Sen. Tillis Won’t Vote for Ed Martin, Trump’s Nominee for D.C. U.S. Attorney
Tillis said “most” of his concerns centered around January 6th. Martin defended a few of the protesters.
Sen. Tom Tillis (R-NC) said he opposes Ed Martin, President Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. Attorney for D.C.
Martin worked as an attorney for some of those charged in the 2021 Capitol Hill riot, which is where Tillis has most of his concerns. Tillis told the media:
TILLIS: I met with Mr. Martin. He seems like a good man. Most of my concerns related to January 6 and he built a compelling case on some of the 1,512 prosecutions that were probably key to the moment, bad decisions. But where we probably have a difference is I think anybody that reached the perimeter should have been in prison for some period of time, whether it’s 30 days or three years is debatable. But I have no tolerance for anybody who entered the building on January the 6th, and that’s probably where most of the friction was.
REPORTER: So he disagreed with you on that?
TILLIS: Well, now. I have to say that Mr. Martin did a good job of explaining how there were people that probably got caught up in it, but they made the stupid decision to come through a building that had been breached and that the police officers and others were saying, stay away. So the difference wasn’t that they should be charged. In my estimation, it’s by how much? That’s an argument I’m willing to have, but we have to be very clear that what happened on January the 6th was wrong. It was not prompted or created by other people to put those people in trouble. They made a stupid decision, and they disgraced the United States by absolutely destroying the Capitol, and I can’t have any patience.
REPORTER: It sounds like your concerns were not very…
TILLIS: But let me be very clear, though. Mr. Martin did a good job of explaining the one area that I think he’s probably right, that there were some people that were over prosecuted, but there were some two or 300 of them that should have never gotten a pardon and he agreed with that.
But the disagreement there had more to do…if Mr. Martin were being put forth as a U.S. Attorney for any district except the district where January 6 happened, the protest happened, I’d probably support them, but not in this district.
REPORTER: When you said he’s not being advanced to the markup, was he operating under that understanding that he’s not being advanced through to him?
TILLIS: Well, I think, Mr. Martin, I’m sure they’re looking through it, I mean, be clear, some of the deadline has to do with the length of time he can operate as acting, and the administration can work through that if they want to have more time and potentially work them through but at this point I’ve indicated to the White House I wouldn’t support his nomination.
Tillis after meeting with Ed Martin last night:
“At this point I’ve indicated to the White House I wouldn't support his nomination.” pic.twitter.com/T1OSqSabOn
— Alan He (@alanhe) May 6, 2025
Okay, let’s dissect this. First of all, those who participated in the riot did not destroy the Capitol. The hyperbole over it drives me insane.
Second, the Senate has to confirm U.S. Attorneys.
However, U.S. Attorney nominees don’t usually have confirmation hearings. The Senate Judiciary Committee usually approves the nominee in a quick voice vote.
The Committee, though, could have hearings if he or she faces many challenges.
Tillis serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
A person can act as a U.S. Attorney for up to 120 days.
The Vacancies Act allows the acting officials to stay on for 210 days from the day of the vacancy. If the vacancy started before the president’s inauguration, then it extends to 300 days:
Nominations also extend these limits: an acting official can continue serving through two pending nominations to the vacant job. If the nomination is rejected or returned to the President under Senate rules, a new 210-day period of permitted tenure begins from the date of rejection or return. In other words, an acting official could conceivably serve for 210 (or 300) days before there is a nomination, during the pendency of a first nomination, for 210 days after that nomination is returned, during the pendency of a second nomination, and for a final 210 days if the second nomination is returned as well. These extensions require careful tracking of nominations and Senate actions.
Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dick Durbin has not called for a hearing, but Democrats have floated the idea.
Chairman Chuck Grassley admitted the “Republicans need more time to vet Martin.” From CNN:
A CNN KFile analysis found that Martin failed to report nearly 200 media appearances in the past few years when he first filed his mandated disclosure forms to Congress. Those appearances included many on far-right outlets and Russian-state media.
Grassley said he has not yet finished going through Martin’s recent written responses to the Senate Judiciary panel under oath, where Martin said he did not recall some of his most controversial past statements.
“We’ve had people on our staff that had more questions,” Grassley said.
Fellow Judiciary Committee member Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) once called Martin “’soft’ for supporting a bipartisan gun safety bill, said the nominee was ‘controversial.’”
Cornyn did not expand on his concerns, though.
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So this asshole thinks that people shouldn’t be able to mount a legal defense when the corrupt government is trying to railroad them? Screw him, North Carolina, get rid of this totalitarian traitor.
“I think anybody that reached the perimeter should have been in prison”
Is there any chance Tillis can be side lined in the next primary?
