How Much Did Trump Stooge Ed Martin Blab to Alex Jones?
The InfoWars chief was hardly discreet in hinting he knew about DOJ’s “retribution” investigations.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP’S campaign of retribution is being informally led by Ed Martin, the pardon attorney in the Department of Justice, and Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. For months, they’ve harassed Trump’s political adversaries with bogus claims of mortgage fraud. But in a twist, we’ve now learned that the DOJ is investigating Martin and Pulte themselves for allegedly improper conduct.
ABC News reports that the DOJ and FBI are “scrutinizing” the possibility that Martin and Pulte “enlisted individuals outside the Department of Justice to probe allegations of mortgage fraud” in their investigations of Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Cal.) and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Martin heads Trump’s “Weaponization Working Group” at the DOJ. And ABC News’s sources say he “is also believed to have shared sensitive grand jury information about the James case with at least one unauthorized individual as well as worked with another person from outside the federal government to examine potential evidence in the Schiff and James probes.” In addition, MS NOW reports that “a federal grand jury in Maryland is investigating whether” Martin and Pulte “illegally shared sensitive grand jury information with unauthorized people.” (On Monday, a federal judge threw out the indictments of James and former FBI director James Comey, ruling that the prosecutor who brought the charges, Lindsey Halligan, had been improperly appointed.)
There is still much about the DOJ’s reported probe into Martin and Pulte that we do not know. There are lots of disturbing questions raised by one thing we do know, however: that at least one notorious public figure has also claimed insider knowledge of Martin’s investigative work—Alex Jones, the far-right conspiracist behind InfoWars.
In August, nearly two months before James was charged with mortgage fraud, Jones told his InfoWars audience that Martin had shared his plans for investigating prominent Democrats. Jones said Martin was pursuing alleged “process crimes” committed by Democrats, adding that “a whole bunch” of grand juries had been opened as part of Martin’s plan. Jones also claimed that he had taken “fifteen pages of notes” based on his conversation with Martin.
Jones laid out the details of his talk with Martin in two clips posted on social media.
On August 23, Jones posted a short video with the caption: “HUGE DOJ ACTIONS INCOMING!!!!!” Jones claimed he had been speaking to “high-level DOJ sources” and that he had a “long conversation with one today.” Jones said he was “authorized to tell you basically everything they told me except a few things.”
“There are a whole bunch of grand juries open and I know where and a lot more,” Jones said. “And I can tell you Trump is cracking the whip and pushing through the DOJ, any of the bureaucrats that are trying to block this and [Trump] is in daily communication with the patriots in there,” Jones said. He cited the raid on the home of John Bolton, Trump’s former national security advisor, as well as grand jury investigations into former Special Counsel Jack Smith and NY AG Letitia James.
Some people say “you shouldn’t be telling the bad guys that Ed Martin and others are coming,” Jones said. But he continued anyway.
“Big actions against the deep state coming,” Jones said “The deep state’s gonna try to stage false flags. Pray for Trump. Pray for the patriots at DOJ. There’s a civil war inside there. Pray for Ed Martin. God bless you all.”
Jones followed up one day later, claiming he was going to share a “MEGA-BOMBSHELL EXCLUSIVE!!!” with his InfoWars audience. Jones said he had spoken to Martin for forty-five minutes the previous day and had taken “about fifteen pages of notes.”
“I’ve known Ed [for] twenty-five years and he’s one of the most stalwart, trustworthy people, everybody knows that,” Jones boasted, pointing out that Martin had appeared on InfoWars many times before. The president “trusts him so much” and he “doesn’t say” things that are “half-baked or untrue.” Jones described Martin as the president’s “roving field marshal with authority all over the country.”
“He [Martin] has full discretion from the president to say whatever he wants, he decided to tell me,” Jones said. According to Jones, Martin laid out his plan for investigating prominent Democrats. Jones claimed they were “simpatico on strategy,” including the “stuff that’s been done to InfoWars.” And “out of the thirty-plus things he told me, about twenty of them are over-the-top, bombshell important.”
Jones claimed he was given “exclusive stuff” on the grand juries that had been opened. “They’ve got grand juries open in Virginia, Missouri, New York, and a bunch of other states,” Jones told his audience. “And I don’t mean just one per state.” Martin was planning on investigating Democrats for tax evasion and other supposed crimes. “I can tell you that there’s process crimes all over the place in this,” Jones said. “So when you see people indicted for process crimes, that’s not because they’re limiting it, that’s to get them in the bear trap, and then to get them to roll over,” Jones said. “They’re gonna get ’em any way they can,” the InfoWars host said at one point, claiming that “they” had filed fake tax returns and committed “perjury.”
