Ed Martin (Missouri politician)

Edward Robert Martin Jr. (born March 19, 1970) is an American conservative activist, politician, and lawyer who has served as the United States pardon attorney since May 2025. He previously served as interim United States attorney for the District of Columbia from January to May 2025, appointed by President Donald Trump. He was chair of the Missouri Republican Party from 2013 to 2015.

Martin has a history of incendiary claims and legal and ethical controversies. Having worked as an organizer of Stop the Steal rallies, he served as an attorney and advocate for January 6 defendants. He called claims of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections and the results of the 2020 United States presidential election "hoaxes".

A member of the Republican Party, Martin served as chief of staff for Missouri Governor Matt Blunt from 2006 until November 2007. He was the party's nominee for Missouri's 3rd congressional district in 2010, losing to incumbent Democrat Russ Carnahan, and was the unsuccessful Republican nominee for Missouri attorney general in 2012. The president of Phyllis Schlafly Eagles, a splinter group from Eagle Forum, Martin served on the 2024 RNC Platform Committee.

In December 2024, Trump announced his intention to nominate Martin for chief of staff for the Office of Management and Budget, before appointing him instead as the interim United States attorney for the District of Columbia in January 2025. This made him the first U.S. attorney for D.C. in at least fifty years to be appointed without experience as a judge or a federal prosecutor. In May 2025, his Senate confirmation appeared unlikely to pass, after Senate Republican Thom Tillis announced his opposition, leaving Martin with too few votes to be reported out of the Judiciary Committee. On May 8, 2025, Trump announced that he would withdraw Martin's nomination, and later that day, he announced Martin was to be replaced as the interim appointee by Jeanine Pirro.

On May 13, 2025, Martin announced he would serve as pardon attorney, vowing to review the Biden administration's outgoing pardons, as well as investigate what he called "weaponization" of the justice system. That month, he was appointed to lead the Weaponization Working Group within the Department of Justice. In February 2026, The Washington Post reported that Martin had been demoted from his post as the working group's chair.