DC Prosecutor Ed Martin Goes After Wikipedia For Exercising First Amendment Rights

Ed Martin, the improbable acting US Attorney for DC, is at it again. This time he’s menacing Wikipedia for the dastardly crime of not citing The Federalist as a reliable source, which is apparently a capital offense these days.

As first reported by The Free Press, Martin sent one of his signature nastygrams to the Wikimedia Foundation.

“As a nonprofit corporation, which is incorporated in the District of Columbia, the Wikimedia Foundation is subject to specific legal obligations and fiduciary duties consistent with its tax-exempt status,” he announced. Which is true, as far as it goes, although his suggestion that “the public is entitled to rely on a reasonable expectation of neutrality, transparency, and accountability” from the nonprofit is perhaps straying outside his own lane.

Martin never worked as a prosecutor before Trump tapped him to run the biggest US Attorney’s Office in the country, and his main claim to fame before coming into Trump’s orbit was breaking Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum. But he did represent a bunch of January 6 rioters, which is more than enough qualification in this administration.

Martin’s brief tenure has already been eventful. When he’s not threatening sitting members of Congress, he’s dismissing a case against his own former client. Or swearing fealty to DOGE. Or putting experienced prosecutors on the misdemeanor docket to punish them for their perfidy in the January 6 cases. Or trying and failing to get a grand jury to indict climate activists after pushing out the experienced prosecutor who said there was no probable cause. He’s been busy!

But Martin still made time to harass the people at Wikipedia.

“Wikipedia’s operations are directed by its board that is composed primarily of
foreign nationals, subverting the interests of American taxpayers,” he intoned ominously, warning that “information received by my Office demonstrates that Wikipedia’s informational management policies benefit foreign powers.”

Which foreign powers he did not say — odd considering the number of times Martin appeared on RT, the Kremlin’s propaganda network. Also odd is Martin’s LARPing as head of the IRS, who would normally be responsible for policing non-profits.

The letter comes in the wake of a series of conservative attacks on Wikipedia for supposed pro-Palestinian and anti-conservative bias. The New York Post’s editors called for Big Tech to “block Wikipedia until it stops censoring and pushing disinformation.” The board professed to be shocked to discover that “Wikipedia refuses its stamp of approval to 100% of right-leaning media sources versus only 16% of left-leaning ones.” The source for this stat is the Media Research Center, an outfit which works “to expose and counter the leftist bias of the national news media.” MRC is, of course, a 501(c)(3), just like the Wikimeda Foundation.

As is his MO, Martin made a raft of demands which are wholly antithetical to the First Amendment. How does Wikipedia manage its content moderators? What does the organization do to ensure “that content submissions, editorial decisions, and article revisions reflect a broad spectrum of viewpoints, including those that may be in tension with the views of major financial or institutional backers?” Shouldn’t the website ban anonymous mods and editors?

And he demanded “all documents, memoranda of understanding, contracts, or related agreements” pertaining to AI scraping or licensing agreements.

The letter was cordial, if ridiculous. But on social media, Martin was (even) less professional.

“Hey @Wikipedia: you can run but you can’t hide!” he tweeted, linking to a post on his own letter. And then he went back to refreshing the Google search for his own name that is permanently running in the background of his computer.

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.

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