Ed Martin Confirms Witch Hunt Against Elected Democrats
Many things have happened. Here are some of the things. This is the morning memo of TPM. Register For the e-mail version.
A classic example of political corruption
Ed Martin had no prior experience as a prosecutor when he became a lawyer of the DCUS earlier this year. And it shows.
Since his appointment to the permanent position was abandoned due to the lack of support for the GOP of the Senate, Martin was triple-Hatting to main justice as (i) forgive us lawyer; (ii) the “working group” of the Chief Prosecutor General Pam Bondi – the name involuntarily revealing the outfit responsible for politicizing the Ministry of Justice; and (iii) more recently as a special Bondi lawyer supervising surveys on mortgage fraud with political motivation on senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) and the New York Letitia James prosecutor.
It was in this third role that Martin apparently served when he participated in Fox News and admitted that he used the pretext of clearly false mortgage surveys to conduct a witch hunt open to Schiff and James. “We will also look at everything else, they did,” Martin said:
Most legal experts believe that mortgage fraud requests constitute nothing on the facts or on the law. But do not underestimate the power of the current criminal surveys suspended from anyone, in particular elected officials, especially when surveys are used as justification of a large probe of other non-specified reprehensible acts.
Even if the accusations never come, this is a classic example of political corruption – and authoritarian capture of the independence of federal prosecutors. Martin embarked on a fishing expedition and he will continue to do as long as it is useful in the White House.
Speaking of Letitia James …
The judgment of the civil fraud of $ 500 million from the Prosecutor General of New York Letitia James against Donald Trump has been put on appeal for almost a year, apparently due to deep divisions and three opinions written in duel on the committee of the five justice court of appeal, reports the WSJ.
Day thread
With a new series of edicts, the director of the FBI, Kash Patel, degrades the office more and converts to something similar to a national police department (which is not what the FBI has historically been):
Exclusive @MSNBC Report with @ Marcsantia4ny::
The director of the FBI, Kash Patel, requires changes to transform the office into a national police focused on violent crimes, according to the current and former officials of MSNBC – to the expense, they say, of the longtime role of the FBI …
– Ken Dilanian (@dilanianmsnbc) August 15, 2025
A disaster recipe
The red states jump on the train to send their national guards to the country’s capital and show Plurality Black DC which is the boss. Virginia-Western, Ohio and South Carolina (still stimulating the last time it has tried to overthrow DC) are first online to engage in weapons with the permanent power of democratic cities.
But the most alarming news to be released during a generally alarming weekend is that the national guards can be armed, a reversal of a previous decision that has deployed the National Guard of DC in the non-arms streets on their people or in vehicles.
The ingredients could be in place for a cocktail of violence: federal agents and national guards with little or no training in the street police sent with firearms in a peaceful urban area, many of them are not even planned to arouse problems. This places everyone – residents of DC, local police, guards and federal agents – in an impossible situation.
Friday, a glow of good news is that the Trump administration was transported to the court to take control of the DC police service and under pressure from a federal judge supported its maximalist position.
Imymi
Religious displeases: the latest ice recruitment documents include a manifest neo-Nazi reference and a Nazi-Nazi script
Time sign: New fascism is delivered with the Merch
The Florida GOP rubbed its online store with a new range of goods praising the new “expulsion deposit” of the state after Home Depot complained that it was an unprecedented use of its brand.
Texas Dems expected to come back this week
The Democrats of California carrying out their own redistribution of mid-December, the Democrats of Texas should return to the state today, giving the Republicans a quorum in the Legislative Assembly to pass their redistribution plan. The Democrats of Texas managed to block the redistribution push during the first special session of the Legislative Assembly. But when he ended on Friday, Governor Greg Abbott (R) immediately called a second special session, preparing the land to pass a new card in the more friendly congress to help the national republicans maintain their majority at home in the midst of next year.
Day quote
“Trump completely gave birth to narrative control in Putin.–Form Trump I Fiona Hill of the National National Security Council Fiona
Oh!
The customers of an anchorage hotel found sensitive documents from the Trump-Putin summit on a public printer, reports NPR.
The names of the Trump DC circuit strike again: CFPB Edition
The judges of the DC circuit of Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao, appointed by Trump who had an oversized influence during the first months of the Trump II presidency, paved the way for the Trump administration to dismantle the financial protection office of consumers. Judge Cornelia Pillard, one appointed by Obama is dissident.
“The idea that the courts are powerless to prevent the president from abolishing the agencies of the federal government which he was elected to direct cannot be reconciled with the constitutional separation of powers or the commitment of our country towards a government of laws,” wrote Pillard.
Bin, garbage
Layla A. Jones of TPM: The Trump administration sets the foundations for a complete control of federal data
The judge blocks the FTC probe for media issues
The American district judge Sparkle L. SOOKNANA of DC ranked on the side of media issues to block an investigation by the Federal Trade politically mobile commission on the liberal surveillance group.
“This case presents a simple violation of the first amendment,” said Sooknanan.
Media Matters had financial difficulties under the weight of false right -wing surveys on the question of whether her report on anti -Semitic content on X / Twitter consisted of anti -competitive driving. He also faces related series of Elon Musk.
“This should alarm all Americans when the government retaliated against individuals or organizations to engage in a public debate protected by the Constitution,” wrote Sooknanan. “And this alarm should be even stronger when the government retaliated against those engaged in the newspaper and reports.”
A rare example of organized left -wing violence?
The alleged attack in an Ice detention center in Texas last month drew my attention as a possible example of organization left Violence, a relative rarity since the 1970s. When I say “organized”, I do not necessarily want to say well organized. The presumed attack of the group of rags seemed particularly unhappy, even according to the official account of the police of the incident. Adding to the strangeness, the alleged authors – including two transgender militant women – seemed to come from Dallas and around Dallas, which would not be my first choice for anti -fascism households.
The Robert Klemko of Wapo has a little more dug the “secret network of Dallas antifascists” which “initially united around trans and queer identity problems”. He did an interview in prison with the alleged leader of the group, a former navy body of Japanese and Korean mixed origin which formed “very young and naive left”, as a witness, in close -scale fights and large -scale rifles in his mother’s Taekwondo studio in the Suburban Dallas.
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