American Oversight Demands Urgent Action Amid Claims Ed Martin — Trump’s DOJ “Chief Enforcer” — Used Auto-Deleting Apps

Following explosive allegations from House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin that Edward P. Martin, Jr., the head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Weaponization Working Group, has been conducting official business on personal devices and auto-deleting messaging applications like Signal to evade federal record-keeping requirements, American Oversight sent a letter Wednesday to Attorney General Pam Bondi and National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Acting Archivist Marco Rubio demanding urgent action to recover any missing records and prevent further destruction.

The demand letter cites allegations described by Ranking Member Raskin, who wrote to Martin this week outlining “credible” information that Martin sought to evade accountability by concealing his communications related to the Weaponization Working Group’s activities. Under the Federal Records Act (FRA), the DOJ and NARA are legally obligated to take swift action when federal records are at risk of destruction.

“Ed Martin has become a one-man wrecking ball to the rule of law, wielding his newfound power as an instrument for carrying out President Trump’s personal vendettas instead of fulfilling his constitutional duty to serve the public,” said Chioma Chukwu, Executive Director of American Oversight. “If Martin is using personal devices and disappearing-message apps to secretly conduct government business, he isn’t just obstructing transparency, he is shielding politically motivated actions from oversight, eroding safeguards meant to prevent abuses of power, and threatening the very integrity of our justice system. Attorney General Bondi and Acting Archivist Rubio must act immediately to recover any missing records and prevent further destruction of government documents in violation of federal law.”

Our letter warns that messages sent on personal devices or messaging applications like Signal qualify as federal records when they involve government business — and that the failure to preserve them constitutes a violation of the FRA. We urged Bondi and Rubio to intervene immediately, halt any ongoing use of personal devices that do not comply with recordkeeping requirements, and initiate efforts to retrieve any records at risk of being permanently lost.

Martin has been characterized as “the chief enforcer” of President Trump’s political agenda within the DOJ. He has become a central figure in the administration’s efforts to re-litigate the 2020 election, including reportedly sending a letter demanding immediate access to more than 148,000 absentee ballots cast in Georgia’s Fulton County — a request celebrated by some of the nation’s leading election conspiracy theorists. His supposed inquiry, amplified by election deniers, has been cited as evidence that the DOJ is working hand-in-hand with activists promoting debunked claims of widespread voter fraud in Georgia.

Earlier this year, he oversaw a sweeping purge of the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office, demoting top career prosecutors who handled cases against Trump’s closest advisers and Jan. 6 conspirators. He previously cast himself — and other federal prosecutors — as the president’s personal lawyer, abandoning the role of independent officers sworn to uphold the Constitution. After a brief stint as interim U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., in early 2025 — a role for which he ultimately failed to secure Senate confirmation — Martin moved to the DOJ headquarters and assumed several senior positions, including director of the department’s newly-created Weaponization Working Group.

Launched in February, the Weaponization Working Group was tasked with reviewing the conduct of federal agencies over the prior four years to identify actions it claimed may have been driven by political or otherwise improper motives rather than legitimate law enforcement objectives. In practice, the Working Group quickly undertook investigations targeting figures who had previously held Trump and his allies to account, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, who secured a major mortgage fraud judgment against the Trump Organization, and Senator Adam Schiff, a key member of the House committee that investigated Trump’s role in the January 6 insurrection.