The assaults on Decide John Barberis within the fall of 2016 appeared on his private Fb web page. They impugned his ethics, criticized a current ruling and branded him as a “politician” with the “LOWEST rating for a judge in Illinois.”
Barberis, a state courtroom decide in an Illinois county throughout the Mississippi River from St. Louis, was presiding over a nasty authorized battle for management over the Eagle Discussion board, the vaunted grassroots group based by Phyllis Schlafly, matriarch of the anti-feminist motion. The case pitted Schlafly’s youngest daughter in opposition to three of her sons, nearly like a Midwest model of the HBO program “Succession” (with out the obscenities).
On the coronary heart of the dispute — and the lead defendant within the case — was Ed Martin, a lawyer by coaching and a political operative by commerce. In Missouri, the place he was primarily based, Martin was extensively often known as an irrepressible gadfly who trafficked in incendiary claims and trailed controversy wherever he went. At present, he’s the interim U.S. lawyer in Washington, D.C., and one of the distinguished members of the Trump Justice Division.
In early 2015, Schlafly had chosen Martin to succeed her as head of the Eagle Discussion board, a crowning second in Martin’s profession. But after only a 12 months in cost, the group’s board fired Martin. Schlafly’s youngest daughter, Anne Schlafly Cori, and a majority of the Eagle Discussion board board filed a lawsuit to bar Martin from any affiliation with the group.
After Barberis dealt Martin a serious setback within the case in October 2016, the assaults started. The Fb person who posted them, Priscilla Grey, had labored in a number of roles for Schlafly however was not a celebration to the case, and her feedback learn like these of an aggrieved outsider.
Nearly two years later, the reality emerged as Cori’s legal professionals gathered proof for her lawsuit: Behind the posts in regards to the decide was none aside from Martin.
ProPublica obtained beforehand unreported paperwork filed within the case that present Martin had purchased a laptop computer for Grey and that she subsequently supplied to “happily write something to attack this judge.” And when she did, Martin ghostwrote extra posts for her to make use of and coached her on the best way to make her feedback look extra “organic.”
“That is not justice but a rigged system,” he urged her to put in writing. “Shame on you and this broken legal system.”
“Call what he did unfair and rigged over and over,” Martin continued.
Martin even urged Grey to message the decide privately. “Go slow and steady,” he suggested. “Make it organic.”
Grey appeared to take Martin’s recommendation. “Private messaging him that sweet line,” she wrote. It was not clear from the courtroom document what, if something, she wrote at that juncture.
Authorized consultants informed ProPublica that Martin’s conduct within the Eagle Discussion board case was a transparent violation of moral norms {and professional} guidelines. Martin’s conduct, they mentioned, was particularly egregious as a result of he was each a defendant within the case and a licensed lawyer.
Martin seemed to be “deliberately interfering with a judicial proceeding with the intent to undermine the integrity of the outcome,” mentioned Scott Cummings, a professor of authorized ethics at UCLA Faculty of Legislation. “That’s not OK.”
Martin didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark.
Martin’s authorized and political profession is dotted with questions on his skilled and moral conduct. However for all his years within the highlight, a number of the most severe considerations about his conduct have remained within the shadows — buried in courtroom filings, neglected by the press or by no means reported in any respect.
His actions have led to greater than $600,000 in authorized settlements or judgments in opposition to Martin or his employers in a handful of instances. Within the Eagle Discussion board lawsuit, one other decide discovered him in civil contempt, citing his “willful disregard” of a courtroom order, and a jury discovered him answerable for defamation and false gentle in opposition to Cori.
Cori additionally tried to have Martin charged with legal contempt for his position in orchestrating the posts about Barberis, however a decide declined to take up the request and mentioned she may take the case to the county prosecutor. Cori mentioned her lawyer met with a detective; Martin was by no means charged.
