General Discussion

Howell runs the Oversight Project, a conservative group that investigates claims of weaponized lawfare, and is a visiting fellow at the far-right Heritage Foundation. He is also a close ally of U.S Pardon Attorney Ed Martin, who was stripped of his role leading the Justice Department’s “weaponization” working group in February.

Martin advocated for Trump’s pardons of over 1,500 people charged or convicted for their roles in the violent Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Martin initially told sources earlier this year he predicted the Justice Department would dole out around $40 million to people charged, then pardoned, after the riots. The fund announced this week is $1.776 billion.

Howell’s lengthy, fawning letter to Blanche, obtained by CBS, claimed that the “Radical Left used the events of January 6, 2021 and their hatred of President Trump as an immoral justification to enact a sustained campaign of vengeance to trample on the civil rights of their political, ideological, and religious (namely Christian) opponents.”