President Donald Trump’s failed U.S. attorney nominee-turned-pardon attorney Ed Martin is trying to move his DC Bar disciplinary proceedings to federal court. It’s a move that another Trump-aligned lawyer, Jeffrey Clark, previously tried and failed.
The DC Bar is looking into Martin based on his actions while serving as the district’s acting U.S. attorney, before bipartisan opposition blocked his confirmation (which ultimately went to Jeanine Pirro).
Among Martin’s unusual activities during his interim top prosecutor stint was writing, in February 2025, to the dean of Georgetown Law School, a private Catholic and Jesuit institution, about the school’s alleged “DEI” practices, which Martin deemed “unacceptable” and said his office would not hire students from schools with such practices. The dean responded in a March 2025 letter that the First Amendment prevents the government from telling Georgetown what to teach and how to teach it.
Martin reiterated that he wanted answers to his DEI questions and noted Georgetown’s status as a federally funded nonprofit, adding that no Georgetown Law students would be considered for positions in his office. Martin also wrote to the university’s president and board chair, complaining that the dean had not responded and stating answers to his questions were relevant to the university’s nonprofit status and federal funding.
Phillip Argento, a Georgetown graduate and retired judge, wrote to the DC Bar, requesting an investigation of what he called Martin’s apparent professional misconduct. Argento wrote that, as someone who teaches at his church, he viewed Martin’s letter to the school as an attack on religious freedom.
The bar initiated formal disciplinary proceedings. In a filing specifying the charges last month, bar disciplinary counsel Hamilton Fox alleged Martin “knew or should have known that, as a government official, his conduct violated the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.”
Fox also accused Martin of misconduct in response to the bar’s investigation by engaging in unauthorized direct communication with a judge during a proceeding and engaging in conduct that seriously interfered with the administration of justice.
In support of those charges, Fox recounted that, instead of responding to an initial letter from the bar, Martin reached out to the chief and senior judges of D.C.’s court of appeals, said he would not respond to the bar, complained about Fox’s “uneven behavior” and requested a “face-to-face” meeting with the judges “to discuss this matter and find a way forward.” The chief judge told Martin she could not meet with him, saying he should raise any concerns through the regular disciplinary process. Martin continued communicating with the judge, urging “that you not only suspend Mr. Fox immediately to investigate his conduct, but also to dismiss the case against me because of his prejudicial conduct.”
Martin has raised several defenses to the bar charges, including arguing that the bar lacks jurisdiction over the conduct in question because he was acting pursuant to Trump’s presidential authority to enforce the Constitution.
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Ahead of a prehearing conference with the bar set for April 20, Martin has added another wrinkle to the matter.
On Tuesday, he filed a notice in D.C. federal court, arguing that’s the forum in which the proceedings should move forward. In his federal filing, Martin cast the matter as stemming from his investigation of Fox and from Fox then retaliating by investigating Martin in turn.
“The case is being removed to this Court because Mr. Martin is entitled to a federal forum for the adjudication of his federal defenses,” his lawyers wrote in Tuesday’s federal court filing. In addition to his legal argument, the 98-page document contains exhibits of relevant letters and filings, including his correspondence with Georgetown and judges.
The bar will have an opportunity to respond in federal court. One of the cases it might cite in opposition to Martin’s removal bid is Clark’s failed effort. During the first Trump term, the former assistant attorney general sought to remove his bar proceedings that stemmed from his alleged conduct in the wake of the 2020 election.
Rejecting Clark’s federal removal bid in a 2023 ruling, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras wrote that Congress “has committed the regulation of federal government attorneys to the states and courts where they practice.” The Obama-appointee cited the Supreme Court’s observation of the tradition, “since the founding of the Republic,” that “the licensing and regulation of lawyers has been left exclusively to the States and the District of Columbia within their respective jurisdictions.”
A bipartisan federal appellate panel affirmed Clark’s removal rejection, focusing on procedural issues specific to his case. In any event, the logic underpinning the district judge’s ruling against Clark could lead to the same result against Martin. Even if Martin loses his removal attempt, that would not mean he would necessarily face any bar discipline in the end, only that the matter would not proceed in his chosen forum.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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