Nonetheless, the emails unearthed by ProPublica had been proof that he had violated Missouri guidelines for legal professionals, in keeping with Kathleen Clark, a authorized ethics knowledgeable and regulation professor at Washington College in St. Louis. She mentioned legal professionals are prohibited from attempting to contact a decide exterior of courtroom in a case they’re concerned in, and they’re barred from utilizing a proxy to do one thing they’re barred from doing themselves.
Such a observe document might need derailed one other lawyer’s profession. Not so for Martin.
As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump vowed to make use of the Justice Division to reward his allies and search retribution in opposition to his perceived enemies. Since taking workplace, Trump and his appointees have made good on these pledges, pardoning Jan. 6 rioters whereas concentrating on Democratic politicians, media critics and personal regulation corporations.
As considered one of its first personnel picks, the Trump administration selected Martin to be interim U.S. lawyer for the District of Columbia, one of many premier jobs for a federal prosecutor.
A wide selection of former prosecutors, authorized observers and others have raised questions on his {qualifications} for an workplace identified for dealing with high-profile instances. Martin has no expertise as a prosecutor. He has by no means taken a case to trial, in keeping with his public disclosures. Because the appearing chief of the largest U.S. lawyer’s workplace within the nation, he directs the work of tons of of legal professionals who seem in courtroom on an unlimited array of topics, together with authorized disputes arising out of Congress, nationwide safety issues, public corruption and civil rights, in addition to homicides, drug trafficking and plenty of different native crimes.
Over the past 4 years, the workplace prosecuted greater than 1,500 individuals as a part of the large investigation into the violence on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Whereas Trump has pardoned the Jan. 6 defendants, Martin has taken motion in opposition to the prosecutors who introduced these instances. In simply three months, he has overseen the dismissal of excellent Jan. 6-related instances, fired greater than a dozen prosecutors and opened an investigation into the charging choices made in these riot instances.
Martin has additionally investigated Democratic lawmakers and members of the Biden household; compelled out the chief of the legal division after she refused to provoke an investigation desired by Trump appointees citing a scarcity of proof, in keeping with her resignation letter; threatened Georgetown College’s regulation faculty over its range, fairness and inclusion insurance policies; and vowed to analyze threats in opposition to Division of Authorities Effectivity workers or “chase” individuals within the federal authorities “found to have damaged the regulation and even acted merely unethically.”
Martin “has 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,” says an open letter signed by greater than 100 former prosecutors who labored within the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace for the District of Columbia underneath Democratic and Republican presidents.
Already, Martin has been the topic of at the very least 4 disciplinary complaints with the D.C. and Missouri bars, of which one was dismissed and the opposite three seem like pending. Two of the complaints got here after he moved to dismiss prices in opposition to a Jan. 6 rioter whom he had beforehand represented and for whom he was nonetheless listed as counsel of document. (The primary criticism was dismissed after the D.C. bar’s disciplinary panel concluded that Martin had dismissed the case on account of Trump’s pardons and so didn’t violate any guidelines.) The third was filed in March by a bunch of Democratic lawmakers within the U.S. Senate. The fourth was submitted final week by a bunch of former Jan. 6 prosecutors and members of the conservative-leaning Society for the Rule of Legislation. It argues that Martin’s actions to this point “threaten to undermine the integrity of the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the legal profession in the District of Columbia.” If Martin has responded to any of the complaints, these responses haven’t been made public.
Trump has nominated Martin to run the workplace completely. Senate Democrats, in the meantime, have vowed to pull out Martin’s affirmation, demanding a listening to and establishing a struggle over considered one of Trump’s most controversial nominees.
Martin stepped off the elevator into the newsroom of the St. Louis Put up-Dispatch newspaper. He was indignant at a reporter named Jo Mannies, one of many metropolis’s high political journalists. At a convention desk with Mannies and her senior editors, he accused Mannies of being unethical and pressed the paper’s management to spike her tales about him, in keeping with interviews.
