Former U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin is pushing back hard against accusations of a "cash for clemency" scheme, comparing the allegations to the discredited Russia collusion narrative, while admitting the administration lost critical momentum after its first few months in office.
Martin, 56, who stepped down from the pardon attorney post last month after a 15-month tenure, sat for a lengthy interview on the New York Post's "Pod Force One" podcast with columnist Miranda Devine. He used the conversation to take aim at a recent "60 Minutes" season premiere report that featured hidden-camera footage of so-called pardon brokers Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl boasting about their supposed influence over presidential clemency decisions.
Martin was blunt about what he thought of the broadcast and the men at its center.
"To me, this is like the Russia hoax. I don't believe what Leslie Stahl was peddling."
The "60 Minutes" footage showed Burkman and Wohl claiming they could "put pressure on the president from all directions in a consistent way, to force his hand." Martin dismissed both men as self-promoters selling access they did not have, and rejected the premise that the clemency process had been compromised.
Rather than accepting the corruption frame, Martin flipped the argument. He said President Trump deserved praise, not blame, for how he handled clemency, contrasting his approach with that of his predecessors.
"Donald Trump should get credit, not blame; he should get credit for changing the way we look at commutations and pardons, because most of the presidents, Bill Clinton, [George] W. [Bush], [Barack] Obama, even [Joe] Biden, did their pardons in the dark of night on their way out the door."
During his 15 months on the job, Martin said he personally met with more than 1,000 individuals to determine whether clemency was warranted. That volume alone, he argued, showed the administration took the process seriously rather than treating it as a last-minute political favor bank.
Martin's tenure was not without turbulence. His original nomination as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia collapsed after key Senate Republicans withdrew their support. President Trump then reassigned Martin to lead both the Office of the Pardon Attorney and the DOJ's Weaponization Working Group, a body created to scrutinize federal prosecutions of Trump.
That second role did not last. Martin was later removed as head of the Weaponization Working Group and relocated away from DOJ headquarters, with sources indicating the group was not making meaningful progress under his leadership. He kept the pardon attorney title until stepping down last month.
Some of Martin's most candid remarks had nothing to do with pardons. He offered a frank assessment of the administration's early energy, and how quickly it faded.
"I'm reminded, first of all, of our first two or three months, they were glorious. We were just firing everybody, getting rid of cases. We're pardoning everybody. The energy was up, and the fearlessness was high."
Then came the drop-off.
"And after three months, everybody's tired, and you sort of settle into a rhythm, and it changes."
Martin directed part of that frustration at the Department of Government Efficiency, now described as defunct. He acknowledged DOGE identified waste and eliminated some of it, but said the effort fell short of what the moment demanded.
"I know everybody thinks, 'Oh, DOGE, DOGE, DOGE.' They identified a lot, and we got rid of a lot. I'm not saying we didn't. But that's the window where there's real possibilities."
His conclusion was pointed: "In retrospect, I think you have to use that first period of time to cut even deeper." The implication was clear, the administration had a narrow opening when political resistance was weakest and public expectations were highest, and it did not push hard enough before fatigue set in.
Martin also discussed what he found when he reviewed former special counsel Jack Smith's files. He did not detail specific documents but offered a sharp characterization.
"I looked at Jack Smith's inbox and this guy was a real nasty planner. Donald Trump was at the center of this grand thing. It would have been a show trial."
On former President Joe Biden, Martin held nothing back. He called the 46th president "one of the great frauds" in American history and went further, describing him as "one of the evil frauds of American history" who "did real evil, allowed real evil." Martin said even Biden's own political allies had moved on from him.
Martin also signaled that the DOJ's review of Biden's last-minute pardons remains an active matter. He previously vowed that his office would scrutinize whether clemency in those cases was used appropriately or for political purposes, a question that remains unresolved now that Martin has left the post.
The former pardon attorney's interview painted a picture of an administration that started with genuine urgency and real accomplishments but ran into the same bureaucratic gravity that slows every presidency. Martin's frustration was not with the mission, it was with the pace.
Washington has a way of exhausting the people who come to change it. The question is whether the people who sent them there are willing to accept "everybody's tired" as an answer.
