Ed Martin was only appointed to be President Donald Trump's pardon attorney in May, but he will now lead the DOJ's Weaponization Working Group, which includes overseeing cases against New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) and Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA).
Both Schiff and James are accused of fraudulently claiming primary residences in areas around Washington, D.C. to get more favorable loan terms.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) made a criminal referral against James earlier in the year over her Virginia property, which she claimed as primary even though her job in New York required her to live there. A similar referral was made for Schiff in May.
Schiff is under investigation for claiming that his home in Maryland was his primary residence even though he was required to live in California while a House member representing four different districts from that state during his 24-year tenure.
Grand juries in Virginia and Maryland are hearing evidence of James and Schiff's alleged crimes, and will decide soon whether they will face trials there.
Charges including potential mortgage fraud, bank fraud and wire fraud can carry jail terms of up to 30 years.
Martin will be a special prosecutor in those cases if the grand jury does decide to indict them.
“Attorney General Bondi and President Trump have given me a very serious mission,” Martin said of the assignment. "I am committed to going where the facts take me."
“For months DOJ and the FBI have been working on these two cases," he continued. "It is my job to stick the landing.”
Both James and Schiff have been vocal critics of President Donald Trump for many years.
Ironically, James prosecuted him for allegedly overvaluing his properties to get favorable loan terms, while Schiff presided over his first impeachment in the House.
James convicted Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records and got an almost half billion dollar judgment against him, which is being appealed.
James's attorney Abbe Lowell, who once helped defend Trump, said in a statement, “Investigating the fraud case Attorney General James won against President Trump and his businesses has to be the most blatant and desperate example of this administration carrying out the president’s political retribution campaign."
Schiff's attorney, former New York prosecutor Preet Bharara, said, “Ed Martin, the most brazenly partisan and politically compromised person possible for the task, has been picked to investigate a political adversary. The bias here is glaring."
Bharara pointed out that Schiff had placed a hold on Martin's previous nomination to be a U.S. Attorney in D.C. and forced him to step down from consideration.
Is Trump going after his enemies to even the score for the things they have done to him and his allies, or is the DOJ just trying to see justice be done?