Mannies mentioned later she believed he was attempting to get her fired.
“He was attacking her,” mentioned Pam Maples, who was managing editor on the time. “He 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’t get traction, it was more like ‘this isn’t a story.’ It wasn’t that he said anything about a fact being inaccurate, or he wanted to retract a story; he wanted the reporting to stop.”
Mannies had been masking a scandal dubbed “Memogate” that began to unfold in 2007 whereas Martin was chief of workers to Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt. In that position, Martin was utilizing his authorities e mail to undermine Democratic rivals and rally anti-abortion teams. However when reporters requested emails from Blunt’s workers, the governor’s workplace denied they existed. Media organizations joined a lawsuit to protect the messages and get better them from backup tapes.
An lawyer for the governor, Scott Eckersley, later mentioned in a deposition that Martin tried to dam the discharge of presidency emails and informed workers to delete their messages. After Eckersley warned that doing so may violate state regulation, he was fired. He sued the state for wrongful termination and defamation and settled for $500,000. Martin resigned as chief of workers in 2007 after simply over a 12 months on the job, and Blunt’s workplace would finally hand over 22 packing containers of inner emails.
In a 2008 e mail to the Related Press, Martin dismissed Eckersley’s lawsuit as a “desperate attempt” to revise his story after he was fired, citing Eckersley’s personal testimony that not all emails are public information.
The Memogate incident was telling — and Martin’s efforts to have Mannies fired had been by no means reported. “His claim was we were misrepresenting what the law was and what he was doing,” she informed ProPublica. “I mean, he can get very hyper. He can get very emotional.”
When Martin launched a bid for Congress in 2010, he acted as if Memogate was historic historical past. He made himself out there to Mannies, she recalled, at all times taking her calls. Years later, he even appeared, lighthearted and bantering, on a St. Louis Public Radio podcast Mannies co-hosted. She mentioned Martin may very well be outlandish and aggressive, however he may be disarmingly obsessed with no matter trigger he was pursuing in the mean time, usually talking in a frenetic rush. “He just wore people down with his enthusiasm,” she mentioned.
Martin allowed a special St. Louis reporter to shadow him throughout his 2010 run for Congress. The reporter requested in regards to the St. Louis election board, a dysfunctional group that, by all accounts, Martin had helped flip round within the mid-2000s. Martin had fired an worker there named Jeanne Bergfeld, and he or she later sued for wrongful termination. The board settled the lawsuit.
As a part of the settlement, Martin agreed to not discuss in regards to the case and the board paid Bergfeld $55,000. Martin and two others issued a letter saying she had been a “conscientious and dedicated professional.”
However speaking to the reporter masking his marketing campaign, Martin mentioned Bergfeld loved “not having to do anything” and “wasn’t interested in changing.” The day after the story was printed, Bergfeld sued Martin once more, this time for violating the settlement settlement. Martin denied making the feedback, however the Riverfront Instances launched audio that proved he had.
Martin agreed to pay Bergfeld one other $15,000 however delayed signing the settlement for just a few months. The decide then ordered Martin to pay a few of her authorized prices, citing his “obstinacy.”
Martin misplaced his 2010 congressional bid. He ran for Missouri lawyer common two years later and misplaced once more. After his stint as chair of the Missouri Republican Get together, he went to work as Schlafly’s right-hand man. Martin grew so hooked up to Schlafly {that a} lawyer for the Eagle Discussion board jokingly known as him “Ed Martin Schlafly.”
Because the 2016 presidential marketing campaign ramped up, Martin supported Trump regardless that Eagle Discussion board board members, together with Cori, supported Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Cori described Trump on the time as an “egomaniacal dictator.” (At present, she mentioned she helps him.) Cori and different board members had been shocked when Schlafly endorsed Trump, with Martin standing by her facet.
