House Oversight Democrats have launched an investigation into the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia after he publicized his own efforts to probe threats to officials, an effort that has since targeted two Democratic lawmakers.
The inquiry is not just focused on prosecutor Ed Martin’s recent letters to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Robert García (D-Calif.) accusing them of threatening Supreme Court justices and Elon Musk, respectively.
It also focuses on a Monday tweet from Martin referring to prosecutors like himself “as President Trump’s lawyers.”
The eight-page letter from Oversight Committee ranking member Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) to Martin recaps a series of actions taken by Martin in just a month on the job, including two letters Martin posted on X pledging to go after anyone who interfered with Musk’s aids.
“The safety of federal employees and officials is self-evidently paramount and emphatically must remain an ironclad priority for the Department of Justice. Your recent public statements, however—which are directed exclusively at opponents of and express support for the Trump Administration, explicitly criticize the Biden Administration, publicize pending investigative activity by your office, and make assertions of fact for which there exists no evidence—raise serious concerns that your new initiative is a pretext for misusing your office for political ends, threatening and intimidating critics of the Administration, and chilling constitutionally protected speech,” Connolly wrote.
“Your post on X yesterday appears to confirm that these are in fact your aims.”
Martin sent two letters to Schumer asking him to explain comments from more than four years ago about Republicans being set to face a “whirlwind” of pushback over a then-Supreme Court case that would limit abortion. That comment appears to have inspired Martin’s name for the probe – Operation Whirlwind.
For Garcia, the letter from Martin came after the lawmaker held up a photo of Musk during a hearing and called it a “d‑‑‑ pic,” — a reference to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) previously showing a lewd photo of Hunter Biden.
“This sounds to some like a threat to Mr. Musk — an appointed representative of President Donald Trump who you called a ‘d‑‑‑’ — and government staff who work for him. Their concerns have led to this inquiry,” Martin wrote in the letter.
Martin also came under criticism on Monday as his office released a statement knocking the Associated Press after a court hearing in their challenge to the White House blocking their access.
“As President Trump’s lawyers, we are proud to fight to protect his leadership as our president and we are vigilant in standing against entities like the AP that refuse to put America first,” he wrote.
The post was immediately knocked for violating a key prosecutorial principal — that the Justice Department is the people’s lawyer.
Connolly wrote that the remarks “reflect your deeply disturbing and grossly erroneous view that the office of United States Attorney exists to further the personal interests of Donald Trump, rather than those of the American people, and may be used to target elements of the media that scrutinize or are critical of his Administration—a view that is fundamentally antithetical to, and represents a direct threat to, the rule of law in this country.”
Martin’s office did not immediately respond to request for comment.
The letter asks for a number of affirmations from Martin, including whether he believes criticism of Musk is protected free speech and whether the Justice Department would target anyone based on their political opinions.
