{"id":71,"date":"2026-05-22T05:08:39","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T05:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movingservicesamerica.com\/?p=71"},"modified":"2026-05-22T05:08:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T05:08:39","slug":"the-untold-story-of-how-ed-martin-ghostwrote-online-attacks-against-a-judge-and-still-became-a-top-trump-prosecutor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movingservicesamerica.com\/?p=71","title":{"rendered":"The Untold Story of How Ed Martin Ghostwrote Online Attacks Against a Judge \u2014 and Still Became a Top Trump Prosecutor"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The attacks on Judge John Barberis in the fall of 2016 appeared on his personal Facebook page. They impugned his ethics, criticized a recent ruling and branded him as a \u201cpolitician\u201d with the \u201cLOWEST rating for a judge in Illinois.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Texas Lawmakers Are Again Pushing to Spend Millions on Kits to Find Missing Kids. Experts Say They Don\u2019t Work.<\/a><\/p>\n

Barberis, a state court judge in an Illinois county across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, was presiding over a nasty legal battle for control over the Eagle Forum, the vaunted grassroots group founded by Phyllis Schlafly, matriarch of the anti-feminist movement. The case pitted Schlafly\u2019s youngest daughter against three of her sons, almost like a Midwest version of the HBO program \u201cSuccession\u201d (without the obscenities).<\/p>\n

At the heart of the dispute \u2014 and the lead defendant in the case \u2014 was Ed Martin, a lawyer by training and a political operative by trade. In Missouri, where he was based, Martin was widely known as an irrepressible gadfly who trafficked in incendiary claims and trailed controversy wherever he went. Today, he\u2019s the interim U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., and one of the most prominent members of the Trump Justice Department.<\/p>\n

In early 2015, Schlafly had selected Martin to succeed her as head of the Eagle Forum, a crowning moment in Martin\u2019s career. Yet after just a year in charge, the group\u2019s board fired Martin. Schlafly\u2019s youngest daughter, Anne Schlafly Cori, and a majority of the Eagle Forum board filed a lawsuit to bar Martin from any association with the organization.<\/p>\n

After Barberis dealt Martin a major setback in the case in October 2016, the attacks began. The Facebook user who posted them, Priscilla Gray, had worked in several roles for Schlafly but was not a party to the case, and her comments read like those of an aggrieved outsider.<\/p>\n

Almost two years later, the truth emerged as Cori\u2019s lawyers gathered evidence for her lawsuit: Behind the posts about the judge was none other than Martin.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

ProPublica obtained previously unreported documents filed in the case that show Martin had bought a laptop for Gray and that she subsequently offered to \u201chappily write something to attack this judge.\u201d And when she did, Martin ghostwrote more posts for her to use and coached her on how to make her comments look more \u201corganic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is not justice but a rigged system,\u201d he urged her to write. \u201cShame on you and this broken legal system.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCall what he did unfair and rigged over and over,\u201d Martin continued.<\/p>\n

Martin even urged Gray to message the judge privately. \u201cGo slow and steady,\u201d he advised. \u201cMake it organic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gray appeared to take Martin\u2019s advice. \u201cPrivate messaging him that sweet line,\u201d she wrote. It was not clear from the court record what, if anything, she wrote at that juncture.<\/p>\n

Legal experts told ProPublica that Martin\u2019s conduct in the Eagle Forum case was a clear violation of ethical norms and professional rules. Martin\u2019s behavior, they said, was especially egregious because he was both a defendant in the case and a licensed attorney.<\/p>\n

Martin appeared to be \u201cdeliberately interfering with a judicial proceeding with the intent to undermine the integrity of the outcome,\u201d said Scott Cummings, a professor of legal ethics at UCLA School of Law. \u201cThat\u2019s not OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin did not respond to multiple requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Martin\u2019s legal and political career is dotted with questions about his professional and ethical conduct. But for all his years in the spotlight, some of the most serious concerns about his conduct have remained in the shadows \u2014 buried in court filings, overlooked by the press or never reported at all.<\/p>\n

