Well, they finally got him out of the building. Ed Martin, the man Trump tapped to run the pardon office and root out the bureaucrats who turned the Justice Department into a personal vendetta machine, is leaving. And wouldn’t you know it, the usual suspects are treating it like a retirement party at the country club.
Here’s what actually happened. President Trump announced Friday that Martin is stepping out of the administration to take on what the president called “legal battles” for the midterms and the 2028 presidential race. “I know he will do an outstanding job, ensure Free, Fair, and Honest Elections, and strongly advance our Constitutional Rights,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Martin reposted it with three words: “Proud to serve. Fight Fight Fight.”
Now, the press wants you to think this is some kind of ouster. NBC News led their story by reminding everyone Martin was a “Stop the Steal” advocate, like that’s a scarlet letter instead of a badge of honor for a man who actually believes elections should mean something. They buried the lede so deep you’d need a backhoe. The man spent an hour with the president at the White House on his way out the door, reminiscing about Phyllis Schlafly. That’s not a man getting escorted out by security. That’s a man getting a mission briefing.
Let’s walk through what Martin actually did at DOJ, because you won’t hear it from the networks. He took over as acting U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., and immediately started cleaning house. He fired the prosecutors who had been chasing January 6 defendants like it was a sport. He opened an investigation into how that office handled the Capitol riot cases in the first place. He ran the Weaponization Working Group, which was tasked with investigating the prosecutors who went after Trump and his allies. He administered the mass clemency for January 6 defendants. He helped push a criminal investigation into New York Attorney General Letitia James over alleged mortgage fraud.
In other words, he did exactly what he was hired to do. And that’s precisely why they couldn’t stand him.
Senator Thom Tillis, bless his heart, killed Martin’s nomination for the permanent D.C. prosecutor job. His reasoning? “If Mr. Martin were being put forth as a U.S. attorney for any district except the district where Jan. 6 happened, the protest happened, I’d probably support him, but not in this district.” Read that again. Tillis basically admitted Martin was qualified but said the one district where the weaponization was worst should be off-limits to anyone who might actually fix it. That’s not a principle. That’s a shield.
Then there’s the new attorney general, Todd Blanche, confirmed August 8. A DOJ source described their relationship as “robust” and said Blanche once told a meeting, and I am not making this up, “Ed and I have had our differences, but we always have great makeup sex.” I have questions for the manager of that meeting. Who talks like that at work? What kind of professional environment is Todd Blanche running over there? But sure, let’s pretend Martin’s the problem.
Here’s the part the media really doesn’t want to talk about. Martin told colleagues he’d leave after he finished one specific project: establishing a process for felons to apply to regain their gun rights. The Justice Department unveiled that application process on Monday. Martin did the work, finished the job, and walked out the door on his own terms. When’s the last time you saw a Washington official do that?
Neil W. McCabe, who worked as senior adviser to Martin, said it plainly: “Ed Martin saved the US pardon office because his predecessor had such a toxic tenure that in the beginning of the Trump administration, there was a feeling at the White House and at Main Justice that the pardon office should be eliminated.” He saved an office that the swamp wanted to quietly kill. They won’t put that on a plaque.
So now Martin goes outside the government to fight for election integrity in the midterms and 2028. The same people who spent four years telling you elections are perfectly fine are about to spend the next two years telling you that anyone who watches the polls is a threat to democracy. Ed Martin just volunteered to be the thing that keeps them up at night. Good luck, Ed. Fight, fight, fight.