Just a few weeks later, a majority of the Eagle Discussion board’s board voted to oust Martin as president; a lawsuit filed by the board cited mismanagement and poor management and described his tenure as “deplorable.” Martin has maintained that he was Schlafly’s “hand-picked successor” and has characterised his elimination as a hostile takeover.
“Every day, they are diminishing the reputation and value of Phyllis,” he mentioned in a 2017 assertion. She died in September 2016.
Cori and the board’s lawsuit sought to implement Martin’s elimination and demand an accounting of the discussion board’s belongings. That’s the case that wound up earlier than Barberis.
On high of his efforts to direct Grey’s posts on Barberis’ Fb web page, Martin ready a separate assertion, in keeping with beforehand unreported information from the case. The assertion known as Barberis’ ruling to take away him as Eagle Discussion board president “judicial activism at its worst” that “shows what happens when the law is undermined by judges who think they can do whatever they want.”
Martin emailed the assertion, which mentioned it was from “Bruce Schlafly, M.D.” — the identify of considered one of Schlafly’s sons — to himself, then despatched it to 2 of her different sons, John and Andy, courtroom filings present. Martin mentioned the assertion was a “declaration of war” and urged the Schlaflys to “put something like this out to our biggest list.” (It’s unclear if the message was ever despatched.) Bruce Schlafly didn’t reply to requests for remark.
In a 2019 sworn deposition, Cori’s lawyer requested Martin questions in regards to the posts on Barberis’ Fb web page and the letter he drafted for Bruce Schlafly. Due to the likelihood that he may very well be charged with legal contempt of courtroom, Martin declined to remark, on the recommendation of his personal lawyer, although he acknowledged that legal professionals are barred from speaking with judges exterior of courtroom or partaking in conduct meant to disrupt proceedings.
Andy Schlafly, a lawyer and former Eagle Discussion board board member who supported Martin within the management struggle, mentioned “no court has ever sanctioned Ed for his engagement of First Amendment advocacy” and likened the controversy to liberal assaults on conservative judges. He dismissed considerations about Martin directing Grey to contact the decide, saying she “speaks for herself” and had each proper to voice her outrage. He in contrast Martin’s type — then and now — to Trump’s. He mentioned he didn’t consider the e-mail Martin drafted for his brother Bruce had ever been despatched, but when it had been, it might have been no completely different from Trump posting on Reality Social, which he thought-about regular conduct in political battles.
“What would Trump do in that position?” Andy Schlafly mentioned of Martin’s present position in Washington. “I would say Trump would be doing just what Ed’s doing. Elections do have consequences.”
Grey declined to remark. She was not a part of the lawsuit.
When Cori’s legal professionals uncovered the emails, they requested a brand new decide, David Dugan — who had taken over the case after Barberis was elected to the next courtroom — why Martin shouldn’t be held in legal contempt for “an underhanded scheme” to “attack the integrity and authority” of the courtroom with the Fb feedback about Barberis, in keeping with courtroom information.
Dugan declined to take up the legal contempt movement. However he later discovered Martin and John Schlafly in civil contempt of courtroom for having interfered with Eagle Discussion board after Barberis had eliminated them from the group. John Schlafly appealed the contempt discovering and largely misplaced. He didn’t reply to requests for remark. It’s unclear if Martin appealed.
Cori informed ProPublica she additionally filed an ethics criticism in opposition to Martin with the Missouri Workplace of Chief Disciplinary Counsel, which investigates ethics complaints in opposition to legal professionals. She mentioned she was informed her criticism must wait till her lawsuit concluded. The workplace mentioned it may neither affirm nor deny it had acquired a criticism.
In 2022, when a part of Cori’s lawsuit went to trial, a jury discovered Martin answerable for defaming her and casting her in a false gentle — together with by sharing a Fb put up suggesting that she must be charged with manslaughter for her mom’s dying. It awarded her $57,000 in damages and in addition discovered Martin answerable for $25,500 in opposition to one other Eagle Discussion board board member.
