On February 5, Pam Bondi took the oath of office as U.S. Attorney General and became the head of the Department of Justice. Within hours, she sent a memo to all DOJ employees advising them that the work of the institution was about to change: The job of the department’s attorneys, she said, is to defend the interests of the United States as they “are set by the Nation’s Chief Executive.” An attorney who doesn’t endorse the executive’s view of the law thus “deprives the President of the benefit of his lawyers,” she said.
The idea that Department of Justice lawyers are actually the president’s lawyers is a seismic shift from the tradition of DOJ independence from the White House; although the department is an executive agency, the president isn’t supposed to dictate whom it prosecutes, and its lawyers aren’t supposed to work in service of his personal agenda. Bondi nevertheless emphasized that DOJ attorneys are “expected to zealously advance, protect, and defend their client’s interests,” which means the interests of Donald Trump.
Some DOJ officials are already taking their new charge very seriously. For the past few weeks, Ed Martin, the interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, has been on a mission to prosecute each and every one of Trump’s petty grievances. Martin’s barrage of investigatory letters and accusatory posts on social media make it clear that he is eager to use the instruments of government—even criminal law—to limit and punish criticism of the administration.
— U.S. Attorney DC (@USAO_DC) February 24, 2025
Martin was appointed on an interim basis on Inauguration Day, immediately after resigning as president of the Phyllis Schlaffly Eagles, a far-right antifeminist advocacy organization. He is the first person in at least 50 years to get the job without experience as a judge or a federal prosecutor. And he hit the ground running by sending a letter to Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, suggesting that Schumer may have committed a crime five years ago by making feisty remarks about the Supreme Court at an abortion rally. “I respectfully request that you clarify your comments from March 4, 2020,” said Martin. “You made them clearly and in a way that many found threatening.” Two weeks later, he sent a follow-up letter, asserting that “any reasonable person” would regard Schumer’s words as “threatening, even inciting violence.”
Schumer’s exact words, which he directed at Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, were, “You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.” After the right-wing outrage machine kicked into high gear, Schumer clarified his comments the next day. “Of course, I didn’t intend to suggest anything other than political and public opinion consequences for the Supreme Court,” he said, calling it “a gross distortion to imply otherwise.” Schumer’s chief of staff responded to Martin with a transcript of the senator’s remarks, adding, “As Senator Schumer’s statement on the Senate floor confirmed, the comments were not a threat to physically harm any person.”
Unsatisfied with this explanation, Martin sent a third letter on February 11, which claimed that Schumer hadn’t replied and characterized the purported failure as “a personal disappointment and professionally unacceptable.” He continued with ominous formatting: “Your cooperation is more important than ever to complete this inquiry before any action is taken,” he wrote. “I remind you: no one is above the law.” Last week, Martin sent an officewide email announcing the launch of Operation Whirlwind, which he described as an “initiative to hold accountable those who threaten workers”—specifically, “our cops, our prosecutors, our DOGE workers, the President, and all other government employees from threats against our nation.”
Martin and Jeffrey Clark, a former Trump Justice Department lawyer who helped with the effort to overturn the 2020 election results, speaks during a January 6 congressional hearing, June 2023 (Photo by Michael A. McCoy/Getty Images)
Martin’s hounding of Schumer is not an isolated incident. On February 3, for instance, he posted a letter addressed to Elon Musk on Twitter, offering his prosecution services in defense of the “Department of Government Efficiency,” the Musk-led group currently dismantling the federal government. “We will pursue any and all legal action against anyone who impedes your work or threatens your people,” he wrote. “We will not act like the previous administration which looked the other way as the Antifa and BLM rioters as well as thugs with guns trashed our capital city.” Martin posted another letter to Musk on February 7 salivating at the prospect of going after any enemies of Musk: “Please let me reiterate again: 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,” Martin wrote.
A week later, Martin posted again, after Politico reported that Jack Smith, the former special counsel who brought two criminal cases against Trump before the 2024 election rendered them moot, disclosed the receipt of $140,000 in pro bono legal services from the law firm Covington & Burling. Martin shared a link to the article and indicated that an investigation was imminent: “Save your receipts, Smith and Covington. We’ll be in touch soon. #NoOneIsAboveTheLaw.” (Apparently exempt from this hashtag declaration is Florida Congressman Cory Mills, for whom D.C. police recently sought an arrest warrant for allegedly assaulting a woman. Martin reportedly ignored that request, because for him, prosecuting actual crimes within his jurisdiction comes second to letting Republicans off the hook.)
Most recently, on February 17, Martin sent Democratic Representative Robert Garcia a letter much like the one he sent to Schumer, requesting a “clarification” of Garcia’s response to a live interview question about how Democrats can stop Elon Musk from looting the government. “What the American public wants is for us to bring actual weapons to this bar fight,” Garcia said on CNN. “This is an actual fight for democracy.” Martin alleged in his letter that Garcia’s invocation of a well-known metaphor sounded like “a threat to Mr. Musk—an appointed representative of President Donald Trump who you call a dick.”
Garcia has publicly rejected Martin’s attempt to intimidate him. “We have a constitutional right to criticize the administration and the actions of Elon Musk,” he said on Bluesky last week. “Trump’s Department of Justice should not work to silence Members of Congress.”
The First Amendment prohibits the government from abridging people’s freedom of speech. Martin’s willingness to threaten even sitting lawmakers with prosecution for daring to speak a harsh word about Dear Leader bodes poorly for people without that kind of money and power. Trump has long used the civil legal system to silence or discipline anyone he thought portrayed him in a bad light. Now he has the criminal legal system at his disposal, too, ready to dish out retribution on his behalf.
