Trump US attorney nominee distances himself from antisemitic Jan. 6 rioter he once praised
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(WASHINGTON) — Ed Martin, President Donald Trump’s nominee for the next U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., apologized in a new interview for his past praise of a Jan. 6 rioter who had a lengthy history of antisemitic statements and infamously posted photos of himself dressed as Adolf Hitler.
“I’m sorry,” Ed Martin said in an interview with the Jewish publication Forward. “I denounce everything about what that guy said, everything about the way he talked, and all as I’ve now seen it … At the time, I didn’t know it.”
Martin’s comments come as his nomination faces headwinds in the Senate over his public praise for Jan. 6 rioter Timothy Hale-Cussanelli at a 2024 event at Trump’s Bedminster club in 2024.
At the event, one of several fundraisers held at Trump’s private clubs to benefit Jan. 6 rioters, Martin described Hale-Cussanelli as an “extraordinary man” and “extraordinary leader.”
It’s unclear how Martin, vying to be the top prosecutor in one of the nation’s most important U.S. attorney’s offices, could claim to be unaware of Hale-Cussanelli’s past anti-Semitic statements and praise for Hitler — much less as late as 2024.
A Google search of Hale-Cussanelli’s name turns up the series of now-infamous selfies that surfaced following his arrest that show him donning a Hitler mustache and holding his hand over his chest.
Hale-Cusanelli’s antisemitic views made him one of the more prominently covered Jan. 6 defendants. At his sentencing hearing, the Trump-appointed judge overseeing his case, Trevor McFadden, said, “Statements and actions like yours make [Jewish people] less safe and less confident they can participate as equal members of our society.”
Prosecutors further surfaced antisemitic statements he made to his coworkers at a naval weapons station that “Hitler should have finished the job” and “babies born with any deformities or disabilities should be shot in the forehead.”
Martin was also previously asked about Hale-Cussanelli’s antisemitic views in a recently posted interview with the Washington Informer, and didn’t denounce him directly.
“When someone says, ‘Hey, do you understand that of the January 6 defendants, there were some really rotten actors, and there were people that said terrible things in their lives, or even did terrible things?’ then, fair enough,” Martin said in that interview. “But I feel pretty good about the fact that we try to make ourselves better every day, and we try to get people give people a break, going forward, and I’ve got a pretty long career of fighting, I think for the right causes.”
A man shouts at Rep. Chuck Edwards during a congressional town hall meeting on March 13, 2025 in Asheville, North Carolina/Sean Rayford/Getty Images
(ASHEVILLE, N.C.) — Republican Congressman Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., was confronted by angry constituents during a town hall meeting on Thursday night about President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s sweeping cuts across the government.
“How do you justify cuts to staff of the VA helping veterans, especially those with long term care needs,” asked one constituent who was met with a standing ovation from the raucous crowd in Asheville, North Carolina.
“So first of all, there have been no cuts to the staff at VA as of this point. Like him or not, Elon Musk has brought a lot of really smart people,” Edwards responded as he was met with a round of boos. Earlier this month, an internal VA memo indicated that the agency was preparing to lay off 80,000 from its workforce.
The interaction turned so contentious and hostile that Edwards had to be escorted out of the building.
“You don’t get to do this to us,” yelled another constituent.
Republican leadership has told their members to avoid in-person town halls like these after several members were grilled in their home districts.
Edwards, however, went against their advice on Thursday.
“”You see a lot of advice in Washington, D.C. from different folks saying, you know, ‘Republicans shouldn’t be out there doing town halls,’ and I’m thinking ‘why not?’ I love the people,” said Edwards.
The Trump administration is pushing forward with sweeping cuts with thousands of workers already having been laid off across the federal workforce – including Veteran Affairs, the IRS and the Department of Education.
Elon Musk split with the White House this week, suggesting that entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security could be on the chopping block next.
“The waste and fraud in entitlement spending, which is all of the, which is most of the federal spending is entitlements, so that’s like the big one to eliminate,” Musk said earlier this week.
Those words have left some voters very concerned, with Edwards taking the brunt end of the attacks Thursday night.
“What are you doing to ensure the protection of our Social Security benefits,” asked on constituent to a round of applause.
Replied Edwards: “I’m not going to vote to dissolve your Social Security. I’m not looking to disrupt Social Security at all.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump’s order to cut off funding to Voice of America (VOA) and several other affiliated pro-democracy media outlets has drawn widespread criticism from press freedom organizations and journalists, who warn it risks severely damaging independent journalism covering some of the world’s most repressive countries.
Trump announced an executive order late Friday to effectively dismantle the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which supervises VOA. Following the order, the head of VOA said all of its 1,300 journalists and staff had been put on administrative leave.
Trump’s executive order also terminated grants for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia, which broadcast news to Eastern Europe, Russia, China and North Korea and Central Asia.
The order threatens to close down media organizations that for decades have provided independent news coverage and promoted journalism to hundreds of millions of people worldwide and provided an information lifeline to people living in countries under authoritarian regimes, advocates say.
The Committee to Protect Journalists, a prominent press freedom organization, called the move a “reward to dictators and despots” and urged Congress to act to preserve the media outlets.
