Former DOJ prosecutor cheers investigation of Trump DOJ 'charlatan'

Former DOJ prosecutor cheers investigation of Trump ‘charlatan’ US attorney

Outgoing "weaponization" chief and Donald Trump appointee Ed Martin is facing an ethics investigation, and former prosecutor Elie Honig says it couldn’t happen to a better person.

“Any time you give enormous prosecutorial power to a charlatan, to a person like Ed Martin—who had zero prior prosecutorial experience before he took this job and came into an office with an explicit political agenda—you’re going to wind up in trouble,” Honig told CNN anchor Jake Tapper.

Martin, a Department of Justice employee, is facing ethics charges after he sent a Feb. 2025 letter to the Georgetown University Law Center alleging that a whistleblower reported them for teaching "diversity, equity, and inclusion." Before law center officials even responded to his letter, however, he said he would impose sanctions on Georgetown by telling his staff not to hire any students from the school.

A Tuesday filing shows Disciplinary Counsel Hamilton "Phil" Fox III of the D.C. Bar alleged on Friday that while working for the federal government, Martin violated the First and Fifth Amendments with his letter, and that “Martin knew or should have known" this at the time.

"Acting in his official capacity and speaking on behalf of the government, he used coercion to punish or suppress a disfavored viewpoint, the teaching and promotion of DEI," the court filing says. "He demanded that Georgetown Law relinquish its free speech and religious rights in order to obtain a benefit, employment opportunities for its students."

If the D.C. Bar determined Martin did indeed blatantly violate the Constitution is could suspend or cancel his law license.

“During his time as U.S. attorney, Martin made various wildly inappropriate public statements,” said Honig, a former assistant United States Attorney and director of the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. “He launched various explicitly political investigations and now … he's facing ethics charges over that letter to Georgetown law school, where he [threatened] to punish their students … and I may cut off their funding.”

“So now he will have to face an ongoing proceeding where he may lose his bar license. And for the first time, Jake, Ed Martin seems to be facing some level of accountability.”