At today's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) raised serious concerns about Ed Martin, nominee for U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Thank you, Senator Grassley, and I hope you'll take that issue up with the Republican leadership.
00:08Yesterday I sent you a letter signed by the Senate Judiciary Democrats, all of them, requesting
00:14that you hold a hearing on the nomination of Ed Martin to serve as U.S. Attorney for
00:19the District of Columbia.
00:21As you know, the U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. is one of the most important and powerful
00:25prosecutors in America.
00:28This committee does not typically hold hearings for U.S. Attorney nominees, but Mr. Martin's
00:33record is so controversial and so objectionable that I feel we must hear from him under oath.
00:41Before I go into my background for this, I want to make a preface to my remarks.
00:45One of the first hearings you scheduled, a bipartisan hearing, was on the issue of anti-Semitism.
00:51There were some members of your side of the aisle who said it was their feeling we didn't
00:55put enough emphasis on it, and they wanted to start the hearing on anti-Semitism.
01:00We happily joined in that effort, and I think we had one common voice condemning anti-Semitism
01:05in all of its efforts that are underway around this country, sadly, at this moment.
01:12Why does that have anything to do with Mr. Martin as U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C.?
01:18Prior to his appointment as interim U.S. Attorney, Mr. Martin made appalling attacks against
01:23federal prosecutors and associated himself with individuals who clearly present a threat
01:28to our nation.
01:30Mr. Martin was a leader of the so-called Stop the Steal movement to illegally overturn the
01:352020 election.
01:38He was physically on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, but he has repeatedly
01:44dismissed or downplayed the violence perpetrated against 140 members of law enforcement in
01:50this Capitol on that day.
01:52Those of us who were here on January 6 know the truth.
01:56The brutal attacks on these policemen and other law enforcement is unprecedented.
02:02But listen to how Mr. Martin, who wants to be the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia,
02:08described January 6.
02:10He posted on social media, and I quote, like Mardi Gras in D.C. today, love, faith, and
02:16joy, ignore fake news, end of quote.
02:21Equally alarming, he has called for, quote, less judgment for somebody who hit a cop,
02:27close quote, during the January 6 attack.
02:29This is Ed Martin, who wants to be the chief prosecutor for the District of Columbia.
02:35This is an outrageous statement for anyone to make, but even more so for someone who
02:39has been nominated to be the lead prosecutor for the Department of Justice here in our
02:43capital city.
02:45Mr. Martin's attack on law enforcement don't stop there.
02:49He called federal prosecutors in every office he now seeks to lead, quote, terrorist, terrorist,
02:56he said, for pursuing stiff sentences against violent January 6 offenders.
03:01Now I want to talk about one specific relationship that I think we need to know a lot more about.
03:07Mr. Martin also needs to answer for his extensive ties to Timothy Hale Cusinelli, a January
03:146 offender with a long and vile record as a Nazi sympathizer.
03:20Mr. Martin not only has portrayed Mr. Hale Cusinelli as a victim of an unjust conviction,
03:26Mr. Martin has also repeatedly praised Mr. Hale Cusinelli's character, despite Cusinelli's
03:32extensive, well-known history of anti-Semitism, misogyny, and racism.
03:38Mr. Hale Cusinelli once said, and I quote, Hitler should have finished the job, close
03:46quote.
03:47He also claimed he would, quote, kill all Jews and eat them for breakfast, lunch, and
03:53dinner, and he wouldn't need to season them because the salt from their tears would make
03:57it flavorful enough, end of quote.
04:00Days after the January 6 attack, he was recorded saying that he wished for another civil war
04:06and that he would give Jewish people, quote, 24 hours to leave the country.
04:11This is Mr. Hale Cusinelli.
04:13At his sentencing hearing, Judge Trevor McFadden, appointed by President Trump, said, and I
04:20quote, statements and actions like his, Cusinelli's, make Jewish people less safe and less confident
04:27they can participate as equal members of our society.
04:32After all of that happened, last year, Mr. Martin, who wants to be the chief prosecutor
04:38for the United States Department of Justice in Washington, Mr. Martin presented Mr. Hale
04:43Cusinelli with an award.
04:45Where was the award given?
04:47At the Trump Bedminster Club in New Jersey.
04:50At that club, Mr. Martin said that Cusinelli was, quote, an extraordinary man, an extraordinary
04:59leader.
05:01Since January 20th, Mr. Martin has served as interim U.S. attorney for the District
05:05of Columbia, and since the beginning days, he's abused that position.
05:10One of his first official acts of office as acting U.S. attorney was to shut down the
05:16section of the U.S. Attorney's Office handling January 6 cases and fire a number of assistant
05:21attorneys simply because they were assigned to prosecute January 6 defendants.