His actions have led to more than $600,000 in legal settlements or judgments against Martin or his employers in a handful of cases. In the Eagle Forum lawsuit, another judge found him in civil contempt, citing his \u201cwillful disregard\u201d of a court order, and a jury found him liable for defamation and false light against Cori.<\/p>\n

Cori also tried to have Martin charged with criminal contempt for his role in orchestrating the posts about Barberis, but a judge declined to take up the request and said she could take the case to the county prosecutor. Cori said her attorney met with a detective; Martin was never charged.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the emails unearthed by ProPublica were evidence that he had violated Missouri rules for lawyers, according to Kathleen Clark, a legal ethics expert and law professor at Washington University in St. Louis. She said lawyers are prohibited from trying to contact a judge outside of court in a case they are involved in, and they are barred from using a proxy to do something they are barred from doing themselves.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Such a track record might have derailed another lawyer\u2019s career. Not so for Martin.<\/p>\n

As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump vowed to use the Justice Department to reward his allies and seek retribution against his perceived enemies. Since taking office, Trump and his appointees have made good on those pledges, pardoning Jan. 6 rioters while targeting Democratic politicians, media critics and private law firms.<\/p>\n

As one of its first personnel picks, the Trump administration chose Martin to be interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, one of the premier jobs for a federal prosecutor.<\/p>\n

A wide array of former prosecutors, legal observers and others have raised questions about his qualifications for an office known for handling high-profile cases. Martin has no experience as a prosecutor. He has never taken a case to trial, according to his public disclosures. As the acting leader of the largest U.S. attorney\u2019s office in the country, he directs the work of hundreds of lawyers who appear in court on a vast array of subjects, including legal disputes arising out of Congress, national security matters, public corruption and civil rights, as well as homicides, drug trafficking and many other local crimes.<\/p>\n

Over the last four years, the office prosecuted more than as part of the massive investigation into the violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. While Trump has pardoned the Jan. 6 defendants, Martin has taken action against the prosecutors who brought those cases. In just three months, he has overseen the dismissal of outstanding Jan. 6-related cases, fired more than a dozen prosecutors and opened an investigation into the charging decisions made in those riot cases.<\/p>\n

Martin has also investigated Democratic lawmakers and members of the Biden family; forced out the chief of the criminal division after she refused to initiate an investigation desired by Trump appointees citing a lack of evidence, according to her resignation letter; threatened Georgetown University\u2019s law school over its diversity, equity and inclusion policies; and vowed to investigate threats against Department of Government Efficiency employees or \u201cchase\u201d people in the federal government \u201cdiscovered to have broken the law or even acted simply unethically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin \u201chas butchered the position, effectively destroying it as a vehicle by which to pursue justice and turning it into a political arm of the current administration,\u201d says an open letter signed by more than 100 former prosecutors who worked in the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the District of Columbia under Democratic and Republican presidents.<\/p>\n

Already, Martin has been the subject of at least disciplinary complaints with the D.C. and Missouri bars, of which one was dismissed and the other three appear to be pending. Two of the complaints came after he moved to dismiss charges against a Jan. 6 rioter whom he had previously represented and for whom he was still listed as counsel of record. (The first complaint was dismissed after the D.C. bar\u2019s disciplinary panel concluded that Martin had dismissed the case as a result of Trump\u2019s pardons and so did not violate any rules.) The third was filed in March by a group of Democratic lawmakers in the U.S. Senate. The fourth was submitted last week by a group of former Jan. 6 prosecutors and members of the conservative-leaning Society for the Rule of Law. It argues that Martin\u2019s actions so far \u201cthreaten to undermine the integrity of the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office and the legal profession in the District of Columbia.\u201d If Martin has responded to any of the complaints, those responses have not been made public.<\/p>\n

Trump has nominated Martin to run the office permanently. Senate Democrats, meanwhile, have vowed to drag out Martin\u2019s confirmation, demanding a hearing and setting up a fight over one of Trump\u2019s most controversial nominees.<\/p>\n

Martin stepped off the elevator into the newsroom of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper. He was angry at a reporter named Jo Mannies, one of the city\u2019s top political journalists. At a conference table with Mannies and her senior editors, he accused Mannies of being unethical and pressed the paper\u2019s leadership to spike her stories about him, according to interviews.<\/p>\n