VOA and the other media organizations were founded during World War II to promote democracy and provide uncensored information. But even after the end of the Cold War, in many authoritarian and poor countries, they have continued to play a powerful role as independent news providers, sometimes as the only open media where all others are censored or severely under-resourced, such as Iran, Russia, Belarus, Afghanistan and North Korea.
VOA and its affiliates reach 420 million people in 63 languages and more than 100 countries each week, according to the U.S. Agency for Global Media. VOA and RFE/RL’s reporting has been routinely deemed a threat by authoritarian regimes, which have sought to pressure them, including by jailing their journalists.
Ten journalists and contributors of the VOA, RFE, and RFA are currently either imprisoned or missing in different countries across the world, according to the USAGM website.
In Russia and much of the former Soviet Union, including Ukraine, RFE/RL reporters have played an outsized role in covering political repression and sometimes breaking major corruption investigations. They employ hundreds of local journalists, reporting in both English and the local language.
VOA’s Persian department broadcasts television news programs in Iran and operates a news website. RFE/RL’s Persian Service, Radio Farda, also produces news and analysis in audio and video formats and runs a news website.
“Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iranian journalists have faced intense suppression, censorship, imprisonment, and even execution at the hands of the Islamic Republic of Iran leaving Iranian people with almost no access to free media platforms inside the country,” a UK-based Iranian journalist told ABC News.
“Shutting down outlets like VOA Persian, Radio Liberty, and Radio Farda would deal a major blow to press freedom and the free flow of information in Iran, directly serving the interests of the Islamic Republic,” the journalist, who asked not to be named for security reasons, added.
In a statement published on his LinkedIn Sunday, Michael Abramowitz, Voice of America’s director, said, “For the first time in 83 years, the storied Voice of America is being silenced.”
“VOA promotes freedom and democracy around the world by telling America’s story and by providing objective and balanced news and information, especially for those living under tyranny,” he added.
But Trump and his allies have attacked VOA as corrupt and promoting values alien to the United States. Trump, in his first term, accused the organizations of speaking for “America’s adversaries – not its citizens”.
The White House in a statement Saturday said the order “will ensure that taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda.”
The Trump administration has also framed the gutting of VOA as part of the drastic effort to cut down the federal budget being led by Elon Musk. Musk last month wrote the USGM outlets are “just radical crazy people talking to themselves while torching $1bn/year of US taxpayer money.”
Kari Lake, failed Senate candidate for Arizona, who Trump had tapped to oversee VOA and had promised to overhaul it, on Saturday wrote the agency was “a giant rot and burden to the American taxpayer,” calling it “unsalvageable.”
European leaders on Monday expressed dismay at the cutting of funds to RFE/RL, with some suggesting they were exploring ways to partially fill the gap.
The Czech Republic’s foreign minister, Jan Lipavsky, said RFE/RL, which is based in Prague, “is one of the few credible sources in dictatorships like Iran, Belarus, and Afghanistan.”
He said he would raise the issue with his fellow European Union foreign ministers on Tuesday about how to help the outlet to keep at least partially broadcasting.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski confirmed that the EU is considering options to help RFE/RL, according to the Kyiv Independent.
“We are at the stage of brainstorming, but clearly, these are worthy institutions whose mission should continue,” Sikorski told the website.
(WASHIGTON) — The acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service is planning to resign following the agency’s data sharing agreement with the Department of Homeland Security to support the Trump administration’s efforts to deport undocumented immigrants, three sources familiar with her plans told ABC News.
Melanie Krause is the third leader of the agency to resign this year; Senate-confirmed Commissioner Danny Werfel resigned from his role on Inauguration Day, less than two years into his five-year term.
One month later, acting commissioner Doug O’Donnell, who spent nearly four decades at the IRS, retired amid concerns about the Trump administration’s management of the agency.
A Treasury Department spokesperson also confirmed Krause’s plans to leave the agency in a statement to ABC News.
“Melanie Krause has been leading the IRS through a time of extraordinary change. As we focus on IT modernization and re-organize the agency to better serve the taxpayer, we are also in the midst of breaking down data silos that for too long have stood in the way of identifying waste, fraud, and abuse and bringing criminals to justice. We believe these goals are critical to a more efficient government and safer country. We wish Melanie well on her next endeavor,” the spokesperson said.
Krause did not respond to a request to comment from ABC News.
Other senior agency officials are considering leaving the agency following the new data sharing agreement and are concerned about its legality.
Some found out about its finalization, after weeks of negotiations, only after it was reported by Fox News Tuesday morning, sources told ABC News.
“People at the IRS have a strong sense of pride in tax administration and protecting taxpayer rights, and everything happening isn’t aligned [with that],” one source told ABC News.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signed the agreement with DHS on behalf of the IRS, according to the redacted copy of the deal included in a court filing.
Section 6103 of the federal tax code requires the IRS keep individual taxpayer information confidential with certain limited exceptions, including with law enforcement agencies “for investigation and prosecution of non-tax criminal laws” with approval from a court, according to the agency’s website.
Current and former agency officials also worry the new policy could impact tax collections and discourage undocumented immigrant workers who do pay taxes for a variety of reasons.
The agency has said it will continue to protect the privacy of taxpayer data under the new agreement.