Martin argued that the statute of limitations had expired on the defamation claims and that a lot of his statements had been both true or imprecise hyperbole not topic to proof. He additionally claimed he couldn’t be held liable as a result of he didn’t write the offending put up — he had merely shared one thing written by another person.
In a post-trial movement, he additionally leaned into protections that make it tougher for public figures to win defamation instances. Underneath that greater authorized customary, it’s not sufficient for a plaintiff to point out {that a} assertion was false. Cori additionally needed to show that Martin knew it was false or acted with reckless disregard for the reality, and he mentioned she didn’t show it.
However whereas he’s wrapped himself in First Modification protections when defending his personal speech, he’s taken the other stance since being named interim U.S. lawyer by Trump, threatening authorized motion in opposition to individuals after they criticize the administration.
For example, after Rep. Robert Garcia known as DOGE chief Elon Musk a “dick” and urged Democrats to “bring weapons” to a political struggle, Martin despatched Garcia a letter warning his feedback may very well be seen as threats and demanding an evidence.
With the beginning of Trump’s first presidency, Martin and his household moved to the Northern Virginia suburbs close to Washington, D.C. Martin had no formal position within the new administration, however he turned himself into one of many president’s most prolific and unfiltered surrogates.
CNN employed him in September 2017 to be a pro-Trump on-air commentator, solely to fireplace him 5 months later after a string of controversial on-air remarks. He attacked a girl who had accused Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore of molesting her as a toddler, praised Trump for denigrating Sen. Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas,” and described a few of his CNN co-panelists as “rabid feminists” and “Black racists.”
Unbowed, Martin went on to make greater than 150 appearances on the Russia At present TV channel and Sputnik radio, each Russian state-owned media retailers, first reported by The Washington Put up. On RT and Sputnik, Martin railed in opposition to the “Russia hoax,” criticized the DOJ investigation led by particular counsel Robert Mueller and questioned American assist for Ukraine after Russia’s invasion by saying the U.S. was “wasting money in Kiev for Zelensky and his corrupt guys.” The State Division would later say RT and Sputnik had been “critical elements in Russia’s disinformation and propaganda ecosystem.” The Treasury Division sanctioned RT workers in 2024. The DOJ indicted two RT workers for conspiracy to commit cash laundering and conspiracy to fail to register as overseas brokers.
Martin’s aptitude for fealty set him aside even from fellow Trump supporters. He cheered the Maine Republican Get together for contemplating whether or not to censure Sen. Susan Collins for her vote to convict Trump through the second impeachment trial. He singled out Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska in a radio phase titled “America Needs to Go on a RINO Hunt.” He accused Sen. John Cornyn of going “soft” on gun rights after Cornyn endorsed a bipartisan gun-safety regulation after the Uvalde, Texas, mass capturing that left 19 kids and two academics useless.
On Jan. 6, 2021, Martin joined the throngs of Trump supporters who marched in protest of the 2020 election final result. He in contrast the scene that day to a Mardi Gras celebration and later mentioned the prosecution of Jan. 6 defendants was “an op” orchestrated by former Rep. Liz Cheney and regulation enforcement businesses to “damage Trump and Trumpism.”
Throughout an look on Russia At present, Martin mentioned then-Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi “weaponized” Congress’ response to the Jan. 6 riots by ramping up safety on Capitol Hill, evaluating her to the Nazis. “Not since the Reichstag fire that was engineered by the Nazis have we seen behavior like what Nancy Pelosi did,” he mentioned.
As an lawyer, he represented Jan. 6 defendants, helped elevate cash for his or her households and championed their trigger. Final summer time, Martin gave an award to a convicted Jan. 6 rioter named Timothy Hale-Cusanelli. Based on courtroom information, Hale-Cusanelli held “long-standing white supremacist and Nazi beliefs,” wore a “Hitler mustache” and allegedly informed his co-workers that “Hitler should have finished the job.” (In courtroom, Hale’s lawyer mentioned his consumer “makes no excuses for his derogatory language,” however the authorities’s description of him was “simply misleading.”)
