President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he will withdraw the nomination of Ed Martin to be the top federal prosecutor for Washington D.C., telling reporters that "we have somebody else that will be great."
The development comes a day after Martin's chances were all but quashed after Sen. Thom Tillis told press he wouldn't support his nomination. Considering that there are 12 Republicans and 12 Democrats in the panel, his nomination would not even make it to the floor if all Democrats reject it, as it was seemingly the case.
Tillis mentioned Martin's support of Jan. 6 defendants as the main reason for his decision. "Mr. Martin did a good job of explaining the one area that I think he's probably right, that there were some people that were over prosecuted, but there were some, two or three hundred of them that should have never gotten a pardon," Tillis said.
"If Mr. Martin were being put forth as a U.S. attorney for any district except the district where Jan. 6 happened, the protest happened, I'd probably support him, but not in this district," he added.
Martin began an investigation into the D.C. office's handling of Jan. 6 cases after being appointed as interim U.S. attorney. Prosecutors who worked on such cases were fired or remoted during his tenure.
Martin also made headlines over the past days after apologizing for praising a Nazi sympathizer and white supremacist, claiming he didn't know about his views.
"I denounce everything about what that guy said, everything about the way he talked, and all as I've now seen it," Martin said in an interview, as reported by Forward. "At the time, I didn't know it," he added.
Martin had called Timothy Hale-Cusanelli "extraordinary" at an awards ceremony at Trump's golf club in Bedminister, New Jersey, organized by the Patriot Freedom Project, a nonprofit that supports defendants charged for assaulting the Capitol on January 6. The man has been described by the Department of Justice as a Nazi sympathizer and white supremacist.
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