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(WASHINGTON) — Ed Martin, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said in a message to staff on Friday that he’s “expanded” the scope of his investigation into the office’s handling of cases stemming from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — and likened them to the government’s internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, according to an email obtained by ABC News.

Martin, whose nomination is still pending confirmation by the Senate, has dubbed his investigation the “1512 Project,” referring to the felony obstruction charge used against hundreds of Capitol attack defendants that was later narrowed by the Supreme Court.

“We have contacted lawyers, staff and judges about this — and sought their feedback,” Martin wrote in his email. “One called the bi-partisan rejection of the 1512 charge the ‘greatest failure of legal judgement since FDR and his Attorney General put American citizens of Japanese descent in prison camps — and seized their property.’ I agree and that’s why we continue to look at who ordered the 1512 and why. A lot to do.”

Fifteen of the 16 judges at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, including several Trump appointees, previously upheld the application of the 1512 charge for Jan. 6 defendants whose conduct, prosecutors argued, crossed the line beyond simple misdemeanor trespassing offenses.

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, also joined Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan in dissenting from the court’s majority opinion to say that the obstruction of an official proceeding charge was properly applied to describing Congress’ certification of the presidential election.

Martin further told staff in his email that he has “been asked to look into leaks that took place during the January 6th prosecutions,” which he claimed were “used by the media and partisans as misinformation.”

“It was bad all around. (One participant said she believed the media was in a frenzy for attention like during the OJ Simpson trial),” Martin said.

The email is just the latest in a series of controversial actions by Martin that has thrown one of the most important and high-profile U.S. attorney’s offices in the country into turmoil.

Martin, a “Stop the Steal” promoter who represented several defendants charged in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, has leveled numerous public threats to investigate Democratic lawmakers and sent menacing letters to critics of President Donald Trump.

Among those who have received letters from Martin in which he suggested their actions were under investigation by his office are Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., and Rep. Eugene Vindman, D-Va.

Earlier this week, ABC News confirmed Martin sent an informal letter to President Joe Biden’s younger brother James Biden, inquiring about the sweeping preemptive pardons he and his wife received in the waning hours of the Biden presidency.

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(WASHINGTON) — When President Donald Trump announced his controversial tariffs on virtually every trading partner in the world, he repeatedly called them “reciprocal” — a response, he said, to those nations that had hit the U.S. with tariffs and hurt the American economy.

But Trump’s claim is misleading not only because some of the nations hit with tariffs haven’t levied any against the U.S., but also because the math apparently used by the administration to come up the tariffs doesn’t hold up, according to several economic experts.

The White House’s list of tariffs issued against each location includes different tariff rates. In announcing the tariffs at the Rose Garden on Wednesday, Trump claimed the numbers were calculated based on “the combined rate of all their tariffs, non-monetary barriers and other forms of cheating.” Trump added that he was being “kind,” and divided that number in half and called it a “discount.”

The calculations for almost all of the tariffs was determined by dividing trade deficit of each nation with the value of its imports, according to economic experts’ analysis. That number was then divided in half for Trump’s “discount” for the final tariff percentage, experts said.

“Before yesterday, 99% of trade economists had never seen a formula like this before,” Oren Ziv, an assistant professor of economics at Michigan State University, told ABC News Friday.

Several economic experts and journalists blasted the formula soon after the speech, including James Surowiecki, a financial news journalist and author, who explained it in a post on X.

“So we have a $17.9 billion trade deficit with Indonesia. Its exports to us are $28 billion. $17.9/$28 = 64%, which Trump claims is the tariff rate Indonesia charges us. What extraordinary nonsense this is,” he said in his post.

The White House later put out an explanation of its calculations that said it was using the trade deficit and import figures.

“This calculation assumes that persistent trade deficits are due to a combination of tariff and non-tariff factors that prevent trade from balancing. Tariffs work through direct reductions of imports,” the White House said in a statement.

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told Fox News on Thursday about the administration’s thinking behind their policy.

“So what happened was that the U.S. Trade Representative looked at where the trade deficits were and adjusted the tariffs in order to respond to the national emergency that I think we all agree about,” he said.

Ziv said this logic does not fit with any modern definition of trade deficits.

“When economists study trade deficiency, they don’t find any evidence for this rationale,” he said.