Among Martin’s targets, according to Jones, is Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who “has got a big old bullseye on his commie ass” for supposedly inciting people against ICE agents in the city.
Another target is former special counsel Jack Smith. “They’ve got Jack Smith’s emails, his text messages, they’ve got everything,” Jones claimed, adding that Martin was even “looking” at this evidence as he spoke with Jones on the phone. The InfoWars host accused Smith of seeking to “roll out actual, North Korean tribunals” for trying “tens of thousands of people in mass show trials” on January 6th-related charges —an especially unhinged allegation. (Martin has claimed elsewhere that Smith wanted to hold a “maxi trial” for hundreds of defendants.)
Jones lauded Martin for pursuing indictments. “They just never had anybody at the DOJ who had balls enough to do this and try to get the indictments,” Jones said. He added: “And Ed Martin is in there with the goods and they’re going to get grand juries that aren’t in places like D.C.”
At the end of Jones’s segment on August 24, he flashed a picture of Martin standing outside a brownstone. The image matches footage of Martin outside James’s Brooklyn townhome that was posted online by the New York Post earlier in the month. On August 15, the Post gleefully reported that Martin, “conspicuous in a beige trench coat,” was “spotted . . . inspecting Tish James’ multi-family residential property that is at the center of a federal mortgage fraud investigation.”
Prior to joining the DOJ earlier this year, Martin served as the president of the Phyllis Schlafly Eagles. On August 25, the Eagles trumpeted Martin’s conversation with Jones. “Ed tells Alex Jones that justice is coming swiftly,” the Eagles wrote in an email. “Alex Jones took to the airwaves on Sunday [August 24] to talk about an in-depth phone call he had with Ed over the weekend.” The Eagles added (emphasis in original): “There’s just too much to explain! You simply must watch the video to hear about their phone call.”
On September 14, Alex Jones posted a picture of himself standing alongside Martin with a caption that reads: “The Deep State is in DEEP SHIT!”
Then, on September 23, Jones posted a letter from Martin to an attorney representing FBI Special Agent William Aldenberg, a first responder to the Sandy Hook massacre. Martin’s letter is dated September 15—the day after Jones posted his side-by-side photo with Martin.
Jones trumpeted the letter with a caption claiming the Martin-led Weaponization Working Group had launched an investigation into the “The Democrat Party / FBI” for supposedly “Directing Illegal Law-fare Against Alex Jones And Infowars.”
In the letter, Martin requested information regarding Aldenberg’s “role in certain litigation that may benefit him personally and that may impact our citizens and our legal system.” Ominously, Martin wrote that “there are criminal laws protecting the citizens from actions by government employees who may be acting for personal benefit.” Martin “encourage[d]” the attorney to “review those” laws.
Jones, of course, already well known as a spreader of paranoid and wacky ideas, became especially infamous for his bizarre claims about the Sandy Hook shooting, which left twenty children and six educators dead. Jones falsely claimed it was a “deep state” false flag operation.
Aldenberg and the families of some of the Sandy Hook victims sued Jones for defamation and the infliction of emotional distress. Aldenberg testified during the case, explaining that Jones’s conspiracy-mongering led to threats against and other law enforcement officials. Jones lost the case and was reportedly ordered to pay Aldenberg $90 million, out of a total judgment of $1.4 billion.
Christopher Mattei, Aldenberg’s lawyer, blasted Martin for sending the letter. “Thanks to the courage of the Sandy Hook families, InfoWars will soon be finished,” Mattei said. “In his last gasps, Jones is once again harassing them, only now with the corrupt complicity of at least one DOJ official. It’s as disgusting as it is pathetic, and we will not stand for it.”
On September 24, one day after Jones posted the letter, Martin withdrew his written request. Martin was reportedly admonished by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche for sending it.
Assuming Jones is telling the truth, what else did Martin tell Jones about his investigations into top Democrats? What is in Jones’s fifteen pages of notes from his conversation with Martin in August? Did they discuss the investigations into Schiff and James?
We do not know.
We do know that the relationship between Martin and Jones is deeply troubling, given Martin’s roles inside the DOJ. It shows that Martin is pursuing an extreme, sensationalist agenda—not justice.
Thomas Joscelyn served as a senior professional staff member for the House January 6th Committee and is a principal author of the committee’s final report.
Susan Corke is the executive director of Democracy Defenders Action (DDA) and Democracy Defenders Fund (DDF).
 | A guest post by
|
 | A guest post by
|