Mannies said later she believed he was trying to get her fired.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was attacking her,\u201d said Pam Maples, who was managing editor at the time. \u201cHe was implying she had an ax to grind, that she wanted to get some big story and that she was not being ethical. And when that didn\u2019t get traction, it was more like \u2018this isn\u2019t a story.\u2019 It wasn\u2019t that he said anything about a fact being inaccurate, or he wanted to retract a story; he wanted the reporting to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Mannies had been covering a scandal dubbed \u201cMemogate\u201d that started to unfold in 2007 while Martin was chief of staff to Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt. In that role, Martin was using his government email to undermine Democratic rivals and rally anti-abortion groups. But when reporters requested emails from Blunt\u2019s staff, the governor\u2019s office denied they existed. Media organizations joined a lawsuit to preserve the messages and recover them from backup tapes.<\/p>\n

An attorney for the governor, Scott Eckersley, later said in a deposition that Martin tried to block the release of government emails and told employees to delete their messages. After Eckersley warned that doing so might violate state law, he was fired. He sued the state for wrongful termination and defamation and settled for $500,000. Martin resigned as chief of staff in 2007 after just over a year on the job, and Blunt\u2019s office would eventually hand over 22 boxes of internal emails.<\/p>\n

In a 2008 email to the Associated Press, Martin dismissed Eckersley\u2019s lawsuit as a \u201cdesperate attempt\u201d to revise his story after he was fired, citing Eckersley\u2019s own testimony that not all emails are public records.<\/p>\n

The Memogate incident was telling \u2014 and Martin\u2019s efforts to have Mannies fired were never reported. \u201cHis claim was we were misrepresenting what the law was and what he was doing,\u201d she told ProPublica. \u201cI mean, he can get very hyper. He can get very emotional.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Martin launched a bid for Congress in 2010, he acted as if Memogate was ancient history. He made himself available to Mannies, she recalled, always taking her calls. Years later, he even appeared, lighthearted and bantering, on a St. Louis Public Radio podcast Mannies co-hosted. She said Martin could be outlandish and aggressive, but he could also be disarmingly passionate about whatever cause he was pursuing at the moment, often speaking in a frenetic rush. \u201cHe just wore people down with his enthusiasm,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Martin allowed a different St. Louis reporter to shadow him during his 2010 run for Congress. The reporter asked about the St. Louis election board, a dysfunctional organization that, by all accounts, Martin had helped turn around in the mid-2000s. Martin had fired an employee there named Jeanne Bergfeld, and she later sued for wrongful termination. The board settled the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

As part of the settlement, Martin agreed not to talk about the case and the board paid Bergfeld $55,000. Martin and two others issued a letter saying she had been a \u201cconscientious and dedicated professional.\u201d<\/p>\n

But talking to the reporter covering his campaign, Martin said Bergfeld enjoyed \u201cnot having to do anything\u201d and \u201cwasn\u2019t interested in changing.\u201d The day after the story was published, Bergfeld sued Martin again, this time for violating the settlement agreement. Martin denied making the comments, but the Riverfront Times released audio that proved he had.<\/p>\n

Martin agreed to pay Bergfeld another $15,000 but delayed signing the settlement for a few months. The judge then ordered Martin to pay some of her legal costs, citing his \u201cobstinacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Texas Lawmakers Push to Enforce Election Transparency Law After Newsrooms Found School Districts Failed to Comply<\/a><\/p>\n

Martin lost his 2010 congressional bid. He ran for Missouri attorney general two years later and lost again. After his stint as chair of the Missouri Republican Party, he went to work as Schlafly\u2019s right-hand man. Martin grew so attached to Schlafly that a lawyer for the Eagle Forum jokingly called him \u201cEd Martin Schlafly.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the 2016 presidential campaign ramped up, Martin supported Trump even though Eagle Forum board members, including Cori, supported Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Cori described Trump at the time as an \u201cegomaniacal dictator.\u201d (Today, she said she supports him.) Cori and other board members were stunned when Schlafly endorsed Trump, with Martin standing by her side.<\/p>\n