NC is f***** up. They can’t even elect a Republican governor. Granted there was probably cheating involved, but still you gotta win too big to rig.
I seem to recall that a certain famous POTUS, prior to his election, successfully defended a set of soldiers from charges resulting from their firing into (not so peaceful) protestors, killing several of them. His defense work wasn’t popular at the time, but eventually people came to understand there was a principle at stake.
I also recall John Adams. Apparently Tillis is too much of a fool.
It’s hard to say what a complete POS Tillis is. He’s a liar and an idiot. It’s as if he is unable to sit down and watch any of the tens of thousands of hours of actual video footage available. Tillis is a useful idiot for the America-hating dems.
Obviously, he needs to be primaried and opposed by every decent person in AMerica. All of his allies need to be fired or shunned – totally cut off from all government money. He needs to be totally isolated until he slithers away, the lowlife turd.
But, first, Thune needs to remove him from every committee and put him in the corner of the Senate doing nothing but wearing his dunce cap. Thune really needs to do this.
My big question is why Trump can’t recess appoint Ed Martin. Thune can put the Senate into a 5 minute recess and have Trump make the appointment and be done with this – and then strip Tillis of every responsibility and opportunity in the Senate.
What a complete POS who is defaming J6ers and deserves to be sued into the poorhouse by them.
Grok concludes:
Senator Thom Tillis has a record of supporting key Biden administration DOJ nominees, including Merrick Garland for Attorney General and Lisa Monaco for Deputy Attorney General, indicating a willingness to back establishment figures. His current reluctance to support Trump’s nominee, Ed Martin, is perceived as a betrayal of Trump’s agenda.
> Thune can put the Senate into a 5 minute recess and have Trump make the appointment and be done with this – and then strip Tillis of every responsibility and opportunity in the Senate.
SCOTUS already ruled that a recess needs to be 10 days long to allow for recess appointments
I stand corrected.
I don’t know why they didn’t cut two days out in April then been in recess for the required time. Thune should have known all about this and planned that to be done.
Most of this should come down on Thune, I think, because he’s supposed to be in control of the Senate happenings and to anticipate this sort of stuff. But … we’ll see if Tillis is punished by Thune for his despicable behavior and lies.
It’s a tall order to expect the majority leader to control every senior member of his own party who is determined to rebel. As far as I know Thune is doing a fine job, but now he has to smack Tillis down, hard.
The majority leader is not “in control of the senate happenings”. The senate is. If a majority of senators don’t want something, the majority leader can’t force it.
to answer your question , that would require Thune to grow a pair
A primordial ordered pair? ;-{)}}}
Because Thune won’t do it
Only the republicans stab their President in the back
Only the republicans
Thune can’t put the senate in recess on his own.
1. A majority of senators would have to vote for it. If there’s no majority to confirm Martin then there’s also no majority to create a recess for him.
2. Assuming the senate did vote for a recess, it would have to get the House’s permission; again, the speaker would not just be able to wave his hand and allow it, it would require a vote of the House, at which all Democrats would vote no, and very likely a handful of Republicans would join them to defeat the resolution.
Idiots downvote facts they don’t like.
Hearings would be good. A chance to air the real J6 story and force Tillis and the other liars to watch video refuting their lies right in public and then grill them about their bald-faced lies. Force Tillis to publicly join with his democrat buddies the same way that dems have been flying to El Salvador to hug their gang-banger illegal alien idol. Expose Tillis in public for all of America to see – day after day.
Then, when it’s all done, Thune should strip Tillis of any and all appointments or duties – save cleaning the Senate bathroom.
Tillia is a RINO, and should be primaried. NC voters can do much better.
Can they? They can’t even elect a Republican governor.
Where was all this pearl clutching when Chuck YOU shoved all those social engineers on the bench?
Before people get too crazy, remember that the DC DA is under a microscope. If Mr. Trump knew that Mr. Martin was going to be controversial and decided to go forward anyway, fine, that’s on him. The risk is that you have no DA and that the DC Chief Circuit Judge (the less than honorable Mr. Boasberg) gets to choose.
The question is whether the Senate leadership communicated with Mr. Trump beforehand — “hey Mr. President, we don’t think we can do this one.” An honorable leadership would have done that.
This isn’t justification to appoint yet another establishment crony who will do what every other establishment crony has done in DC.
Having a member of the Judiciary make Executive Branch appointments is unConstitutional and if that happens Trump should grab Roberts by the scruff of his neck and make that point
What has Roberts got to do with it? It’s the district court, not SCOTUS, that appoints an interim USA. That is the law, and has been the law almost continuously since 1863. Indeed for over 120 years the courts appointed all interim USAs; the Attorney General only gained the power to make an initial 120-day appointment in 1986. If the 120 days expire it goes back to how it has been for most of the republic’s history; the district court appoints someone to fill in until the senate confirms a proper USA.
