AP Photo/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades, File
President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the U.S. Attorney for Washington, DC did not disclose his 100-plus appearances on Russian state TV on a Senate questionnaire ahead of his confirmation hearing, reported The Washington Post on Wednesday.
The bombshell story by Spencer S. Hsu and Aaron Schaffer revealed Ed Martin’s over 150 different appearances on RT and Sputnik – propaganda arms of the Russian government. The report noted that Martin, who is currently the interim U.S. attorney for D.C., appeared on the networks “as a guest commentator from August 2016 to April 2024, according to a search of their websites and the Internet Archive’s database of television broadcasts.”
Additionally, the Post scooped the fact that “Martin did not disclose the appearances last month on a Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire, which asks nominees to list all media interviews. Analysis of television archives suggests he went on RT and Sputnik more often than on any major cable network during that span.”
In September of 2024, the State Department issued a bulletin titled, “Alerting the World to RT’s Global Covert Activities.” In the release the U.S. warned, “we now know that RT moved beyond being simply a media outlet and has been an entity with cyber capabilities. It is also engaged in information operations, covert influence, and military procurement.”
Martin has long been a controversial figure and was an organizer of the “Stop the Steal” movement, claiming the 2020 election was stolen. Earlier in the week, a group of lawyers, a former judge, a former member of Congress, and prosecutors sent a letter to the D.C. Court of Appeals urging an investigation into Martin’s conduct.
“Mr. Martin’s client is not President Trump; it is the United States,” they wrote in the letter, adding, “His assertion otherwise adds further evidence that his announced investigations are politically motivated.”
Read the full Post report here.
