Trump loyalist Ed Martin faces disciplinary case over DOJ threat against Georgetown Law
Source: NBC News
March 10, 2026, 12:53 PM EDT / Updated March 10, 2026, 1:07 PM EDT
Justice Department pardon attorney Ed Martin an advocate for Jan. 6 defendants and former head of the Trump administrations weaponization working group is facing a formal disciplinary proceeding for alleged threats against the First Amendment rights of Georgetown Law and improper communications with a judge.
Washington, D.C., Disciplinary Counsel Hamilton P. Fox III filed a two-count complaint against Martin that involves threats he made last year, when he was interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, in a letter to the dean of Georgetown University Law Center as well as Martins communications with a judge in a bid to get Fox fired.
Mr. Martin knew or should have known that, as a government official, his conduct violated the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, Fox wrote in connection with Martins threats against Georgetown Law.
The complaint is the start of a lengthy disciplinary proceeding involving the D.C. Bar and the Board on Professional Responsibility, which could take years to adjudicate and involves several steps, but could ultimately result in consequences for Martins law license. CNN earlier reported on the disciplinary proceedings against Martin.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/trump-doj-ed-martin-disciplinary-threat-georgetown-rcna262735
Link to COMPLAINT (PDF viewer) - https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/27803672-martinmemodc/
Link to COMPLAINT (PDF) - https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/27803672/martinmemodc.pdf
(45 will probably say "I don't know who that is. Never heard of him" )
LetMyPeopleVote
(179,133 posts)If Attorney General Pam Bondi has her way, an extremely important guardrail could disappear.
The DOJâs ethics proposal would have a corrupt fox guarding the henhouse
— (@creolenl.bsky.social) 2026-03-18T12:21:25.382Z
If Attorney General Pam Bondi has her way, an extremely important guardrail could disappear.
www.ms.now/opinion/doj-...
https://www.ms.now/opinion/doj-ethics-proposal-pam-bondi
Last week, Bondi proposed a new rule that would allow the Department of Justice to take over investigations of alleged attorney misconduct of its own lawyers. State bar authorities would have to pause their investigations while the Justice Department conducts its own probe. The rule gives the DOJ the ability to delay or even derail a state investigation.
It doesnt feel like a coincidence that there has been a series of state ethics complaints filed against Trump administration lawyers, including Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and federal prosecutors handling immigration cases. President Donald Trumps polarizing pardon attorney Ed Martin is currently facing just such a complaint from the D.C. Bar.,,,,
Federal law requires all federal prosecutors to comply with the ethics rules of the state where they practice law, including the District of Columbia. The new rule requires Justice Department lawyers to obey the substance of their states ethics rules, but gives the DOJ the authority to investigate violations. According to the proposal, whenever a bar grievance is filed, the Department will have the right to review the allegations in the first instance and shall request that the bar disciplinary authority suspend any parallel investigations until the completion of the Departments review......
In the decades since the Watergate scandal, the Justice Department has conducted robust investigations of allegations of ethical misconduct by its own attorneys and imposed discipline. In fact, it was common for state bar authorities to wait for the DOJ to complete its investigations before initiating their own probes, because the federal process held attorneys to standards even higher than state ethics rules. But that landscape changed last year, when Bondi fired the head of the departments Office of Professional Responsibility and its chief ethics officer. Now there is a risk that DOJ lawyers will be even further sheltered from meaningful ethical oversight.
Bondi has fired the officials at the Office of Professional Responsibility to give the MAGA assholes free reign in violating their ethical responsibilities. These proposed regulations will be challenged if adopted