WASHINGTON — Ed Martin Jr., who is set to serve as pardon attorney and head of the newly created "Weaponization Working Group" at the Department of Justice, suggested there will be a review of pardons issued by former President Joe Biden, which included sweeping ones for family members and lawmakers who served on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
Speaking at a news conference Tuesday in which he officially closed out his time as interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia after his nomination was pulled last week, Martin said his team intends to “take a hard look” at the last-minute clemency given by Biden.
At the same time, he appeared to dismiss an idea President Donald Trump has pushed that Biden’s supposed use of an “autopen,” meaning not physically signing them himself, automatically makes the pardons “void” and “vacant.”
“I happen to think the pardon power is plenary,” Martin said. “If you use the autopen for pardon power, I don’t think that that’s necessarily a problem, but the question is, ‘How did this happen?’”
Martin went on to say that the pardons issued by Biden “need scrutiny” and noted that he has already begun taking a look at the “conduct” around them during his time as the interim top federal prosecutor for the nation’s capital.
Martin also discussed his plan for his new role at the Justice Department, including saying he intends to call out “bad actors” who cannot be charged with crimes in the hope they will face “shame.”
“There are some really bad actors, some people that did some really bad things to the American people,” Martin said. “And if they can be charged, we’ll charge them, but if they can’t be charged, we will name them.
"And we will name them, and in a culture that respects shame — they should be people that are ashamed,” he continued.
Trump pulled Martin’s nomination to serve permanently as Washington’s top federal prosecutor role and tapped former judge and current Fox News host Jeanine Pirro to serve in the interim instead after it became clear he faced enough opposition in the Senate, including from one Republican senator in particular, to stall and potentially tank his chances of being confirmed. He had been serving in the role on a temporary basis since the president’s first week in office and faced plenty of controversy, including over his defense of those who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as well as for referring to himself as Trump’s lawyer in a quote posted to X that was hit with a reader note from the platform clarifying the responsibilities of the role.
The president instead tapped him to be pardon attorney at the Department of Justice and lead its Weaponization Working Group, which was established by Attorney General Pam Bondi just after she was sworn into her role in response to Trump’s “Ending the Weaponization of The Federal Government” executive order.
The group, according to the document establishing it, is tasked with conducting a review to identify instances in which the conduct of a department or agency over the last four years “appears to have been designed to achieve political objectives or other improper aims.” The document specifically names former Special Counsel Jack Smith, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who all brought lawsuits or criminal charges against Trump, as officials whose actions will be looked into by the group.