If you think 28 USC § 546 (d) is unconstitutional, find someone with standing to challenge a prosecution brought by a court-appointed interim USA and see what happens. The fact that no one has done so for more than 160 years probably indicates that it’s unlikely to succeed.
Or, you should appoint someone designed to smack back at the leftist DC Circuit and put them in a box over and over again. Appeasing them does little good, they need to be defeated.
I’m pretty sure Boasberg is at the District level not the Circuit level. The DC District Court needs some difficult moments too, and reform.
Yes, Boasberg is the chief judge of the DC District Court, which is the court that, under 28 USC 546 (d), would appoint an interim USA for the district should Martin’s 120 days run out.
Simply put, Tillis is a fool.
That’s probably the nicest thing that can be said about him.
Tillis had his air of self importance polluted on Jan 6
The police officers were holding the doors open, for heaven’s sake.
This idiot needs to be taken out. In a Minecraft election, of course.
No, he has a hostile agenda. Nobody who’s lasted as long in the Senate as Tillis is a fool.
Once, when the words “lawyer” and “ethics” could be used without a snicker or disparaging tone – it was widely accepted that for our justice system and courts to work and work well we absolutely needed to have lawyers defend accused persons no matter how serious the accused crime. No show trials, no attacking a lawyer who took on the often thankless task of defending someone you thought should be found guilty without a trial.
I can understand folks can feel hostile to a lawyer defending someone accused of a horrific crime – but in this case the vast majority of defendants – if guilty – committed simple trespass. Over the years I’ve read of 100s of cases of protestors trespassing in govt buildings – including “occupying” offices – unless they physically attacked someone or destroyed property none of them had their lives destroyed or spent a year awaiting trial behind bars. INCLUDING protestors trespassing in Congress.
Tillis’s (and other’s) excuse for violating that tradition and precedent and trying to punish lawyers whose “crime” is doing their d@mn job (“but it’s a danger to democracy!”) is bullsh@t. Lawyers doing what lawyers are SUPPOSED to do is is no danger to democracy. Folks (and ESPECIALLY Government officials) enacting extra-judicial punishment on defense lawyers whose committed no crime so as to subvert the justice system because they would like them some one-sided show trials IS a danger to democracy.
You’re forgetting that the Capitol building is the temple of the god of the Democratic party. Blasphemy must be punished severely!
Also for the RINO party. I remember McConnell was among the worst in the aftermath of J6. It’s as if the plebeians had intruded on his private royal space, and he wanted them dead. The disdain dripping from his lips, and some other R senators (I don’t want to accuse Tillis without being sure, and I am not), showed what our Senate really is deep down.
Assholes.
Except that, as BobM pointed out, there have been many trespassers in Congress before, “blaspheming the temple”, and none of them has been treated harshly at all, let alone this harshly.
The regime agreed with them that it was their temple, and therefor their actions were not blasphemy.
“Once, when the words “lawyer” and “ethics” could be used without a snicker or disparaging tone”
Can you imagine a world without lawyers?
Dick the Butcher imagined a world without lawyers. One in which he and his fellow thugs, having seized the government, would be free to do whatever they liked, with no law to stop them.
“Woe to you also, lawyers! For you load men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.”
“Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered.”
Present company excepted.
[Jan 6…] was not prompted or created by other people to put those people in trouble.
Senator, you weren’t asked that, so why you would preemptively answer? The truth needs no defense.
The guilty man runneth…
It was. I am glad the man who created the moment got another chance to be president and, among other things, make some things right with those people he sent to the Capitol saying he would be with them.
Trump has improved, but the fact is, he created the J6 moment and then for a long time evaded responsibility. Again, he’s repented, but that does not mean the blame now all falls on the little people he invited.
Tillis is a lying scumbag.
This is the result of allowing the Dems to frame a three-hour riot as some sort of massive conspiracy to overthrow the government in a murder spree with thousands of violent hardened criminals out to kill every official they could find and put Trump up on a throne as king. There was *NO* pushback on this narrative from the Republicans for four years, allowing endless hammering, a solid wave of lies, and midnight raids across the country for the vast majority of arrestees who did little more than walk into a public building where the police were holding the doors open. And if Trump had not won, there would be thousands more arrests, kangaroo court convictions, and Trump himself would be stripped of all assets and flung in prison. That’s not a wild-eyed fantasy, that’s the exact thing the Left has been doing for four years and said quite plainly that it intended on continuing. Thank God Trump is back.