After hugging and thanking Hale-Cusanelli on the ceremony, Martin informed the viewers that considered one of his objectives was “to make sure that the world — and especially America — hears more from Tim Hale, because he’s extraordinary.”
In his three months as interim U.S. lawyer for D.C., Martin has used his place to problem a collection of threats. He’s vowed to not rent anybody affiliated with Georgetown Legislation until the varsity drops any DEI insurance policies. He vowed to Musk that he would “pursue any and all legal action against anyone who impedes your work or threatens your people.” He publicly informed former particular counsel Jack Smith and Smith’s legal professionals to “[s]ave your receipts.” And in one other open letter addressed to Musk and Musk’s deputy, Martin wrote that “if 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.”
As a rule, Martin’s threats have gone nowhere.
A month into the job, he introduced “Operation Whirlwind,” an initiative to “hold accountable those who threaten” public officers, whether or not they’re DOGE employees or judges. One of many “most abhorrent examples” of such threats, he mentioned, had been Sen. Chuck Schumer’s 2020 remarks that conservative Supreme Court docket justices had “released the whirlwind” and would “pay the price” in the event that they weakened abortion rights.
Although Schumer walked again his incendiary feedback the following day, Martin mentioned he was investigating Schumer’s almost 5-year-old remarks as a part of Operation Whirlwind. Regardless of Martin’s bravado, the investigation went nowhere. No grand jury investigation was opened. No prices had been filed. That the probe fizzled out got here as little shock. Authorized consultants mentioned Schumer’s remarks, whereas ailing suggested, fell effectively wanting legal conduct.
In one other occasion, when considered one of Martin’s high deputies refused to open a legal investigation into clean-energy grants issued by the Biden administration, Martin demanded the deputy’s resignation and superior the investigation himself. When a subpoena arrived at one of many focused environmental teams, Martin’s was the one identify on it, in keeping with paperwork obtained by ProPublica.
Kevin Flynn, a former federal prosecutor who served within the D.C. U.S. lawyer’s workplace for 35 years, informed ProPublica that he didn’t know of a single case wherein the U.S. lawyer was the only real authorizing official on a grand jury subpoena. Flynn mentioned he may consider solely two the explanation why this might occur: The matter was of “such extraordinary sensitivity” that the workplace’s chief took unique management over it, or no different supervisor or line prosecutor was keen to log off on the subpoena “out of concern that it wasn’t legally or ethically appropriate.”
And when the dispute between the environmental teams and the Justice Division reached a courtroom, federal Decide Tanya Chutkan requested a DOJ lawyer defending the administration’s actions for any proof of attainable crimes or violations — proof, in different phrases, that might have justified the probe initiated by Martin. The DOJ lawyer mentioned he had none. “You can’t even tell me what the evidence of malfeasance is,” Chutkan mentioned. “There are still rules that even the government has to follow, last I checked.”
Martin’s tenure has prompted a lot consternation that in early April, Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., put a maintain on Martin’s nomination. Usually, the Senate Judiciary Committee approves U.S. lawyer picks by voice vote with out a listening to. However in Martin’s case, all 10 Democrats on the committee have requested for a public listening to to debate the nomination, calling Martin “a nominee whose objectionable record merits heightened scrutiny by this Committee.”
Even the method of submitting the requisite paperwork for Senate affirmation has tripped him up. Based on paperwork obtained by ProPublica, he has despatched the Judiciary Committee three supplemental letters that appropriate omissions about his background. In an earlier submission, Martin didn’t disclose any of his appearances on Russian state-owned media. However simply earlier than The Washington Put up reported that Martin had, in reality, made greater than 150 such appearances, he despatched yet one more letter correcting his earlier statements.
“I regret the errors and apologize for any inconvenience,” he wrote.
Sharon Lerner contributed reporting.
