Durbin launches investigation into Ed Martin
Durbin cited Martin's 'disgraceful tenure' in a prior role as well as his 'stated threats to abuse his positions at DOJ' as the rationale behind igniting the probe.
The letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi asks for all Martin's communications relating both to pardons and any work undertaken for the new working group.
'Following his disgraceful tenure as Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Mr. Martin apparently plans to continue his misconduct in his new roles at DOJ,' he wrote.
Durbin pointed to a May 13 press conference Martin held before heading to his new role, saying he plans to 'shame those [who the] DOJ does not have the evidence to charge.'
'If they can't be charged, we will name them … and in a culture that respects shame, they should be people that are shamed,'' Martin said.
Durbin said the statement was an 'admission' he plans to abuse his power.
'These statements are a brazen admission that Mr. Martin plans to systematically violate the Justice Manual's prohibition on extrajudicial statements by shaming uncharged parties for nakedly partisan reasons,' Durbin wrote.
'This plan clearly violates Mr. Martin's obligations under the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct, which prohibit prosecutors from '[making] extrajudicial comments which serve to heighten condemnation of the accused.' Weaponizing DOJ in this manner will further undermine the public's trust in the department in irreparable ways.'
Durbin also questioned Martin's oversight of a series of pardons given by Trump that benefited his political allies.
The senator noted the recent pardon for nursing home executive Paul Walczak for tax fraud just three weeks after Walczak's mother paid $1 million to attend a Trump fundraiser.
Trump also pardoned Trevor Milton, founder of Nikola Corporation, after Milton donated nearly $2 million to the Trump campaign last year, among others.
'Mr. Martin's bald-faced 'pay to play' strategy is abusing the Office of the Pardon Attorney in multiple ways to benefit President Trump and his political allies,' Durbin wrote.
Martin is also planning a review of former President Biden's pardon's, included those given to his family members.
DOJ did not respond to request for comment.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Intercept
7 minutes ago
- The Intercept
Veterans Are 'Guinea Pigs' in Trump's First National Abortion Ban Experiment
Ash Wallis knows she likely wouldn't survive another pregnancy. Doctors said as much years earlier after she suffered a pulmonary embolism following a miscarriage, and got a second blood clot. Getting pregnant again isn't a risk she is willing or able to take. 'I have two sons,' said Wallis. 'I don't want to leave them motherless.' Wallis, 40, begged her health care provider to give her an IUD — her best chance at preventing another pregnancy and protecting her life. But her provider, the Department of Veterans Affairs, refused to cover the procedure. Despite three years of service in the Army, Wallis was forced to pay out of pocket at a local clinic. 'The risks of me getting pregnant and there being a significant health issue were too much risk for me to gamble on,' she said. Access to reproductive care and abortion has long been a problem for those who rely on VA care. But a policy change by the Trump administration stands to make reproductive health for service members and veterans even worse. Last week, the administration posted a proposed rule for VA facilities that would severely narrow access to abortion — eliminating exceptions for health, rape, and incest, and only allowing the procedure in situations deemed to threaten the life of the mother. The rule would also ban any counseling for abortion through the VA. The proposed policy now enters a mandatory 30-day comment period, after which it can go into effect. Experts told The Intercept that the rule change will have devastating consequences for the millions of service members and veterans reliant on health care through the VA, as well as their families. 'It's the worst-case scenario,' said Rachel Fey, vice president of policy and strategic partnerships at Power to Decide, a nonprofit focused on reproductive and sexual health. The Department of Veterans Affairs has long excluded abortion care and abortion counseling from its medical benefits package, with a narrow exception for the 'life of the mother.' That changed in 2022 when the Biden administration, recognizing the danger posed to veterans and service members by the Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, instituted a new rule allowing for abortion counseling and abortion care in an expanded list of circumstances. It's this Biden-era change that is under attack by the Trump administration. The administration describes the proposed policy shift as a return to form. 'Prior to the Biden Administration's politically motivated change in 2022, federal law and longstanding precedent across Democrat and Republican administrations prevented VA from providing abortions and abortion counseling,' wrote Gary Kunich, a Veterans Affairs spokesperson, in a statement to the Intercept. Fey and other reproductive health experts had anticipated the Trump administration would institute an abortion ban at the VA. But they told The Intercept that this version is particularly draconian considering the dramatic fall-off in abortion access following the Dobbs decision. 'This new policy would be one of the strictest abortion bans in the country, and for veterans living in the 12 states that ban abortion, it would further close off what may be their only opportunity to access urgently needed abortion care,' said Liz McCaman Taylor, senior federal policy counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, in a statement. 