General Discussion

Top Justice Department officials have stripped Ed Martin of the bulk of his expansive responsibilities, leaving the staunch ally of President Donald Trump on the sidelines of many of the controversial investigations he has championed, according to two people familiar with the personnel move.

As a result of the changes, Martin will no longer chair the department’s Weaponization Working Group, which was tasked with reviewing special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutions of Trump and other examples of what Trump sees as “prosecutorial abuse,” according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel move that has not been made public. The group itself continues to meet. Martin also lost his title as an assistant attorney general.

Martin will continue to serve as the Justice Department’s pardon attorney but will no longer work at department headquarters. Instead, his office will be located in another Justice Department building in Northeast Washington, pulling him away from the attorney general and the most powerful figures in the department, according to a person familiar with the move. The pardon office is in that Northeast Washington building.

Justice Department officials informed Martin in early December of the demotion, and it went into effect at the end of 2025. It is unclear whether he will remain in the pardon attorney role and, if so, for how long.....

In November, The Washington Post reported that prosecutors had questioned a witness in the Schiff case about her contact with Martin and Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte.

The inquiries suggested that investigators were looking at whether Martin and Pulte used inappropriate tactics to launch probes of Schiff and others. The questions probed whether the two Trump officials divulged information about the Schiff investigation to people who were not authorized to be a part of it.