President Donald Trump announced that he was withdrawing his nomination for the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., on Thursday.
Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina said he would not support the president’s nominee, Ed Martin, over his support for those arrested at the U.S. Capitol rioting on Jan. 6. Martin is the acting prosecutor for the District of Colombia, but he needs congressional approval to continue in the office.
‘Whether it’s 30 days or three years is debatable, but I have no tolerance for anybody who entered the building on January 6.’
The president told reporters at the Oval Office on Thursday that he was pulling Martin’s nomination.
“He wasn’t getting the support,” said Trump. “I’m very disappointed in that. … I’m one person. I can only lift that little phone so many times in a day.”
Tillis told reporters that he objected to Martin’s defense of the Jan. 6 rioters and could not support his nomination.
“I met with Mr. Martin; he seems like a good man,” he said.
“Most of my concerns related to January 6, and he built a compelling case on some of the 15 or 12 prosecutions that were probably ‘heat of the moment’ bad decisions,” Tillis added. “But where we probably have a difference is I think anybody that breached 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 6.”
He went on to say the location made a big difference for him as well.
“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 him,” Tillis said. “But not in this district.”
Critics of Tillis’ position argued that handing Democrats a victory on this position would open the floodgates to further stalling of the president’s agenda.
“Democrats view blocking Martin as their best shot to stall the entire Trump agenda,” wrote Blaze Media senior politics editor and Washington correspondent Christopher Bedford. “If they win this round — especially before action begins on the tax and border reconciliation bill — they will exploit GOP hesitation and slow the administration’s rollout. It’s a savvy play, especially at a moment when Democrats and the left have few options.”
The president said that he would be nominating someone else for the position within the next two days.
“Hopefully we can bring him into, whether it’s DOJ or whatever, in some capacity,” Trump said to reporters about Martin.
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