'For veterans living in these states, they may now be forced to carry pregnancies to term even if they were raped or the pregnancy puts their health in jeopardy.' The proposed rule would 'reinstate the full exclusion on abortions and abortion counseling.' Unlike under the Biden rule, which allowed for abortion counseling and abortion care to protect the health of the mother or in cases of rape and incest, the new proposed rule only includes a vague, narrow exception for 'life of the mother.' 'For the avoidance of doubt, the proposed rule would make clear that the exclusion for abortion does not apply 'when a physician certifies that the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term,'' wrote the administration in a summary of the draft proposal. However, in a potentially complicating line, the administration wrote: 'Taken together, claims in the prior administration's rule that abortions throughout pregnancy are needed to save the lives of pregnant women are incorrect.' Jaclyn Dean, director of congressional relations, reproductive health, at the National Partnership for Women & Families, said that the lack of medical clarity around when doctors are allowed to intervene is going to cost lives. 'If I'm a doctor for the VA,' said Dean, 'I'm very confused about what I'm legally allowed to do.' Fey said her organization, Power to Decide, was 'not aware of any circumstances' where the VA covered abortion care under the life exception in place before the Biden rule. 'There was always sort of supposed to be this very, very narrow life exception, but similar to what's happening now in the post-Dobbs world, we're seeing that those life exceptions don't work in practice,' she said. Lindsay Church, executive director of Minority Veterans of America, said the counseling ban adds another layer of risk because providers are prevented from even discussing the option of abortion until it may be too late. 'Good luck if you get to a place where you're dying,' said Church, 'because you can't get abortion counseling before that. And that, to me, is insulting. Not only that, but it could have deadly consequences.' Read Our Complete Coverage The counseling ban also means veterans or active-duty service members referred to the Veterans Affairs administration for care after being sexually assaulted can't discuss abortion as an option with their provider. 'We already know that women veterans experience Military Sexual Trauma at alarming rates, and many of us continue to fight battles long after our service ends,' said Stephanie Gattas, founder of the Pink Berets, which offers support for women veterans struggling with PTSD, military sexual assault, and other mental health issues. Over 8,000 service members, who can also be referred to the VA for care, reported being sexually assaulted last year. And nearly 500 people reported being sexually assaulted while on a VA campus last year, according to Church. Both numbers are likely a severe undercount. 'The military community is wrought with sexual violence,' said Church. 'Now, if you get raped and become pregnant … because of assault at the Department of Veterans Affairs, they won't help you.' Sylvia Andersh, a former service member who worked at Veterans Affairs hospitals as a nurse, called the lack of exceptions for rape 'cruel.' 'My faith in humanity has been quite tested with the fact that they're willing to blatantly hurt women,' said Andersh. For Wallis, who was sexually assaulted while serving in the military, the lack of rape exceptions is especially troubling. 'It feels like being spit in my face,' she said. 'I wrote a check up to and including my life for this country, and I'm not provided equal access to care,' Wallis said. Wallis also worries that this new policy could increase suicidal ideation among service members. 'An unexpected pregnancy, whether it's due to rape, incest, or contraceptive failure, doesn't matter what the cause is,' she said, 'it increases suicidal ideation, and in the lack of access to care, you add that in, and that risk increases further.' The biggest impact is going to fall on veterans and service members living in states with abortion bans, experts told The Intercept. The Department of Veterans Affairs is the largest integrated health care system in the United States, serving 2 million women veterans, over 400,000 of whom live in states with abortion bans. 'We were living in a much different world the last time this total ban was in effect.' Though the Trump administration insists the policy change would be a return to standard VA practice, Taylor, of Center for Reproductive Rights, points out that the landscape has changed following the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision. 'We were living in a much different world the last time this total ban was in effect. This is the first time there has been a total abortion ban in VA health care facilities since Roe v. Wade was overturned,' said Taylor. 'Before Roe fell, if a veteran couldn't get an abortion at a VA health care facility, they could seek one elsewhere in their state. Now, abortion is banned in many states, and over 100 clinics have closed, meaning veterans living in those states will be totally out of options.' Wallis said she feels as if the administration is testing how far it can restrict access to care, pointing to the abortion ban and new restrictions on gender-affirming care at the VA. 'We're the guinea pigs they want to test what they're able to do to the general public,' she said. 'I truly feel like they're testing what they want to do with the rest of the country on us, and it's scary to me.'
