There is no legal or procedural reason for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., to intervene in the Associated Press’ civil case against the White House. The news organization filed suit over Donald Trump and his team punishing the AP for its description of the Gulf of Mexico. The case is ongoing, and it has literally nothing to do with federal prosecutors.
But Ed Martin, the Trump-appointed acting U.S. attorney in the nation’s capital, apparently felt the need to weigh in anyway. The acting prosecutor’s statement read in its entirety:
As President Trumps’ lawyers, we are proud to fight to protect his leadership as our President and we are vigilant in standing against entities like the AP that refuse to put America First.
So, a few things.
First, Martin put the apostrophe in the wrong place.
Second, the president certainly has lawyers, but prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office aren’t among them.
Third, it is absolutely not the job of federal prosecutors to “protect” Trump’s “leadership.”
Fourth, it also not the job of federal prosecutors to “stand against” news organizations and the nation’s free press.
Fifth, for the Associated Press to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of Mexico does not mean that the journalists at the outlet “refuse to put America First.”
And sixth, the fact that this statement exists at all is ridiculous, given that civil litigation falls far outside the purview of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The bizarre written statement was so offensive that Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut wrote online, in response to Martin, “This is insane. If you wonder why some of us think the rule of law is about to fall, it’s this.” In case anyone needs a reminder, Martin is a longtime Republican operative with a record as a far-right anti-abortion activist, organizer for the misguided “Stop the Steal” movement and a lawyer representing Jan. 6 criminals. Last week, the president announced that he would nominate the GOP lawyer — who’s already had a highly controversial tenure as the interim top prosecutor in one of the most important law enforcement offices in the nation — to stay right where is, removing the word “interim” from his title. The as-yet-unscheduled Senate confirmation hearings are bound to be interesting.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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