Ed Martin is leaving the Justice Department to focus on election legal battles through the 2028 presidential race, President Trump announced Friday — and the way the establishment press covered it tells you everything about why Americans don't trust the system.
AP and NBC both led their stories by branding Martin a "Trump loyalist" and "Stop the Steal advocate." The implication is unmistakable: if you challenge election procedures, you're not a citizen concerned about integrity — you're a partisan to be dismissed. AP went further, calling Trump's focus on election security an "obsession" and declaring that noncitizen voting is "a rare problem that Trump falsely insists is a widespread source of fraud." That's editorializing dressed up as hard news.
Here's what actually happened. Martin, who served as pardon attorney, acting DC US attorney, and head of the Weaponization Working Group, told colleagues he planned to depart after completing a process for felons to apply to regain gun rights — a process the DOJ unveiled Monday. He spent an hour with Trump at the White House Friday, the New York Post reported, discussing projects and their shared admiration for the late conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly.
Trump praised Martin on Truth Social: "Ed is now leaving to go outside to fight Legal Battles for the upcoming Midterm Election, and the Presidential Election of 2028. I know he will do an outstanding job, ensure Free, Fair, and Honest Elections, and strongly advance our Constitutional Rights."
Attorney General Todd Blanche called Martin "a patriot who loves this nation." The Post reported their relationship was complicated — a DOJ source said Blanche once quipped: "Ed and I have had our differences, but we always have great makeup sex" — but both men insist the dynamic didn't prompt the departure.
Martin's tenure drew establishment fire from both parties. Trump pulled his nomination for permanent DC US attorney after Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said he couldn't support him in the district "where Jan. 6 happened, the protest happened." Martin had overseen the dismissal of Jan. 6 cases following Trump's pardons and opened an investigation into the office's handling of the Capitol riot probe. He also spearheaded the mortgage fraud investigation into New York Attorney General Letitia James — sending her a letter urging her resignation "as an act of good faith" and posing for photos outside her Brooklyn home, according to AP. A judge dismissed that case after finding the prosecutor who brought charges was illegally appointed.
NBC reported Martin was stripped of his role leading the Weaponization Working Group in February 2026, though he kept the pardon attorney title. As pardon attorney, he administered Trump's mass clemency for Jan. 6 defendants and refused to accept hand-delivered clemency requests to maintain the appearance of propriety, the Post reported. Neil McCabe, a former senior adviser to Martin, credited him with saving the pardon office from elimination after his predecessor's "toxic tenure."
It's not yet clear which outside group Martin will join — or what shape his election legal work will take. But the framing war is already underway. When fighting for "Free, Fair, and Honest Elections" gets you labeled a loyalist rather than a patriot, the question isn't what Martin does next. It's why the people in power are so threatened by the question.
