“When you’re a U.S. Attorney, you are not the lawyer for the president. You are the lawyer for the people of the United States.”
Washington, D.C. — In a new video, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) explains why he is blocking Ed Martin’s nomination for U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. On April 1, Schiff announced he would place a hold in the U.S. Senate on the nomination of Martin citing his troubling conduct.
View the video here. Download the video here.
Read the full transcript below:
Schiff: I’m doing everything I can to block this guy from becoming U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.
This is Ed Martin. Here he is doing an introduction of his friend Timothy Hale Cusanelli.
Ed Martin (in clip): He’s an extraordinary man, extraordinary leader now of those who have survived January 6. And I think he’s resisted this, but I don’t care, because I have the mic. I bought this microphone, and I want him to come up.
Schiff: And you might ask, “So what’s the problem with that introduction?” The problem with that introduction is Timothy Hale Cusanelli. Here’s a photo of Timothy Hale Cusanelli portraying one of his apparent heroes.
Timothy Cusanelli is an avowed antisemite, admirer of the Fuhrer, someone who has talked about wanting to eat Jews for lunch and dinner.
This is the guy that Ed Martin is saying is an extraordinary person, that we want to hear more from. It’s a leader the country needs to hear more from. Really does the country need to hear more antisemitic buyout from this guy? I don’t think so. But this is just one of the many reasons why I’m trying to kill this nomination.
Let me step back and talk about the office that he is nominated for, its importance, and Ed Martin’s other disqualifying characteristics.
So, this is the U.S. Attorney’s office in the District of Columbia. It is the largest U.S. Attorney’s Office in the country. I served in the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Central District of California many years ago.
The DC office has hundreds of lawyers. It not only prosecutes all of the federal crimes in that area, but it also prosecutes serious local crimes. So, in other cities, other jurisdictions, the U.S. Attorney’s Office only handles the federal crimes, but this office does both. And because it’s the office where the seat of our government is located, it also handles some really important corruption cases involving federal officials.
So, this is a super important prosecutor’s office. And this nominee — well, let’s start out with his background experience. He has none. Never been a prosecutor, never prosecuted a case. So how did he come to the attention of Donald Trump?
Well, he came the attention of Donald Trump in the way many people have come to the attention of the president: he was one of the big “Stop the Steal” lawyers. He, among other things, not only pushed the big lie, but also represented people on January 6 who were there and assaulting the Capitol.
In fact, Ed Martin was at the Capitol on January 6. Here’s what Ed Martin had to say about what he observed on January 6: “Mardi Gras in DC: love, faith and joy.” Well, just in case you don’t remember what that day was like, here’s an image or two from January 6.
Yeah, so that’s apparently, love, faith and joy, according to Ed Martin. Ed Martin was not only present on January 6 and obviously enjoying himself, but he also represented people charged with serious crimes on January 6.
One of them, Joseph Padilla, he continued to represent even after he was appointed acting U.S. Attorney and moved to dismiss the case against his own client. Now that is the most serious breach of ethics as a member of the bar, that is, you’re not allowed to represent both sides of a dispute. But here he is representing this January 6 criminal and then being nominated to be U.S. Attorney and positioned as the acting U.S. Attorney and moving to dismiss the case against his own client, causing members of the DC bar to move to have him disciplined or disbarred.
But it wasn’t just his representation of that client. He also represented William Chrestman. William Chrestman was charged with going after police officers with an ax handle. So that’s his other qualification — that is defending violent criminals engaged in trying to overturn the election for Donald Trump. But he also had one other thing going for him in Donald Trump’s world, something not unlike other Donald Trump nominees — he wrote a book of sorts about Donald Trump.
Okay, in Ed Martin’s case, it was this book. Yeah, okay, it’s a coloring book. But coloring book, kids’ book on government gangsters, you write about Donald Trump in a flattering way, it gets you to high places. So, he’s been acting U.S. Attorney for some time, and this really gives the greater body of reasons why he must not be confirmed for this position.
I mentioned dismissing the case against his own client. But it goes well beyond that.
We have seen in other cases the Justice Department use the power of the department as a shield to protect allies of the president. So, for example, in the Southern District of New York, we saw the Justice Department move to dismiss the case against the mayor — this corruption case against the mayor because the mayor was useful to Donald Trump on immigration policy.
But what we see with Ed Martin in the District of Columbia is something even more dangerous, and that is using the department’s power to go after the president’s enemies. In this case, what Ed Martin did is under the Inflation Reduction Act passed under Joe Biden, there were funds set up to try to attack climate change, and one of them funded renewable energy projects. Those funds are held in a bank. Ed Martin, acting at the behest of the Trump administration, didn’t want those funds going out to support these renewable energy projects. So Ed Martin instructed one of the attorneys in his office, a woman named Denise Cheung, to write a letter to the bank and say, “You need to freeze those funds because you’re under criminal investigation.” Well she refused, she said there’s no probable cause. There’s no evidence to suggest that any crime has been committed, and you can’t simply say you have a criminal investigation or threaten one on the basis of no evidence and for a political reason. Well, Ed Martin insisted, and Denise Cheung resigned rather than take that unethical action.
So here you have an acting prosecutor who is essentially trying to falsely claim that someone is under investigation to illegally seize funds. That also is disqualifying from this position. But Ed Martin has gone beyond that. He’s also used that position to try to threaten public figures with which he disagrees, or he views as adversaries of the president. He has sent threatening letters to Chuck Schumer over comments he made. He has sent threatening letters to Robert Garcia, California congressman, over comments that he made. He is endeavoring to use the power of that office to chill the speech of elected officials who are considered political opponents of the president. Another patent abuse of that office.
And finally, there is this which just came out within the last 24 hours. Ed Martin has appeared on Russia propaganda arms RT and Sputnik over 150 times, and never disclosed it during his confirmation process.
So RT and Sputnik have been designated foreign agents by our government. They are essentially propaganda arms of the Kremlin. And Ed Martin has been a frequent guest and on RT, and on these Russian propaganda arms, on their broadcast has essentially carried Kremlin water in a variety of ways. He has defended Kremlin allies like Bashar Al Assad, suggesting that, “well, maybe he didn’t gas his own people.” He said at the time of Russia’s build up along Ukraine’s border that, “there was no evidence that Russia was planning to invade Ukraine.” Russia invaded Ukraine only days later. And so we see in these hundreds of appearances, 150 appearances, that may be a qualification in the eyes of Donald Trump, but it should be a disqualification in the eyes of the U.S. Senate.
So I put a hold on his nomination. Now, a hold isn’t a perfect remedy. That is, Republicans in the majority can overcome a hold. But it does slow down any further action on his confirmation. It requires them to go through every step necessary to confirm him, take no shortcuts, it forces votes on his confirmation. And so, I’m going to do everything I can, both by bringing out the evidence against him, joining Dick Durbin, our ranking Democrat, in calling for a hearing on his confirmation, which is not traditional for a U.S. attorney position. And slowing down anything on the Senate floor because this guy is patently unfit for office.
Ed Martin describes himself — in his capacity as acting U.S. Attorney — describes himself as Trump’s lawyer. Ed Martin is not Trump’s lawyer, or if he is, he has no business being U.S. Attorney. Because when you’re a U.S. Attorney, you are not the lawyer for the president. You are the lawyer for the people of the United States.
When you step into the courtroom, as I did as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, you introduce yourself as Adam Schiff on behalf of the United States. You do not introduce yourself as on behalf of Donald Trump.
He is disqualified, and I’m going to do everything to stop his confirmation.
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