A few weeks later, a majority of the Eagle Forum\u2019s board voted to oust Martin as president; a lawsuit filed by the board cited mismanagement and poor leadership and described his tenure as \u201cdeplorable.\u201d Martin has maintained that he was Schlafly\u2019s \u201chand-picked successor\u201d and has characterized his removal as a hostile takeover.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\u201cEvery day, they are diminishing the reputation and value of Phyllis,\u201d he said in a 2017 statement. She died in September 2016.<\/p>\n

Cori and the board\u2019s lawsuit sought to enforce Martin\u2019s removal and demand an accounting of the forum\u2019s assets. That\u2019s the case that wound up before Barberis.<\/p>\n

On top of his efforts to direct Gray\u2019s posts onBarberis\u2019 Facebook page, Martin prepared a separate statement, according to previously unreported records from the case. The statement called Barberis\u2019 ruling to remove him as Eagle Forum president \u201cjudicial activism at its worst\u201d that \u201cshows what happens when the law is undermined by judges who think they can do whatever they want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin emailed the statement, which said it was from \u201cBruce Schlafly, M.D.\u201d \u2014 the name of one of Schlafly\u2019s sons \u2014 to himself, then sent it to two of her other sons, John and Andy, court filings show. Martin said the statement was a \u201cdeclaration of war\u201d and urged the Schlaflys to \u201cput something like this out to our biggest list.\u201d (It\u2019s unclear if the message was ever sent.) Bruce Schlafly did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

In a 2019 sworn deposition, Cori\u2019s lawyer asked Martin questions about the posts on Barberis\u2019 Facebook page and the letter he drafted for Bruce Schlafly. Because of the possibility that he could be charged with criminal contempt of court, Martin declined to comment, on the advice of his own lawyer, though he acknowledged that lawyers are barred from communicating with judges outside of court or engaging in conduct meant to disrupt proceedings.<\/p>\n

Andy Schlafly, a lawyer and former Eagle Forum board member who supported Martin in the leadership fight, said \u201cno court has ever sanctioned Ed for his engagement of First Amendment advocacy\u201d and likened the controversy to liberal attacks on conservative judges. He dismissed concerns about Martin directing Gray to contact the judge, saying she \u201cspeaks for herself\u201d and had every right to voice her outrage. He compared Martin\u2019s style \u2014 then and now \u2014 to Trump\u2019s. He said he did not believe the email Martin drafted for his brother Bruce had ever been sent, but if it had been, it would have been no different from Trump posting on Truth Social, which he considered normal behavior in political battles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat would Trump do in that position?\u201d Andy Schlafly said of Martin\u2019s current role in Washington. \u201cI would say Trump would be doing just what Ed\u2019s doing. Elections do have consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gray declined to comment. She was not part of the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

When Cori\u2019s lawyers uncovered the emails, they asked a new judge, David Dugan \u2014 who had taken over the case after Barberis was elected to a higher court \u2014 why Martin should not be held in criminal contempt for \u201can underhanded scheme\u201d to \u201cattack the integrity and authority\u201d of the court with the Facebook comments about Barberis, according to court records.<\/p>\n

Dugan declined to take up the criminal contempt motion. But he later found Martin and John Schlafly in civil contempt of court for having interfered with Eagle Forum after Barberis had removed them from the group. John Schlafly appealed the contempt finding and mostly lost. He did not respond to requests for comment. It\u2019s unclear if Martin appealed.<\/p>\n

Cori told ProPublica she also filed an ethics complaint against Martin with the Missouri Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel, which investigates ethics complaints against lawyers. She said she was told her complaint would have to wait until her lawsuit concluded. The office said it could neither confirm nor deny it had received a complaint.<\/p>\n

In 2022, when part of Cori\u2019s lawsuit went to trial, a jury found Martin liable for defaming her and casting her in a false light \u2014 including by sharing a Facebook post suggesting that she should be charged with manslaughter for her mother\u2019s death. It awarded her $57,000 in damages and also found Martin liable for $25,500 against another Eagle Forum board member.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Martin argued that the statute of limitations had expired on the defamation claims and that many of his statements were either true or vague hyperbole not subject to proof. He also claimed he could not be held liable because he didn\u2019t write the offending post \u2014 he had merely shared something written by someone else.<\/p>\n

