The appointment of a top Department of Justice official, Ed Martin, as “special attorney” to lead the criminal investigations of Senator Adam Schiff and New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, underscores the growing legal peril for two Democrats who have spent years using the power of their offices to pursue President Trump.

Mr. Martin’s appointment as special attorney comes via Attorney General Pam Bondi, to whom he will report. The decision whether to seek indictments will belong to the attorney general. Mr. Martin already serves as the Department of Justice’s pardon attorney, with responsibility for assisting the president in his exercise of his constitutional powers of clemency.  

Mr. Martin also leads the “Weaponization Working Group” that was convened by Ms. Bondi in February. The group is charged with probing “Federal cooperation with the weaponization by the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, New York Attorney General Letitia James, their respective staffs, and other New York officials to target President Trump, his family, and his businesses.” It is also investigating Special Counsel Jack Smith.

The investiture of Mr. Martin as pardon attorney, head of the weaponization group, and now special attorney comes after he served as interim United States attorney for the District of Columbia, a powerful prosecutorial post. Mr. Martin’s nomination for the permanent position, though, was thwarted when the White House could not muster the votes in the Senate to confirm him.

The death knell for Mr. Martin’s confirmation prospects was sounded by a Republican, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who recently announced that he will not be seeking re-election. Mr. Tillis declared after a meeting with Mr. Martin: “I have no tolerance for anybody that entered the building on January 6, and that’s probably where most of the friction was.”

Mr. Martin, who previously served as the chairman of Missouri’s Republican Party, was an organizer for the “Stop the Steal” rallies that argued that Mr. Trump won the 2020 presidential election. Mr. Martin was a frequent guest on RT and Sputnik, both organs of the Kremlin. He has written that “mediocre men“ in the West despise President Vladimir Putin “because he reminds them of their inadequacies.”

During Mr. Martin’s time as the district’s top prosecutor he fired some 30 lawyers who worked on January 6 cases after Mr. Trump pardoned nearly everyone who was convicted or pleaded guilty in connection with the protest at the Capitol. A group of former prosecutors in the office he led accused him in a letter of having “butchered the position, effectively destroying it as a vehicle by which to pursue justice and turning it into a political arm of the current administration.” Mr. Trump nominated Judge Jeanine Pirro to replace him, and she recently won confirmation. 

Now Mr. Martin’s remit will center on the allegations that two of Mr. Trump’s highest-profile foes lied on mortgage documents. The criminal referrals for both Mr. Schiff and Ms. James came from the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, William Pulte, the heir to the Pulte Homes fortune. The DOJ was persuaded enough by the evidence adduced by Mr. Pulte to open the investigations. 

Ms. James secured a $500 million civil judgment against Mr. Trump for fraud connected to the overvaluation of properties. Mr. Trump has appealed the immense penalty imposed by Judge Arthur Engoron. Now Ms. James is accused of listing a modest Norfolk, Virginia, home as her primary residence despite being required to live in New York, exaggerating the number of units in a Brooklyn home she owned, and listing her father as her husband on mortgage documents. 

Ms. James’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, calls the case against his client “threadbare” and “cherry-picked” and asserts that it amounts to a “revenge tour” against his client, who has made pursuing Mr. Trump a centerpiece of her time in office. Mr. Schiff also denies the allegations against him, which turn on representations that a home in Potomac was his primary residence despite a one-bedroom apartment in downtown Burbank also being designated as such — even though, at the time, he had two children in his household.

Ms. James is also facing a separate DOJ investigation — overseen by the acting United States attorney for Northern New York — into allegations that she violated Mr. Trump’s civil rights when she sued him for fraud. A grand jury has approved the DOJ’s request for a subpoena in that case. Ms. James is also being investigated, by the same office, for violating the civil rights of the National Rifle Association.