WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s top prosecutor for Washington, D.C., told Justice Department colleagues Monday that he is launching a “special project” to review the office’s handling of a federal charge brought against many of the 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants who received presidential pardons last week.
Ed Martin, who became the acting head of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia after Trump was inaugurated, said he was appointing two officials to look at the use of an obstruction of justice charge, which the Supreme Court determined had been used too broadly against some Jan. 6 defendants.
Martin’s office disbanded the Justice Department’s Capitol Siege Section and moved to dismiss cases against violent Jan. 6 rioters who attacked police officers. He also filed a motion last week that implored a judge to drop conditions that would have required some members of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group to get court permission before they visit Washington or the U.S. Capitol after Trump commuted their Jan. 6 sentences.
Martin wrote Monday that the two officials he selected would need to issue a preliminary report by Friday, and he asked all employees to pass along "all files, documents, notes, emails and other information" about the use of 18 U.S. Code 1512, which prosecutors often refer to as the "1512" charge. Martin referred to the review as "Project 1512" and called it "important work."
“Obviously, the use was a great failure of our office — [Supreme Court] decision — and we need to get to the bottom of it,” Martin wrote in an email obtained by NBC News that also reminded U.S. attorney’s office workers of the hiring freeze and the Trump administration's steps ending “all DEI efforts."
Before he joined the Trump administration, Martin was a “Stop the Steal” advocate who spoke at the Capitol on Jan. 5 and was on the Capitol grounds during the Jan. 6 riot. He also was on the board of the Patriot Freedom Project, which advocated for Jan. 6 defendants and held fundraisers at Trump’s properties. In addition, he was an attorney for at least three Jan. 6 defendants, and he spread conspiracy theories about the attack on the Capitol, falsely claiming that the riot was a setup staged by a person he dubbed "Mr. Coffee."
"January 6th was Staged by Mr. Coffee 🔥," Martin wrote in 2023, referring to an unidentified man who helped set up a nonfunctioning gallows near the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Martin was subpoenaed by the House Jan. 6 committee, which said it had evidence that he was "involved in the logistical planning" of Trump's "Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6 and that he had “paid costs associated with vendors hired for that event.”
In his speech at the Capitol on Jan. 5, 2021, Martin said he would fight until his “last breath” to “stop the steal.”
“No matter what happens tomorrow or the next day or the day after, we still need to be in the fight. There’s no summer soldiers and springtime patriots here. There’s the die-hard true Americans,” Martin said at the time. “We start today, go through tomorrow and every day till we have a last breath and go home to the Lord, because we will stop the steal.”
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The Trump administration on Monday moved to fire Justice Department prosecutors who worked on the two federal criminal cases brought against Trump: one involving his use of classified documents and the other his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. Former special counsel Jack Smith oversaw those two cases.
Now that the Capitol Siege Section has been disbanded, some officials see Martin's "special project" as a sign that he's targeting some of the leadership of the unit that remains.
“It definitely smells like he’s trying to force them out,” a Justice Department official said.
A former Jan. 6 prosecutor said the investigation sounded like it would be "totally frivolous" and said it would "divert resources" within the office that could instead be used on keeping Washington safe by prosecuting crimes.
"This was not a charge that was chosen for political reasons," the former official said. "It was brought by career prosecutors working with the FBI when the facts dictated that it was appropriate."
Martin didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.