In a post-trial motion, he also leaned into protections that make it harder for public figures to win defamation cases. Under that higher legal standard, it\u2019s not enough for a plaintiff to show that a statement was false. Cori also had to prove that Martin knew it was false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth, and he said she didn\u2019t prove it.<\/p>\n

But while he\u2019s wrapped himself in First Amendment protections when defending his own speech, he\u2019s taken the opposite stance since being named interim U.S. attorney by Trump, threatening legal action against people when they criticize the administration.<\/p>\n

For instance, after Rep. Robert Garcia called DOGE leader Elon Musk a \u201cdick\u201d and urged Democrats to \u201cbring weapons\u201d to a political fight, Martin sent Garcia a letter warning his comments could be seen as threats and demanding an explanation.<\/p>\n

With the start of Trump\u2019s first presidency, Martin and his family moved to the Northern Virginia suburbs near Washington, D.C. Martin had no formal role in the new administration, but he turned himself into one of the president\u2019s most prolific and unfiltered surrogates.<\/p>\n

CNN hired him in September 2017 to be a pro-Trump on-air commentator, only to fire him five months later after a string of controversial on-air remarks. He attacked a woman who had accused Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore of molesting her as a child, praised Trump for denigrating Sen. Elizabeth Warren as \u201cPocahontas,\u201d and described some of his CNN co-panelists as \u201crabid feminists\u201d and \u201cBlack racists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unbowed, Martin went on to make more than 150 appearances on the Russia Today TV channel and Sputnik radio, both Russian state-owned media outlets, first reported by The Washington Post. On RT and Sputnik, Martin railed against the \u201cRussia hoax,\u201d criticized the DOJ investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller and questioned American support for Ukraine after Russia\u2019s invasion by saying the U.S. was \u201cwasting money in Kiev for Zelensky and his corrupt guys.\u201d The State Department would later say RT and Sputnik were \u201ccritical elements in Russia\u2019s disinformation and propaganda ecosystem.\u201d The Treasury Department sanctioned RT employees in 2024. The DOJ indicted two RT employees for conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to fail to register as foreign agents.<\/p>\n

Martin\u2019s flair for fealty set him apart even from fellow Trump supporters. He cheered the Maine Republican Party for considering whether to censure Sen. Susan Collins for her vote to convict Trump during the second impeachment trial. He singled out Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska in a radio segment titled \u201cAmerica Needs to Go on a RINO Hunt.\u201d He accused Sen. John Cornyn of going \u201csoft\u201d on gun rights after Cornyn endorsed a bipartisan gun-safety law after the Uvalde, Texas, mass shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead.<\/p>\n

On Jan. 6, 2021, Martin joined the throngs of Trump supporters who marched in protest of the 2020 election outcome. He compared the scene that day to a Mardi Gras celebration and later said the prosecution of Jan. 6 defendants was \u201can op\u201d orchestrated by former Rep. Liz Cheney and law enforcement agencies to \u201cdamage Trump and Trumpism.\u201d<\/p>\n

During an appearance on Russia Today, Martin said then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi \u201cweaponized\u201d Congress\u2019 response to the Jan. 6 riots by ramping up security on Capitol Hill, comparing her to the Nazis. \u201cNot since the Reichstag fire that was engineered by the Nazis have we seen behavior like what Nancy Pelosi did,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As an attorney, he represented Jan. 6 defendants, helped raise money for their families and championed their cause. Last summer, Martin gave an award to a convicted Jan. 6 rioter named Timothy Hale-Cusanelli. According to court records, Hale-Cusanelli held \u201clong-standing white supremacist and Nazi beliefs,\u201d wore a \u201cHitler mustache\u201d and allegedly told his co-workers that \u201cHitler should have finished the job.\u201d (In court, Hale\u2019s attorney his client \u201cmakes no excuses for his derogatory language,\u201d but the government\u2019s description of him was \u201csimply misleading.\u201d)<\/p>\n