Ziv noted that trade deficits are more related to the markets rather than exports and imports and manufacturing.

Ziv said the formula is not very likely to yield the results that the administration is seeking.

“Since World War II, most industrial countries have followed a consistent set of rules of trade policies. Essentially, they learned that trade wars don’t help anyone,” he said.

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(WASHINGTON) — Foreign adversaries including Russia and China are targeting government workers who have been laid off amid the Trump administration’s attempt to downsize to recruit as spies, according to new intelligence.

“New intelligence indicates agents from China, Russia, and other countries have set their sights on recently fired probationary workers, or those with security clearances, hoping to obtain valuable information about U.S. critical infrastructure or national security interests,” according to intelligence distributed by the U.S. Coast Guard to its workforce.

“These foreign intelligence officers actively search LinkedIn, TikTok, Reddit, and Chinese social media site Xiaohongshu — known as RedNote — for potential sources,” it added. “In at least one instance, a foreign agent was instructed to create a company profile on LinkedIn, post a job listing, and actively track federal employees who indicated they were ‘open for work.'”

The Coast Guard did not develop the intelligence but rather distributed it as a warning to Coast Guard officials around the world.

“Posting about your frustration, status as a recently fired employee, or any other OPSEC sensitive information could make you a target,” the notice said. “Our adversaries have successfully preyed on upset and disgruntled government workers during past furloughs.”

Military members can be attractive targets, according to the intelligence, because of the information they may have access to.

The notice comes as two active-duty soldiers were recently charged with conspiring to sell classified material to China.

The Coast Guard said a telltale sign of foreign agents attempting to recruit former government officials is something that is too good to be true, noting that it probably is.

“Your contact might overly praise or focus on your skills/experience, especially if your government affiliation is known,” it said in the notice, adding that a sense for urgency might be an indicator as well.

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(WASHINGTON) — Hundreds of college and high school students representing student governments from some of the largest schools in the Washington, D.C., area will rally outside the Department of Education on Friday to oppose the administration’s gutting of the agency.

The “Hands Off Our Schools” rally is expected to turn out over 500 students, according to a spokesperson, who added that the rally has been working to increase its permit size to accommodate north of 1,000 participants.

The demonstration is organized by the student governments representing over 130,000 students at several colleges in the region, including Georgetown University, American University and Howard University, as well as along the Interstate 95 corridor up to Temple University, according to the organizers.

The coalition is a “historic alliance” standing against the “assault on education,” including campus free speech and student financial aid programs, according to a release by organizers.

It has a list of four demands for congressional leaders: preserve and strengthen the department; ensure all students are protected; oppose anti-diversity, equity and inclusion actions that restrict classroom autonomy; and reject the targeting of individual students and academics for expressing their political views.

“The recent executive orders undermine the bedrock of our nation and limit opportunities for children of all backgrounds to learn and achieve their full potential,” the organizers wrote in a statement. “By making educational spaces more restrictive and unwelcoming, these policies are set to leave lasting, harmful impacts on our generation and those who follow.”

President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to abolish the department and return education control to the states. The department has already let go of nearly half its workforce to start downsizing the agency.

Critics say college students will especially be affected if the president follows through with rehoming the Federal Student Aid Office’s responsibilities, such as the $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio, and terminating the federal workers who administer funds for higher education.

The rally is expected to run from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. and have about a dozen speakers. Organizers are also expecting Washington, D.C., high school state board of education representatives and former progressive Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a former principal, among the list of speakers. Organizers said they have reached out to additional lawmakers and are working to confirm the final list of speakers.

The event follows about a month’s worth of Friday demonstrations taking place at the department, including an “ED Matters” rally, “study-ins” and “clap-outs” for terminated federal workers.

More recently, lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been condemning the changes at the department. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., launched a “Save Our Schools” campaign this week against the administration’s attempt to dismantle the department. Her campaign will include investigations, oversight, community engagement and lawsuits, according to the senator.

“The federal government has invested in our public schools,” Warren said in an exclusive interview with ABC News. “Taking that away from our kids so that a handful of billionaires can be even richer is just plain ugly, and I will fight it with everything I’ve got.”

Meanwhile, McMahon shocked about a dozen House Democrats on Wednesday when she crashed their press conference outside the department after she met with them in a closed-door meeting at the agency.

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