Trump Nominee Shredded for Letter Defending Cops Convicted of Murder and Coverup, Attacking Public Defenders

AP Photo/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades, File

Ed Martin, President Donald Trump’s nominee and the present intervening time acting U.S. Lawyer for the District of Columbia, was loudly criticized on social media after he tweeted an “open letter” he addressed to law enforcement officials that attacked public defenders and defended two cops who Trump pardoned after they had been convicted of murder and a coverup.

Martin used to be extremely controversial even before his nomination, all through his wild few months as a CNN contributor, as an organizer of the “Stop the Steal” movement promoting baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 election (together with conversing at a rally in Washington on Jan. 5, 2021), and representing one of the January 6th rioters. He used to be the primary U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. in at the least 1/2 a century to be appointed with out ever serving as a judge or federal prosecutor. CNN senior criminal analyst Elie Honig, who has been a federal prosecutor, lambasted Martin’s “toxic mix of features” that included being thoroughly unqualified, bringing a “startling vanity to the job,” and “most problematically, he’s explicitly political.”

Considering the fact that Martin started as period in-between acting U.S. Attorney, he has entreated judges to take away probably the most few last restrictions on the pardoned Jan. 6. rioters, and in February tweeted a commentary through which he declared that the U.S. Attorneys had been “President Trumps’ attorneys” (punctuation error in authentic) and attacked the AP.

In a tweet he posted Sunday afternoon, Martin wrote a caption (“Always. Forever. Stand for Blue.”) and integrated what gave the look to be a screenshot of an open letter he had written, dated March 7.

The text of the letter learn as follows:

OPEN LETTER TO OUR COPS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS

Dear Blue,

March 7, 2025 Officer Terence Sutton and Lt. Andrew Zabavsky, each wrongfully convicted of a bogus cost, had been pardoned by means of President Trump and properly reinstated by using the leadership of the Metropolitan Police Department. We are making progress!

The novel “Defund the Police” motion by using Black Lives Topic is over and BLM Plaza will quickly be painted over. Excellent riddance.

Now, it’s time to get again to protecting and aiding our law enforcement officers. Therefore, I announce an immense thrust of the Make DC Safe Again initiative: DEFEND THE POLICE. You keep us safe; you are the glue that holds our city and our communities together. At each flip, we can defend you. You deserve nothing less.

DEFEND THE POLICE comprises three motion steps:

FIRST, we will be able to tolerate no more “assaults on law enforcement officials” (APO). If a thug assaults an officer, my place of work will prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. My dedication is a thorough overview with the aid of my AUSAs to cost them in this case.

SECOND, this USAO will arise in court towards the “public defender provider” (PDS) and someone who maligns our officers for recreation or benefit unfairly. We will be able to stand as much as judges who enable this conduct.

THIRD, I’m rewriting our policy for our Lewis Record. USAO will not enable judges or others to gratuitously damage your careers on account of the outsized impact of inexact characterizations.

IN SUMMARY, this USAO have your backs each day in every means, together with our prayers. Yours is the hardest job. Thanks for what you do and God bless you.

DEFEND THE POLICE. That’s what this USAO will do.

All of the perfect.

Edward R. Martin, Jr.

Martin’s tweet drew swift mockery for his awkward turns of phrase (“Pricey Blue;” addressing the letter to the redundant categories of “law enforcement officials and law enforcement officers,” and many others.) and condemnation for its content material.

The point out of Terence Sutton and Andrew Zabavsky, who Martin claimed had been “wrongfully convicted of a bogus charge” before being pardoned by Trump, drew specific scorn.

A press liberate from the Division of Justice after Sutton and Zabavasky had been sentenced describes how the 2 have been fascinated about “an unauthorized police pursuit that ended in a collision on Oct. 23, 2020, that caused the dying of Karon Hylton-Brown, 20, in Northwest Washington D.C.”

Both defendants have been convicted by way of an unanimous federal jury that found that Sutton had brought about Hylton-Brown’s death “through driving a police vehicle in conscious put out of your mind for an extreme chance of demise or serious bodily injury” to the victim, and found that each defendants “conspired to cover from MPD officers the cases of the visitors crash leading to Mr. Hylton-Brown’s loss of life, thereby obstructing justice.”

Sutton used to be discovered guilty past an inexpensive doubt of 2nd-stage homicide, conspiracy to obstruct, and obstruction of justice, and the same jury discovered Zabavsky guilty beyond a cheap doubt of conspiracy to hinder and obstruction of justice.

The DOJ press release went into detail how Hylton-Brown used to be on a moped when he used to be “struck with the aid of an uninvolved oncoming motorist,” and then as he “lay unconscious on the street in a pool of his personal blood, Sutton and Zabavsky, agreed to cover up what Sutton had accomplished to stop from now on investigation of the incident,” including compromising the integrity of the crash scene, intentionally destroying evidence, turning off their body worn cameras, misleading their commanding officer about the incident, denying a police chase had passed off, offering false knowledge in studies, and mendacity about Hylton-Brown’s accidents.

Sutton was once sentenced to sixty six months in jail, Zabavsky 48 months in prison, plus three years of supervised unencumber for both.

Trump pardoned both Sutton and Zabavsky, and the Metropolitan Police Department reinstated them in March.

Martin’s comment in his letter vowing to struggle public defenders “and any individual who maligns our officers for sport or benefit unfairly” additionally drew sharp condemnation.

A sample of the criticism from attorneys, protection attorneys, felony scholars, and others of Martin’s letter:

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