New York Post
37 minutes ago
- New York Post
Ex-Gov. David Paterson backing Eric Adams for NYC mayor— after endorsing Andrew Cuomo in Dem primary
Former Gov. David Paterson is backing a new horse in the crowded field for New York City mayor — putting his support behind Eric Adams' bid to hang onto City Hall. The 55th governor of New York became the highest-profile Democrat to back the incumbent's re-election bid, after previously endorsing his successor in Albany, Andrew Cuomo, in the June Democratic primary for mayor. 'I'm here to stand for someone who has already run this city for nearly four years and has made huge changes over the past administrations,' Paterson said outside City Hall Wednesday, surrounded by more than two dozen Adams supporters. Paterson made his latest endorsement on Wednesday. Matthew McDermott Eric Adams has been polling in the single digits with his long-shot independent bid for mayor. stefano Giovannini 'At this particular time, in this moment where so many issues are occurring, so many difficulties are coming to this state … the person we need to protect us is Mayor Eric Adams,' he said. The endorsement comes just weeks after Paterson called for the candidates — GOP nominee Curtis Sliwa and independents Adams, Cuomo and lawyer Jim Walden — to unite behind one person as the best way to beat the frontrunner, socialist Zohran Mamdani, in the November election. Under the proposal, the contender who continues to campaign would be determined by an independent poll closer to the election or by leaders across Big Apple institutions. But Paterson said Wednesday he was dropping the idea, which Cuomo had publicly endorsed. 'It was an idea to generate conversation. None of the candidates seemed particularly interested, so I considered the issue to be mute,' he said. Cuomo has maintained his runner-up status behind Mamdani in a handful of polls over the last month, while Adams has been struggling to muster double-digit support, putting him in fourth place. Paterson has repeatedly spoken out against Mamdani, who shocked the political world when he won the Democratic nomination and gave Cuomo an electoral shellacking in the primary. 'It would kind of be like comparing a lit match to a forest fire,' Paterson said Wednesday, when asked why he was supporting Adams over the party's nominee. 'Mr. Mamdani has proposed some very interesting concepts and idea. The problem is that he can't really solve them unless he has the resources. And he never really discusses where he's going to get the resources from,' Paterson said. He compared the Queens assemblyman to lefty Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, whose popularity has dipped as the Windy City's budget woes worsen. 'We don't want to go through that. We don't want to have these situations where the government is falling apart and there's no leadership and nobody know what to do,' Paterson said. The endorsement is the latest shift for Paterson, who also worked Walden early on in the lawyer's independent campaign for mayor. Veteran political operative Bill Cunningham predicted that having the backing of Paterson — the state's first black governor who served from 2008 to 2010 — will help Adams and take a bite out of Cuomo's chances of winning the race. 'It will make a difference for Cuomo. His strategy rests on being the choice of moderate to liberal elderly voters of color,' Cunningham told The Post. 'David's endorsement of Adams is like the iceberg cutting a slit at the Titanic's waterline,' he said, 'and it may help Mamdani for the same reason. 'The questions for Adams' team is how can they use it to best advantage given his money problems.' Meanwhile Sliwa, who has a longtime personal and professional relationship with Paterson, thanked the ex-gov for not backing him — calling an endorsement from him the political 'kiss of death.' 'I have political vertigo from my husband-in-law David Paterson,' Sliwa told Politico. 'You went from Adams to Jim Walden to Cuomo, now you are back to Adams. Stay away from me. Say bad things about me! But please don't endorse me.' When asked about Sliwa's comments, Paterson fired back. 'Curtis Sliwa is a kiss of death.'
