Congressman Dan Goldman and Other Former Department of Justice Elected Officials Demand Inspector General Investigation into Top Trump Admin Justice Department Officials’ Flagrant Ethics Violations

 

 

Washington, D.C. – Congressman Dan Goldman (NY-10) today led a letter with representatives Hillary Scholten (MI-03), Stacey Plaskett (VI-AL), Mikie Sherill (NJ-11), Glen Ivey (MD-04), Maggie Goodlander (NH-02), and Shamari Figures (Al-02) demanding the Department of Justice Inspector General immediately open investigations into the ethical conflicts of Acting Deputy Attorney General Bove and Interim United States Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin, both of whom have engaged in flagrant ethics violations that compromise their ability to act in the public interest and undermine public trust in the Department of Justice. 

 

The letter follows the Trump administration’s numerous moves to purge the Department of Justice of any employee who worked on the January 6th prosecutions, including firing the head of several regional offices and demanding a list of all Department of Justice and FBI officials who worked on the January 6 officials.  

 

“We are all former Department of Justice (DOJ) employees who write to you regarding the clear and disqualifying conflicts of interests that exist among at least two Department employees: Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, and Interim United States Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin. Both appear to be taking official actions in matters where they previously represented interested parties, which is a clear violation of DOJ regulations and the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct,” the members wrote. 

 

Acting Deputy Attorney General Bove represented Donald Trump throughout his election interference case and classified documents case, both of which were prosecuted by the same Department of Justice employees that Bove now oversees in his position. 

 

“Despite that representation, Mr. Bove has taken a number of actions in connection to those cases, including ordering the retaliatory termination of DOJ prosecutors and FBI Special Agents who worked on those cases on the opposite side from him. On January 31, in an apparent effort to exact revenge on behalf of his former client, Mr. Bove sent a memo to FBI officials with the subject line “Terminations,” which terminated eight senior FBI officials who worked on his former client’s cases and demanded the submission of details on thousands of agents and analysts who worked on the January 6 cases, including his former client’s. Separately, on that same day, Mr. Bove directed Mr. Martin to terminate all DOJ prosecutors assigned to the criminal cases related to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol – a directive which Martin subsequently carried out,” the members continued. 

 

Interim United States Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin’s conflicts of interest are equally troubling. Despite representing a January 6th defendant convicted of assaulting police with a dangerous weapon, Martin in his capacity as Interim US Attorney, moved to dismiss the case after Padilla received a pardon from Donald Trump while Martin was still representing Padilla in court.  

 

“To make matters worse, Mr. Martin not only represented those who participated in the January 6 insurrection, but he was also an organizer, participant, and witness to the “Stop the Steal” rally at the Capitol himself. By his own contemporaneous admission on X, he personally attended the rally-turned-riot. In addition, on June 8, 2021, Mr. Martin posted on X that “Oath Keepers are all of us” — a clear sign of his support for, and affinity with, the Oath Keepers, a domestic violent extremist group whose leaders were convicted by a jury of seditious conspiracy, among other crimes, before President Trump pardoned them all on his first day in office,” the members said. 

 

Both Emil Bove and Ed Martin’s conduct violates various Department of Justice conflicts of interests rule, and the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct, which would make them both potentially eligible to lose their ability to practice law.  

 

“Given the severity of these conflicts, we urge your office to initiate an immediate investigation into the ethical conflicts of Mr. Bove and Mr. Martin. Their actions and conflicts of interest appear to have compromised their ability to act in the public interest and have undermined public trust in the Department of Justice. The impartiality of DOJ employees is fundamental to ensuring fairness and justice, and it is imperative that these issues be addressed without delay,” the members concluded. 

 

Congressman Dan Goldman has made safeguarding the rule of law and the restoring the legitimacy of the justice system a center piece of his time in office. 

 

Last Congress, Goldman introduced the ‘Supreme Court Ethics and Investigations Act,’ which would establish a dedicated investigative body within the Supreme Court that provides transparency and accountability through exhaustive investigations into alleged ethical improprieties and reports to Congress on its findings. The ‘Supreme Court Ethics and Investigations Act’ would also establish an ethics counsel charged with providing advice to justices on ethical issues, including disclosure requirements and recusal. 

 

In January, Goldman hosted Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges to condemn Donald Trump’s blanket pardons for roughly 1,500 January 6th insurrectionists, which freed individuals convicted of assaulting police officers, seditious conspiracy, and other violent crimes.  

 

Before the Trump inauguration, Goldman led his Democratic House Judiciary colleagues in sending a letter to then-Attorney General Merrick Garland urging him to dismiss the Department of Justice’s cases against Trump’s codefendants in order to release ‘Volume 2’ of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on President-elect Trump’s classified documents case.