Ed Martin Jr., who will be the Justice Department's new pardon attorney after President Donald Trump pulled his nomination to be the top federal prosecutor for Washington, said Tuesday that he plans to scrutinize pardons that former President Joe Biden issued on his way out of the White House.
“These are big moments, and so they have to be able to withstand scrutiny,” Martin told reporters on Tuesday, his last full day as acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.
Biden pardoned his siblings and their spouses in January on his last day in office. He also pardoned Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley and members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
None of them had been charged with any crime. The pardons were designed to guard against possible retribution by Trump.
Trump pulled Martin's nomination last week amid bipartisan opposition and replaced him with Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, who is expected to be sworn into office on Wednesday.
Instead, Martin will serve as an associate deputy attorney general and pardon attorney. In his new role, Martin also will be director of the “weaponization working group” at the Justice Department.
Attorney General Pam Bondi called for creating that group in February to investigate the work of former special counsel Jack Smith, who led two federal prosecutions of Trump that were ultimately abandoned, and other examples of what Republicans claim to be unfair targeting of conservatives during Biden's administration.
In announcing his last-minute pardons, Biden said his family had been “subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me — the worst kind of partisan politics.”
“Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end,” he said on the day of Trump's second inauguration.
Martin told reporters that he believes Biden's pardons “need some scrutiny.”
“They need scrutiny because we want pardons to matter and to be accepted and to be something that's used correctly. So I do think we're going to take a hard look at how they went and what they did,” he said.
The Constitution grants broad pardon powers to presidents and their clemency actions cannot be undone by courts or other officials. It’s not clear what action, if any, Martin believes he would be able to take regarding Biden’s pardons.
Martin said the U.S. Attorney's office under his leadership already had been “taking a look at some of the conduct surrounding the pardons and the Biden White House.”
Trump also has used the president’s sweeping pardon powers to aid some close to him. In his final weeks of his first term, Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in law, Jared Kushner, as well as multiple allies convicted in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
On the first day of his second term, Trump pardoned nearly all of the 1,500 people charged with crimes in the Capitol riot, freeing from prison dozens of people convicted of assaulting police.
Trump appointed Martin as acting U.S. Attorney during his first week back in the White House. Martin oversaw the dismissal of hundreds of Capitol riot cases after Trump's Jan. 6 pardons.
But his hopes of keeping the job faded amid questions about his lack of prosecutorial experience and his divisive politics. Trump yanked Martin's nomination two days after a key Republican senator said he could not support Martin for the job due to his defense of Capitol rioters.
“Ultimately, the president decided we didn't want to keep going forward,” Martin said. “The president of the United States said we have other battles to do, and so I'm excited about that.”
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