Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and pardon attorney Ed Martin traded personal insults Thursday on social media, a remarkably public feud between a sitting Republican senator and member of the administration.
Tuesday’s sparring comes after Tillis, who helped sink Martin’s nomination to be U.S. attorney in Washington and is leaving the Senate at the end of his term next January, incorrectly asserted in a POLITICO interview Thursday that Martin was no longer employed by the Justice Department.
Martin responded in a now-deleted post on X: “Hey @SenThomTillis: are you ok? Having memory issues for retirement? You called me on my cellphone recently to block a pardon for one of your constituents. Remember?”
He fumed in another post: “Deranged. Instead back to North Carolina, just go to Hell. Good riddance. #DrainTheSwamp Btw, the TILLIS Standard: MAGA doesn’t forget losers!”
“Being hated by idiots is the price you pay for not being one of them,” Tillis fired back on X.
The pair have a history.
The North Carolina Republican dealt a crushing blow to Martin’s nomination to be the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., last March because of Martin’s advocacy on behalf of multiple Jan. 6 defendants.
Tillis told POLITICO he’d employ that same standard for whomever Trump nominates to replace Pam Bondi as attorney general.
“Hopefully, they’ll take me at my word when I say anybody who equivocated on the Jan. 6 rioters, I just can’t support,” he said.
Later Thursday morning, Tillis said he had called Martin to stave off the pardon of a billionaire North Carolina financier who owes more than $500 million in restitution payments to insurers.
“Ed Martin is correct about one thing,” Tillis wrote. “The ‘constituent’ I opposed pardoning was Greg Lindberg, who was convicted of defrauding North Carolinians to the tune of billions of dollars and attempting to bribe public officials. Keep up the great work, Ed.”