Declining economy undermines a sitting presidents ability to influence his own party.
Deliberately hurting the U.S. Economy and removing money from peoples savings means senators will no longer be deferential to the president who has undermined their political future and will do things to poke him in the eye.
There is still time to avert the worst of the trade war before it happens and if it is not taken expect more fights with more senators and yes it will be Trump’s fault.
Nobody who voted against Bidenflation wants Trumpflation.
Trump has been totally upfront that there WILL be economic pain from his trying to reset American trade and manufacturing policies to a one less disadvantageous to the USA.
Every one not batshit crazy (I’m looking at you, Ms. Cortez) admits that our current course and policies are – in the long term – unsustainable. We are hooked as much as any addict to spending money we don’t have and borrowing money the always increasing interest payments of which continually reduce the amount we can spend without more borrowing.
But our political uniParty “Betters” don’t look past the next few elections – like a highly paid Board of Directors running a company into the ground – anticipating by the time the collapse comes they’ll have either died or just cashed out and escaped the consequences the workers and then current management will face. We’re like addicts ever increasing our dosages to get by day to day ignoring the damage that’s doing and the inevitable Reality Check that’s coming.
Trump is different.
He’s not a pedigreed and sanctified member of any branch of the uniParty – which is why so many of them treat him like a smelly homeless guy trying to crash a party uninvited.
He doesn’t need to GET rich like a Pelosi or Biden or Obama riding their offices into millionaire status – he doesn’t have to cater to rich special interests to get re-elected for a 20-40 year career in govt., and he doesn’t care if the Press worships at his feet or not – any tendency to GAF about that vanished after 8+ years of abuse, double standards, and malicious prosecution at the hands of the Oligarchy that’s run things for their own benefit while hollowing out the American Promise that your kids will be able to do at least as well as you did.
It’s like someone has no clue and just posts here because of the pay.
Oh you are saying a president who knowingly weakens the economy and hurts people and puts peoples jobs in jeopardy gets more powerful within the party?
Thanks I will take that over the entirety of American history but that would make me stupid so I will not.
This is an early indication of Trump decline. A Trump decline brought on by him bringing an economic decline.
“It’s the economy stupid”
As true now as it was during the 90s and it will always be true.
Will you be around to eat copious amounts of crow when the economy takes off to unprecedented heights in a few months or so, or will you just disappear like the Soros-paid troll you appear to be?
Danny boy–are you aware that our nation is actuarily bankrupt? That a continuation down the road of unrestrained spending, abdication of governmental responsibility, and slowed GDP growth will result in a death spiral for our nation that will make climate change a pleasant memory? Think about blackouts and food shortages and runs on banks and wild inflation and rising crime, cats and dogs living together, fire and brimstone.
Yeah, I’d like to see someone try to attack that coming problem even if the approach is not perfect.
He probably thinks Paul Krugman is a real economist.
“Big Mac? This is a hardware store.”
Food costs about the same. Gasoline price has gone down. Some gov’t employees are getting fired, but that’s OK with me. How is Trump even temporarily undermining the economy? He’s setting the foundations for course correction and future success, and it isn’t even hurting so far! That’s nearly magical.
I called his offices, left messages that will never be heard
We all need to call Thune to put pressure on the slimy traitor
Calls that will go unanswered
FAXes are probably better.
Cornyn has a senate race where he’s already behind to Paxton
He had no choice… I also called his office, I’m pretty sure that was the deciding factor!
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/05/sen-cornyn-supports-confirming-ed-martin-dc-us/
Tillis is a snake. He orchestrated the whole ‘brother’s ex-wife’ nonsense but caved when he realized Trump was refusing to withdraw the nomination.
I’ve said for years and years. So many of these RINO snakes rely upon saying behind closed doors they won’t vote for somebody to get a nomination withdrawn, then lying about it.
Put it to a floor vote and make him go on record. Most likely, just like Hegseth, he’ll cave.
Plenty of confirmed nominees that have answered questions able defending very unsavory people or cases by saying that they were just doing their job advocating for a client or position, doesn’t seem to exclude them from confirmation votes.
tillis is the illness amongst us
I live in SC but if I lived in NC I would not vote for this scum Tillis. He is not supporting Trump and Trump’s people, which is what is required of the Republican Party.
Tillis may be trying to do a shakedown for money, support by Trump
He didn’t rule it out 100%
He’s probably being paid by Qatar and doesn’t need the money.
I think a cockroach just came out from the cupboard. Time to smash it with a big foot. The big question is who or what is he protecting.
Somethings does not smell right here. Looks like Tillis is the stinker.
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