Trump’s New Federal Attorney Withdrew Jan. 6 Charges Against His Own Client

Donald Trump’s top federal prosecutor for the District of Columbia requested that a court withdraw charges against a Jan. 6 insurrectionist he personally represented — a move that experts decried as a clear ethical violation.

Shortly after taking office, Trump pardoned 1,500 of individuals who were convicted of offenses or faced charges relating to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and he called on the Justice Department to dismiss all Jan. 6-related cases that were still pending in court. 

Trump also appointed Ed Martin, a Missouri lawyer who represented several Jan. 6 defendants, as the interim D.C. U.S. attorney. Martin, who quickly fired dozens of federal prosecutors who were involved in Jan. 6 cases, quickly moved to withdraw charges in those cases, too. 

As Reuters reports, on Jan. 21, Martin put his name on a motion to withdraw charges against Joseph Padilla — his own client.  

In 2023, Padilla was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison for his alleged actions during the Capitol insurrection, which included assaulting two police officers. The Justice Department said in a press release that Padilla “threw a flagpole, striking an officer in the helmet.” His case, though, was still ongoing. 

The motion with Martin’s name on it requested that the judge “dismiss the indictment against the defendant with prejudice,” citing Trump’s executive order granting clemency for “certain offenses relating to the events at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”

Ethics experts told Reuters that Martin’s participation in this motion violated the Justice Department’s conflict of interest rules, which require lawyers to recuse themselves from cases involving their former clients for at least a year.

John Sciortino, a former lawyer in the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility told the outlet it represented “a violation of the conflict of interest rules, and the sort of thing OPR might investigate.”

Missouri rules similarly prohibit state attorneys from handling cases involving their clients. 

According to Reuters, Martin sent an email to staffers in his office Wednesday saying that he “stopped all involvement” in the Jan. 6 cases over a year and a half ago, wasn’t paid for them, and had been “under the impression that I was off the cases.”

Court records indicate Martin was still listed as an attorney for Padilla in his case.

Outside of his advocacy for Jan. 6 rioters, Martin recently drew attention for posting an unusual letter on X to Elon Musk, in which he told the world’s richest man that his office would “pursue any and all legal action against anyone who impedes your work” with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, as it works to gut federal agencies.