Ed Martin Challenged The D.C. Bar’s Political Vendetta. Then They Charged Him

Just days after the Trump Justice Department proposed a rule to combat the left’s use of “barfare” to destroy conservative lawyers, the legal disciplinary authority in the Department’s own backyard may have vindicated its effort by launching an attack on U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin.

On March 6, the Washington, D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel filed charges and initiated disciplinary proceedings against the MAGA stalwart in a case that could drag on for months or longer, waste precious taxpayer resources, and result in sanctions up to and including disbarment.

The Disciplinary Counsel claims that Martin, then-serving as Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, violated his oath of office. How? He alleges that when Martin sent letters to Georgetown Law School’s leaders asking whether the school was continuing to teach and promote DEI, suggesting the school should stop, and indicating that its responses could bear on its nonprofit status and federal funding, he violated the First and Fifth Amendments.

After a retired judge and Georgetown Law alumnus brought a complaint over the alleged impropriety of the inquiry, the Counsel solicited a response from Martin. Martin initially declined, appealing to the judges of the D.C. Court of Appeals — which presides over the disciplinary authority — to resolve the matter, alleging the Disciplinary Counsel had engaged in “uneven behavior” and “prejudicial conduct.”

The Chief Judge directed Martin on multiple occasions to follow standard protocol and cooperate with the Counsel, and he ultimately complied. The Counsel found that Martin’s pleadings violated still more codes of conduct, including unauthorized ex parte communications with a judge and interference “with the administration of justice.”

Operating on the incomplete record of a de facto indictment, there are myriad potential issues with the Counsel’s charges. The Counsel is effectively seeking to punish Martin for executing the Trump administration’s policies to counter discrimination masquerading as anti-discrimination under DEI — based on the disciplinary authority’s own opinion of constitutionality. If Martin had acted so egregiously, Georgetown could have sought remedies in court rather than relying on a seemingly chance complaint from a seemingly unconnected retired judge.

The procedural claims seem ticky-tack. And there is a glaring double standard: federal attorneys engaged in absolutely outrageous conduct without ever facing this authority’s wrath during the last decade of government weaponization against conservatives — from Russiagate/Spygate, to Biden’s Jan. 6 jihad, to the Lawfare against Candidate Trump during the 2024 election, and beyond. For state or local bar disciplinary authorities to police the work of federal attorneys raises all manner of Constitution-threatening, chaos-inducing, and chilling issues.

What’s more, vital context omitted in reporting on l’affaire Martin suggests the Disciplinary Counsel’s charges are the culmination of a long-running vendetta from the institutional left against the former Interim D.C. U.S. Attorney and Weaponization Working Group head — if not outright retaliation. That institutional left has long aimed to punish Martin, including via a D.C. legal disciplinary authority whose alleged politicization Martin was himself probing.

The D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility, which has historically been dominated by Democrats, administers the district’s legal disciplinary system and is responsible for appointing the Disciplinary Counsel, the chief prosecutor in attorney discipline matters. Hamilton P. Fox III, a registered Democrat per public records, has served as that counsel in recent years.

On Feb. 7, 2025, Martin wrote a letter to Fox — who would later file charges against him — seeking information to evaluate claims that Fox’s office was abusing its power by targeting those on the right with dubious ethics probes.

Citing the case of Jeffrey Clark, a Trump I Justice Department official in the disciplinary authority’s crosshairs, Martin indicated there were concerns the Counsel was pursuing lawyers for ethics violations “based not on personal knowledge,” a standard the office said it adhered to, “but … based on a policy or political disagreement.”

Martin also asked Fox if there was an explicit policy ensuring “even-handed[ness],” including “limit[ing] the targeting of individuals [with] who[m] you may disagree,” and how the office handled “clearly politically motivated attacks…from certain ‘public interest’ groups” — what Martin called “political hit squads looking to damage the Bar.”

As I covered in reporting at RealClearInvestigations, the then-Democrat-led Senate Judiciary Committee lodged a complaint against Clark with the D.C. disciplinary authority in July 2022 — seemingly without personal knowledge of his alleged misconduct. This apparently instigated a yearslong, Kafkaesque disciplinary proceeding against the eminent attorney. That unprecedented case, resulting in a recommendation that Clark be disbarred — now pending before the D.C. Court of Appeals — primarily concerns his drafting of and advocacy for a letter he wrote on behalf of the Trump I DOJ, but that was never sent, to Georgia’s legislature calling for that body to convene a special session to review 2020 election results.