After hugging and thanking Hale-Cusanelli at the ceremony, Martin told the audience that one of his goals was \u201cto make sure that the world \u2014 and especially America \u2014 hears more from Tim Hale, because he\u2019s extraordinary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

In his three months as interim U.S. attorney for D.C., Martin has used his position to issue a series of threats. He\u2019s vowed not to hire anyone affiliated with Georgetown Law unless the school drops any DEI policies. He vowed to Musk that he would \u201cpursue any and all legal action against anyone who impedes your work or threatens your people.\u201d He publicly told former special counsel Jack Smith and Smith\u2019s lawyers to \u201c[s]ave your receipts.\u201d And in another open letter addressed to Musk and Musk\u2019s deputy, Martin wrote that \u201cif people are discovered to have broken the law or even acted simply unethically, we will investigate them and we will chase them to the end of the Earth to hold them accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

More often than not, Martin\u2019s threats have gone nowhere.<\/p>\n

A month into the job, he announced \u201cOperation Whirlwind,\u201d an initiative to \u201chold accountable those who threaten\u201d public officials, whether they\u2019re DOGE workers or judges. One of the \u201cmost abhorrent examples\u201d of such threats, he said, were Sen. Chuck Schumer\u2019s 2020 remarks that conservative Supreme Court justices had \u201creleased the whirlwind\u201d and would \u201cpay the price\u201d if they weakened abortion rights.<\/p>\n

Even though Schumer walked back his incendiary comments the next day, Martin said he was investigating Schumer\u2019s nearly 5-year-old remarks as part of Operation Whirlwind. Despite Martin\u2019s bravado, the investigation went nowhere. No grand jury investigation was opened. No charges were filed. That the probe fizzled out came as little surprise. Legal experts said Schumer\u2019s remarks, while ill advised, fell well short of criminal conduct.<\/p>\n

In another instance, when one of Martin\u2019s top deputies refused to open a criminal investigation into clean-energy grants issued by the Biden administration, Martin demanded the deputy\u2019s resignation and advanced the investigation himself. When a subpoena arrived at one of the targeted environmental groups, Martin\u2019s was the only name on it, according to documents obtained by ProPublica.<\/p>\n

Kevin Flynn, a former federal prosecutor who served in the D.C. U.S. attorney\u2019s office for 35 years, told ProPublica that he did not know of a single case in which the U.S. attorney was the sole authorizing official on a grand jury subpoena. Flynn said he could think of only two reasons why this could happen: The matter was of \u201csuch extraordinary sensitivity\u201d that the office\u2019s leader took exclusive control over it, or no other supervisor or line prosecutor was willing to sign off on the subpoena \u201cout of concern that it wasn\u2019t legally or ethically appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

And when the dispute between the environmental groups and the Justice Department reached a courtroom, federal Judge Tanya Chutkan asked a DOJ lawyer defending the administration\u2019s actions for any evidence of possible crimes or violations \u2014 evidence, in other words, that could have justified the probe initiated by Martin. The DOJ lawyer said he had none. \u201cYou can\u2019t even tell me what the evidence of malfeasance is,\u201d Chutkan said. \u201cThere are still rules that even the government has to follow, last I checked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin\u2019s tenure has caused so much consternation that in early April, Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., put a hold on Martin\u2019s nomination. Typically, the Senate Judiciary Committee approves U.S. attorney picks by voice vote without a hearing. But in Martin\u2019s case, all 10 Democrats on the committee have asked for a public hearing to debate the nomination, calling Martin \u201ca nominee whose objectionable record merits heightened scrutiny by this Committee.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even the process of submitting the requisite paperwork for Senate confirmation has tripped him up. According to documents obtained by ProPublica, he has sent the Judiciary Committee three supplemental letters that correct omissions about his background. In an earlier submission, Martin did not disclose any of his appearances on Russian state-owned media. But just before The Washington Post reported that Martin had, in fact, made more than 150 such appearances, he sent yet another letter correcting his previous statements.<\/p>\n

Read more Red State Voters Approved Progressive Measures. GOP Lawmakers Are Trying to Undermine Them.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI regret the errors and apologize for any inconvenience,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Martin\u2019s career is dotted with ethical and professional questions, records show. 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