Trump's ‘weaponization czar’ demoted at DOJ

What happened

The Justice Department has reportedly demoted conservative activist Ed Martin from his role as President Donald Trump’s “weaponization czar,” leading a working group to investigate and punish alleged cases of prosecutorial overreach against Trump and his allies. Martin will remain the DOJ’s pardon attorney but “lost his title as an assistant attorney general” and is being relocated to a different office, “pulling him away” from the “most powerful figures” in the Justice Department, The Washington Post reported Monday.

Who said what

Martin played an “important role in the largely unsuccessful prosecutions of Trump’s political foes,” including New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey, said the Post. But he has “at times clashed” with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche “over his lack of productivity on the working group and his controversial social media posts,” said CBS News. “For his part, Martin felt Justice Department leaders had marginalized him,” The Wall Street Journal said.

Martin “continues to do a great job” as pardon attorney, a Justice Department spokesperson said Monday, declining to comment on the reported demotion. People close to Martin said they believed “Blanche’s move to marginalize him was intended to prompt his resignation,” The New York Times said, and Martin has “told people in his orbit that he is considering leaving, possibly for an as-yet-undetermined position in the White House.”

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

What next?

It was “not clear what purpose the task force” will have with Martin “out of the picture,” the Times said. But his demotion does not “signal a pullback from the department’s campaign to investigate, humiliate and punish targets singled out” by Trump, “whose thirst to seek revenge against his perceived political enemies remains unslaked after a year in office.”