the misdemeanor docket to punish them for their perfidy in the January 6 cases. Or trying and failing<\/a> to get a grand jury to indict climate activists after pushing out<\/a> the experienced prosecutor who said there was no probable cause. He\u2019s been busy!<\/p>\n

But Martin still made time to harass the people at Wikipedia. <\/p>\n

\u201cWikipedia\u2019s operations are directed by its board that is composed primarily of
foreign nationals, subverting the interests of American taxpayers,\u201d he intoned ominously, warning that \u201cinformation received by my Office demonstrates that Wikipedia\u2019s informational management policies benefit foreign powers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which foreign powers he did not say \u2014 odd considering the number of times Martin appeared on RT<\/a>, the Kremlin\u2019s propaganda network. Also odd is Martin\u2019s LARPing as head of the IRS, who would normally be responsible for policing non-profits.<\/p>\n

The letter comes in the wake of a series of conservative attacks on Wikipedia for supposed pro-Palestinian and anti-conservative bias. The New York Post\u2019s editors called<\/a> for Big Tech to \u201cblock Wikipedia until it stops censoring and pushing disinformation.\u201d The board professed to be shocked to discover that \u201cWikipedia refuses its stamp of approval to 100% of right-leaning media sources versus only 16% of left-leaning ones.\u201d The source for this stat is the Media Research Center, an outfit which works \u201cto expose and counter the leftist bias of the national news media.\u201d MRC is, of course, a 501(c)(3), just like the Wikimeda Foundation.<\/p>\n

As is his MO, Martin made a raft of demands which are wholly antithetical to the First Amendment. How does Wikipedia manage its content moderators? What does the organization do to ensure \u201cthat content submissions, editorial decisions, and article revisions reflect a broad spectrum of viewpoints, including those that may be in tension with the views of major financial or institutional backers?\u201d Shouldn\u2019t the website ban anonymous mods and editors?<\/p>\n

And he demanded \u201call documents, memoranda of understanding, contracts, or related agreements\u201d pertaining to AI scraping or licensing agreements. <\/p>\n

The letter was cordial, if ridiculous. But on social media, Martin was (even) less professional.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey @Wikipedia: you can run but you can\u2019t hide!\u201d he tweeted<\/a>, linking to a post on his own letter. And then he went back to refreshing the Google search for his own name that is permanently running in the background of his computer.<\/p>\n

\n

Liz Dye<\/a>\u00a0lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos\u00a0substack<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ed Martin, the improbable acting US Attorney for DC, is at it again. This time he\u2019s menacing Wikipedia for the dastardly crime of not citing The Federalist as a reliable source, which is apparently a capital offense these days. As first reported by The Free Press, Martin sent one of his signature nastygrams to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":116859,"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-116858","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\/04\/GettyImages-1249723002-ehTj4i.jpeg?fit=550%2C314&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116858","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=116858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}