Trump Plans To Pull U.S. Attorney Nominee Who Threatened Medical Marijuana Dispensary With Possible Federal Prosecution

President Donald Trump has announced he will be withdrawing his nomination for a U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C. who recently warned a licensed medical marijuana dispensary in the District about violating federal law and suggested the possibility of prosecutorial action despite compliance with local policy.

While the president’s decision doesn’t appear to be connected to Ed Martin’s hostility toward cannabis policy in D.C.—and Trump gave ample praise to the now-rescinded nominee despite the prospective withdrawal—the shift could give advocates and stakeholders in the District a sense of relief about the prospects of further federal intervention in its local marijuana policies.

Trump said during an event in the Oval Office on Thursday that he still hopes to see Martin placed in another position with the Justice Department, “or whatever, in some capacity.”

“He was really outstanding. It was, to me, it was disappointing. I’ll be honest,” the president said. “I have to be straight. I was disappointed. A lot of people were disappointed, but that’s the way it works sometimes.”

Martin was embroiled in controversy for reasons unrelated to his actions against the D.C. cannabis dispensary, including his limited prosecutorial experience and defense of those who participated in the January 6 riots at the Capitol after Trump lost the 2020 election.

“We have somebody else that we’ll be announcing over the next two days [to serve as the U.S. prosecutor in D.C.] who’s going to be great,” Trump said.

Martin, for his part, recently gave mixed signals about his approach to prosecuting alleged violations of federal laws by licensed marijuana businesses—saying on the one hand that prohibition must be “abided by,” but also specifying that cannabis operators who are not in compliance with local laws are most at risk of enforcement action.

“Anybody who is selling marijuana better have a license and everything in order, otherwise we will pursue action against them,” he said at the time.

Green Theory, the dispensary that the prosecutor targeted in his letter, is compliant with D.C. laws, though Martin has also made the case that it is in violation of a separate federal statute that prohibits cannabis shops within 1,000 feet of schools, as is the case with the business in question.

In an interview late last month, Martin said shutting down licensed marijuana dispensaries doesn’t “rise to the top” of his priorities, but his “instinct is that it shouldn’t be in the community.”

“You apply the facts to the law, but you do it in the context of what the community is going through at that moment,” he said.

In March, meanwhile, the White House called the District’s move to decriminalize marijuana an example of a “failed” policy that “opened the door to disorder.”

In a fact sheet about an executive order that Trump signed—which is broadly aimed at beautifying the District and making it more safe—the White House listed several local policies in the nation’s capital that it takes issue with, including cannabis reform. That’s despite the president’s previously stated support for a states’ rights approach to marijuana laws.

“D.C.’s failed policies opened the door to disorder—and criminals noticed,” it says, citing “marijuana decriminalization,” as well as the District’s decision to end pre-trial detentions and enforcement practices around rioters, as examples of such policies.

The executive order itself doesn’t mention marijuana specifically. But it says the directive will involve “deploying a more robust Federal law enforcement presence and coordinating with local law enforcement to facilitate the deployment of a more robust local law enforcement presence as appropriate in areas in or about” D.C., and that includes addressing “drug possession, sale, and use.”

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Recreational cannabis possession and personal cultivation is legal in D.C. under a voter-approved ballot initiative, though commercial sales of non-medical marijuana remain illegal.

During Trump’s first term in the White House, he maintained that D.C. rider to keep blocking cannabis sales in his budget requests, as did Biden.

Last week, Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said she intends to “continue to fight” against efforts by her GOP colleagues to interfere with the District’s marijuana laws, vowing to again push for the removal of a spending bill rider that’s long prevented a commercial cannabis market.

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