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 current interim acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, was loudly criticized on social media after he tweeted an “open letter” he addressed to police officers that attacked public defenders and defended two cops who Trump pardoned after they were convicted of murder and a coverup.

Martin was highly controversial even before his nomination, during 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 (including speaking at a rally in Washington on Jan. 5, 2021), and representing some of the January 6th rioters. He was the first U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. in at least half a century to be appointed without ever serving as a judge or federal prosecutor. CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig, who has been a federal prosecutor, lambasted Martin’s “toxic blend of traits” that included being wholly unqualified, bringing a “startling arrogance to the job,” and “most problematically, he is explicitly political.”

Since Martin began as interim acting U.S. Attorney, he has urged judges to remove some of the few remaining restrictions on the pardoned Jan. 6. rioters, and in February tweeted a statement in which he declared that the U.S. Attorneys were “President Trumps’ lawyers” (punctuation error in original) and attacked the AP.

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

The text of the letter read as follows:

OPEN LETTER TO OUR COPS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS

Dear Blue,

March 7, 2025 Officer Terence Sutton and Lt. Andrew Zabavsky, both wrongfully convicted of a bogus charge, were pardoned by President Trump and properly reinstated by the leadership of the Metropolitan Police Department. We are making progress!

The radical “Defund the Police” movement by Black Lives Matter is over and BLM Plaza will soon be painted over. Good riddance.

Now, it’s time to get back to protecting and supporting our law enforcement officers. Therefore, I announce a major 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 every turn, we will defend you. You deserve nothing less.

DEFEND THE POLICE includes three action steps:

FIRST, we will tolerate no more “assaults on police officers” (APO). If a thug assaults an officer, my office will prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. My commitment is a thorough review by my AUSAs to charge them accordingly.

SECOND, this USAO will stand up in court against the “public defender service” (PDS) and anyone who maligns our officers for sport or advantage unfairly. We will stand up to judges who allow this conduct.

THIRD, I am rewriting our policy for our Lewis List. USAO will no longer allow judges or others to gratuitously damage your careers because of the outsized impact of inexact characterizations.

IN SUMMARY, this USAO have your backs every day in every way, including our prayers. Yours is the toughest job. Thank you for what you do and God bless you.

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

All the best.

Edward R. Martin, Jr.

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

The mention of Terence Sutton and Andrew Zabavsky, who Martin claimed were “wrongfully convicted of a bogus charge” before being pardoned by Trump, drew particular scorn.

A press release from the Department of Justice after Sutton and Zabavasky were sentenced describes how the two were involved in “an unauthorized police pursuit that ended in a collision on Oct. 23, 2020, that caused the death of Karon Hylton-Brown, 20, in Northwest Washington D.C.”

Both defendants were convicted by an unanimous federal jury that found that Sutton had caused Hylton-Brown’s death “by driving a police vehicle in conscious disregard for an extreme risk of death or serious bodily injury” to the victim, and found that both defendants “conspired to hide from MPD officials the circumstances of the traffic crash leading to Mr. Hylton-Brown’s death, thereby obstructing justice.”

Sutton was found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of second-degree murder, conspiracy to obstruct, and obstruction of justice, and the same jury found Zabavsky guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of justice.

The DOJ press release went into detail how Hylton-Brown was on a moped when he was “struck by an uninvolved oncoming motorist,” and then as he “lay unconscious in the street in a pool of his own blood, Sutton and Zabavsky, agreed to cover up what Sutton had done to prevent any further investigation of the incident,” including compromising the integrity of the crash scene, deliberately destroying evidence, turning off their body worn cameras, misleading their commanding officer about the incident, denying a police chase had occurred, providing false information in reports, and lying about Hylton-Brown’s injuries.

Sutton was sentenced to 66 months in prison, Zabavsky 48 months in prison, plus three years of supervised release 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 battle public defenders “and anyone who maligns our officers for sport or advantage unfairly” also drew sharp condemnation.

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

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