05:27Before Mr. Martin's appointment, he represented three January 6 defendants as criminal defense
05:33counsel.
05:34He then later failed to withdraw his representation of two of these defendants before taking action
05:41as interim U.S. attorney benefiting his clients.
05:44We raise this question with the D.C. Bar.
05:47He's gone so far as to turn the U.S. Attorney's Office into the personal law firm for the
05:52president and his unelected co-president, Elon Musk, threatening to prosecute various
05:57government employees, members of Congress, and press outlets in an attempt to chill their
06:02lawful speech.
06:04In February of this year, Mr. Martin tweeted to Mr. Musk the following, if people are discovered
06:10to have broken the law or even acted simply unethically, we will investigate them, Mr.
06:17Martin said, and we will chase them to the end of the earth to hold them accountable,
06:21an assurance he gave to Elon Musk.
06:24And Mr. Martin stayed true to his words.
06:26Among other actions, he's intervened to visit DOJ to assist DOJ in its efforts to break
06:31into the U.S. Institute of Peace.
06:33Finally, Mr. Martin has attempted to hide his records from this committee and the American
06:39people.
06:40He has failed to provide a number of required disclosures to the committee.
06:45Only 1,000 hours of podcasts are no longer available online platforms, such as Spotify
06:52and Apple Podcasts, interfering with our ability to thoroughly examine his record.
06:57Mr. Martin is a nominee whose problematic record deserves additional scrutiny by this
07:02committee.
07:03Don't take it from me.
07:04Listen to 100 former U.S. Assistant U.S. Attorneys from across this political spectrum who worked
07:12in the office of the District of Columbia.
07:14They sent the committee a letter in that they noted that they personally had, quote,
07:18served no political agenda, no political party, and no political figure.
07:23We served justice as we were expected to and as the generations before us did.
07:28They urged this committee to hold a public hearing, noting that Mr. Martin has done things
07:33that, quote, typify authoritarian and indeed totalitarian regimes of the most monstrous
07:38sort.
07:40These former prosecutors added that Mr. Martin's, quote, evident partisanship raises serious
07:46questions about whether he'll perform the duties of U.S. Attorney without fear or favor
07:51as required.
07:52Mr. Martin, Mr. Chairman, we gather together on this side of the aisle to ask for Mr. Martin
07:59to appear before the committee and to testify under oath.
08:02This situation with Hale Cuccinelli, where such an outrageous man has said some terrible
08:08things, and I haven't recounted them all, should be given an award by the man who wants
08:13to be the chief prosecutor for the District of Columbia.
08:17We owe it to the American people not to sweep this under the rug and not to ignore it.
08:21So I ask you if you will give us this opportunity of Mr. Martin testifying under oath.
08:27Before answering your question, my answer is going to be based upon practice of this
08:41committee as I understand it, at least for the last 40 years.
08:47I don't want what I'm saying to be interpreted as disagreeing with anything you described
08:53about this individual.
08:55About this individual?
08:57Yeah.
08:58Okay.
08:59About this individual.
09:01Because my staff is vetting him, and what you've heard is relatively new to me.
09:11So let me say this.
09:13Based on the practice that we've had, and we've had controversial USDAs before this
09:19committee before, our practice is, at least in the last 40 years, never to have a hearing.
09:26So at this point, I'm going to take the position of not having a hearing, because we are going
09:32to follow the usual process that any questions that any members want to submit outside of
09:40having a public hearing in writing to these, we'll make sure that you get the answers to
09:46your questions, and that's the way we've done it on other controversial U.S. attorneys.
09:54If I could respond.
09:56Please do.
09:59I believe that your members on the Republican side of the aisle will be as outraged and
10:04embarrassed by this background as any member on the Democratic side of the aisle.
10:09I would like to use the next few days to appeal to them personally to join us in asking for
10:14this hearing so that it's a bipartisan effort.
10:17We all joined together on the question of anti-Semitism.
10:19I think we can stand together on this as well.
10:22So if we have not reached an agreement to hold a hearing by the next meeting of this
10:27Judiciary Committee, I'm going to ask for an official vote of the members of the committee
10:31on that question.
10:32I appreciate that.
10:33If I can facilitate meetings on it, I'll be glad to do that, but I think I want to stick
10:42with President because we could be having a lot of U.S. attorney hearings, and since
10:49we haven't in the past, I don't want to change the precedent that's been around most of the
10:55time that I know about.
10:56I have a statement on the patent bills before us, but I'll withhold that until we've completed
11:00this conversation.
11:01Okay.
11:02Mr. Chairman, could I add a brief comment on the matter that the Chairman, the Ranking
11:06Member just raised?