New York Post
37 minutes ago
- New York Post
NY Rep. Elise Stefanik demands to know if Gov. Hochul knew massive prison strike was brewing: ‘Why did she refuse to act?'
ALBANY – Upstate Rep. Elise Stefanik is calling on Gov. Kathy Hochul to come clean about this year's massive corrections workers strike and whether she knew about the brewing 'powder keg' in state prisons. The Republican North Country rep, in a statement first obtained by The Post, said Hochul 'must immediately address' a new report by the prison workers' union largely blaming the state for allegedly ignoring warning signs of the simmering crisis and strike threats. 'What did she know, when did she know it, and why did she refuse to act?,' Stefanik writes in the statement. 3 North Country Rep. Elise Stefanik is attacking Gov. Kathy Hochul over her handling of the illegal corrections officers strike earlier this year. Hans Pennink Thousands of corrections officers illegally walked off the job in February, requiring Hochul to deploy over 6,000 National Guard troops to supplement staffing shortages in the problem-plagued facilities. The memo from the state Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association issued last week alleged its leadership had showed a top Hochul aide a video of members threatening to strike at an annual meeting weeks earlier, and were told the issue would be raised to the governor. 'The deterioration of prison conditions statewide and the indifference of the State's elected leaders to cries for help from the rank-and-file pushed staff to the breaking point, and then they broke,' the union memo reads. Stefanik — who is widely believed to be mounting a Republican challenge to Hochul in next year's gubernatorial election — slammed the Democrat for allegedly failing to act to prevent the strike. 'The union representing Correction Officers stated they warned Kathy Hochul before their strike that prisons were a dangerous powder keg, a strike was imminent, and that lives of officers were at risk. Hochul did nothing,' Stefanik wrote. 3 Rep. Elise Stefanik says Hochul 'did nothing' to respond to a 'powder keg' in the state prisons pre-strike. AP While the Hochul administration declared an end to the strike in early March, upwards of 2,000 National Guard troops remain to backfill staffing holes at the facilities, which are 4,000 to 5,000 personnel short of the Department of Corrections and Community Supervisions' ideal staffing level, Commissioner Daniel Martuscello wrote in a recent court filing. The department was already suffering from staffing shortages even before the strike, a report from the state comptroller's office said last month. A spokesperson for Hochul, in response to Stefanik's statement, accused the congresswoman of condoning the illegal strike and called the corrections officers' demands 'unrealistic.' 'Unlike Congresswoman Stefanik, Governor Hochul does not condone breaking the law. Corrections officers who joined the illegal work stoppage earlier this year knowingly put both the incarcerated population and their fellow officers at risk. Walking off the job because an unrealistic list of demands isn't met is unacceptable and illegal,' a rep for Hochul's office wrote in a statement. 3 A spokesperson for Gov. Kathy Hochul called illegally striking corrections officers demands 'unrealistic'. Hans Pennink 'Instead of issuing empty statements, Governor Hochul will keep focusing on real reforms that improve conditions for everyone in DOCCS facilities, including incarcerated individuals and the employees who serve there,' the statement said. The Hochul rep emphasized that corrections workers have received a pay bump since the strike. The spokesperson also noted that the state tried to pause the requirements of a solitary confinement law that the agency claimed it was unable to implement considering its dire staffing levels, but a court ordered them to resume. A spokesperson for NYSCOPBA declined to comment saying the report speaks for itself. The union also declined to share the video it says showed the Hochul administration official in February. The union, which found itself at odds with its members during the illegal strike is up for contract negotiations with the state in May 2026, per its memo.
