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Interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin has been having a rough go at things since President Donald Trump picked the former lawyer for Jan. 6 defendants — who on the day of the attack tweeted that he was at the Capitol and relayed the “love, faith and joy” at the scene — to serve as the top federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C.
I wrote last month about Martin’s rage over media leaks apparently coming from staffers in his office. And this week, he received fierce backlash during an appearance in one of the Blackest communities in D.C.
The Washingtonian magazine published a dispatch from Martin’s trip to Anacostia, a neighborhood that is nearly 90% Black, for a discussion with local leaders about crime. On its face, this appearance seemed ripe for controversy, given that Martin is a staunch supporter of the insurrectionists who waged a Ku Klux Klan-style attack on the Capitol, with gallows and all.
And apparently, Martin’s disconnect from attendees was glaringly obvious. According to the Washingtonian, he made an attempt to drive a wedge between Anacostia residents and Africans who have benefited from foreign aid. And it didn’t go over well.
Per the Washingtonian:
Clearly a back-slapping, friendly person by nature, he began his appearance with a somewhat conciliatory tone, telling the crowd “you’re the experts on what’s happening in the community,” and name-dropping the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site as commemorating “one of the great historic folks.”
But he struggled to keep it relatable. By a few minutes in, he brought up the embattled USAID in what he clearly thought was a slam dunk: “When USAID sent hundreds of millions of dollars to central Africa, didn’t you ask, ‘why didn’t you send it to 7D? (the Seventh District),” he asked.
There was an immediate and resounding “no” from the crowd.
“You didn’t?,” Martin scoffed. “Well you should. I did.”
This was a pretty disgusting attempt by Martin to sow division by invoking U.S. Agency for International Development cuts, which are inhibiting everything from HIV treatment to maternal health care in Africa.
Martin appeared to be taking tips from his boss here: President Donald Trump peddled this same kind of “foreigners are taking your money” schlock, particularly to Black audiences, during last year’s campaign. And the Washingtonian noted that Martin was called out on this by Cora Masters Barry, the widow of former Washington Mayor Marion Barry:
A few minutes later, Cora Masters Barry, Marion Barry’s widow, took issue, giving Martin the most severe dressing down of the day. “You need to learn your politics,” she said. “You need to learn geography, and world affairs. There’s a whole different pot of money that goes to Africa that stops diseases…. You don’t know what you talking about, so be careful about what you say when you go places, because you show that you’re not well read.”
Ouch. She basically called Martin an ignoramus to his face. And Barry didn’t stop there:
Barry also pointed out that Martin, in his focus on crime, ignored the fact that DC had already made progress.
“You haven’t once mentioned Metropolitan [Police Department],” she said. “You haven’t talked about the chief of police, who’s doing a great job of bringing crime down. So you can’t sit there and talk about what you gonna do as if something’s not being done already. What you do is you walk in and you say: ‘what’s being done and how can I help?’”
She reportedly received applause when she advised Martin to “be careful how you talk to us.”
This seems to have been a pretty disastrous showing by Martin, whose MAGA messaging clearly goes over well with hardcore Trump supporters — and far less so with residents of Anacostia. At least those residents appear to see him more as an occupying force in D.C., which Trump has said he wants to “take over,” than a helpful partner to its communities.