The ensuing correspondence is not fully public. But The Federalist previously reported that in March 2025, the then-chairman of the D.C. Board of Professional Responsibility responded to Martin, defending the Disciplinary Counsel’s treatment of Clark while acknowledging the Board had amended its rules to allow for the docketing of complaints from parties lacking firsthand knowledge of underlying allegations — an amendment introduced after Clark had already been charged.

In a follow-up letter to the D.C. Court of Appeals’ Chief Judge, Martin highlighted Fox’s conflicting messages about the requirements for opening investigations and accused Fox of using “mob-like language” in threatening to “ratchet up” consequences for Clark — fueling his suspicion the Disciplinary Counsel “is compromised regarding his investigation.” Martin had by then questioned Fox’s objectivity and temperament directly before the Board of Professional Responsibility, the D.C. Court of Appeals, and ultimately the public. Might this all have drawn the Disciplinary Counsel’s ire?

At the same time this confrontation was escalating, the left-wing Lawfare apparatus — a “political hit squad” of the kind Martin had referenced — was mounting an offensive against the loathed Trump loyalist, giving the Disciplinary Counsel a menu of charges to potentially pursue.

On Feb. 6, 2025 — the day before Martin sent his letter to Fox — the 65 Project submitted a letter calling on the Office of Disciplinary Counsel to investigate Martin for dismissing cases against Jan. 6 defendants — some of whom Martin had previously represented or supported as a private lawyer. Martin did so as Interim U.S. Attorney consistent with President Trump’s blanket pardon, but the “barfare” group, explicitly created to target MAGA lawyers for destruction, claimed there was a conflict of interest. The Disciplinary Counsel apparently found that complaint wanting, declining to investigate similar charges raised by another individual per a letter later leaked to the Resistance-linked Lawfare publication dated Feb. 28. Would that declination provide cover for later reprisals?

During that same month of February 2025, Martin opened his inquiry into Georgetown. In March, Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats called on the Disciplinary Counsel to investigate Martin again over the Jan. 6 dismissals and for purportedly seeking to intimidate government employees through tweets indicating intent to pursue those threatening then-DOGE leader Elon Musk and former Special Counsel Jack Smith.

Just days later, the retired judge sent his complaint about the Georgetown inquiry. In April 2025, the Society for the Rule of Law — led by anti-Trump Republicans, purported conservatives, and libertarians — called for an investigation into Martin. The following month, Demand Progress and Freedom of the Press Foundation lodged a complaint chronicling a parade of horribles, including the Georgetown inquiry.

Last July, a pair of House Democrats lodged a similar complaint, also referencing the Georgetown inquiry. With all of these forces egging the Disciplinary Counsel on — and with Martin having already challenged that Counsel directly — the charges in retrospect seem inevitable. Fox declined to comment on this story, citing the D.C. Court of Appeals’ confidentiality rules.

As the case unfolds we will be able to better judge its legitimacy and whether it is retaliatory. But minimally the left’s targeting of conservative attorneys via the likes of the D.C. legal disciplinary authority should be seen as part and parcel of a comprehensive campaign from the left to dominate the justice system — one that encompasses Resistance judges, Deep State attorneys, Soros DAs, Lawfare organizations, the law schools that train and credential these cohorts, and now the progressive groups coaching everyday radicals to engage in jury nullification. With the most vital political matters increasingly punted by our elected representatives to the courts, it is imperative that this effort to rig the deck be recognized and combatted — and that includes fighting the growing use of “barfare” to destroy conservative attorneys and deprive conservative causes of the talent necessary to compete and win on the pivotal legal battlefield.

Ben Weingarten is editor at large for RealClearInvestigations. He is a senior contributor to The Federalist, columnist at Newsweek, and a contributor to the New York Post and Epoch Times, among other publications. Subscribe to his newsletter at weingarten.substack.com, and follow him on Twitter: @bhweingarten.