Ed Martin not only made controversial comments on RT and Sputnik, he also initially failed to disclose the appearances to the Senate.
https://bsky.app/profile/progressivepower.bsky.social/post/3lmx7tyg2kr2k
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-appointed-prosecutors-appearances-russia-backed-outlets-draw-scr-rcna201559
Given Ed Martin’s recent record as the interim U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., it was difficult to imagine how he could become even more controversial. But a new Washington Post report makes matters worse for the hyper-partisan Trump loyalist and former “Stop the Steal” organizer.
Martin is now interim U.S. attorney for D.C. and Trump’s pick to serve full time in the role. But as a conservative activist and former Missouri Republican official, he appeared more than 150 times on [the Russian state television network RT] and Sputnik — networks funded and directed by the Russian government — as a guest commentator from August 2016 to April 2024, according to a search of their websites and the Internet Archive’s database of television broadcasts.
What makes a story like this so striking is that it’s really made up of three overlapping problems.
The first is that Martin agreed to appear more than 150 times on Russian propaganda outlets.
The second is what Martin said during those on-air appearances: The Republican lawyer apparently had a knack for offering commentary that
aligned with Kremlin talking points, including telling one host that there was “no evidence” of a Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s borders the week before the Russian military crossed those borders and began a war in Ukraine.
But every bit as important, if not more so, is the third problem: As part of his presidential nomination to serve as the U.S. attorney in one of the nation’s most important prosecutorial offices,
Martin was required to disclose these media appearances to the Senate Judiciary Committee — and according to the Post’s report, at least initially, he did not. (The article has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News.)......
For those unfamiliar with the Missouri Republican, Martin’s “greatest hits” package features misguided and unnecessary fights with the dean of Georgetown University’s law school, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, former President Joe Biden and Democratic Reps. Robert Garcia of California and Eugene Vindman of Virginia. During his brief tenure, Martin has also:
demoted multiple senior officials involved in Jan. 6 insurrection cases;
compared one of the criminal charges used against Jan. 6 defendants to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II;
falsely described himself as one of the president’s lawyers;
weighed in on a civil case involving the White House, which had literally nothing to do with his office;
intervened in a dubious Environmental Protection Agency investigation;
made a dubious decision in a case involving Republican Rep. Cory Mills of Florida;
launched the wildly unnecessary “Operation Whirlwind”;
also launched the wildly unnecessary “Project 1512” initiative;
also launched a wildly unnecessary “election accountability” unit;
made a creepy public vow to wield his prosecutorial powers against those who get in Elon Musk’s way;
engaged in brazen conflict of interest in a Jan. 6 case, in which he effectively took both sides of a criminal case;
and kicked off a radically unnecessary investigation into Jack Smith and a law firm that gave the former special counsel pro bono legal services.
In a piece for New York magazine, Elie Honig recently described the lawyer as Trump’s “dangerous and ridiculous prosecutor.” Martin seems to be going out of his way to prove his many critics right.
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