How Missouri’s Ed Martin is reshaping partisan mercy and MAGA justice | Opinion

Ed Martin didn’t go away. He might be more dangerous than ever.

When last seen, the Missouri Republican was leaving his temp job as the interim U.S. attorney for Washington D.C., withdrawn from consideration for the permanent job by the Trump Administration after being judged too toxic for even the GOP-controlled Senate to confirm.

Martin didn’t even get a committee hearing.

It really says something (or should, anyway) that the same folks who gave a free pass to other men with messy histories, like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., wouldn’t even give the Missourian the time of day.

The thing about MAGA, though, is that it never takes “no” for an answer.

So Martin got a new job. He is now President Donald Trump’s pardon attorney — a job that doesn’t need Senate confirmation, incidentally — the man in charge of helping the president decide who gets official mercy and who doesn’t. It’s a “historically nonpartisan position,” CNN says.

That’s not how Martin rolls. It won’t surprise you just who is getting that mercy these days: Donors. Political allies. Corrupt politicians who abused the public trust.

Just in case you don’t get the point, Martin last week made clear that his “historically nonpartisan” position is now explicitly partisan.

“No MAGA left behind,” he wrote on X.

Nakedly political pardon spree

Let’s stipulate that the president’s pardon power is problematic — an opportunity for abuse — no matter which party is in the White House.

Trump’s nakedly political pardon spree, though, is still remarkable.

Among the recent developments:

• Paul Walczak, a former nursing home executive who pleaded guilty to tax crimes, was pardoned by Trump after his mother attended a $1 million-a-person fundraising dinner last month at Mar-a-Lago. That means Walczak no longer has to pay more than $4 million in restitution or serve an 18-month prison sentence for his conviction.

What a coincidence.

• Trump said on Wednesday he is considering pardons of the men convicted of plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020. Their convictions “looked to me like somewhat of a railroad job,” the president told reporters.

If he follows through, it would be the second instance of Trump rewarding actual or threatened political violence — don’t forget how he also wiped the slate clean for the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.

• And he did pardon Scott Jenkins, a former Virginia sheriff who was about to start a prison term for federal fraud and bribery convictions in a “cash for badges” scheme that let people buy law enforcement credentials even though they weren’t actually doing law enforcement.

That’s the pardon that prompted Martin’s “no MAGA left behind” post.

Put it all together, Axios pointed out last week, and Trump’s mercy tends to flow to criminals with “MAGA credentials or big money.”

‘For my enemies, the law’

Pardons aren’t the only item in Martin’s portfolio. He also runs the Justice Department’s “Weaponization Working Group.” That means he is in charge of investigating the state and federal officials who once investigated President Trump’s many alleged crimes — the efforts to overturn the 2020 election, his use of campaign funds to silence a porn star, the squirreling away of classified documents in his Mar-a-Lago bathroom.

“This is all about settling scores and nothing else,” Elliot Williams, a former Justice Department official under President Barack Obama, told CNN.

Which makes sense: Martin used his brief time in the U.S. attorney’s office to harass Trump’s critics. His new job is more of the same.

There’s an old saying, one that reportedly originated with a now-dead Peruvian general who seized power when his favored candidate appeared to be losing a democratic election, that seems rather pertinent here.

“For my friends, everything,” said Oscar R. Benavides. “For my enemies, the law.”

It was and is a clear statement of authoritarian intent. And it perfectly describes the current career of Ed Martin, who thanks to Donald Trump has the power of mercy in one hand and the power of punishment in the other.