President Trump Found a New Way to Undo Biden’s Lawfare

Ed Martin makes the case for mercy in an age of lawfare and politicized justice.

When the justice system becomes a political weapon, clemency stops being a “presidential privilege” and becomes one of the last guardrails against abuse.

The second Trump starts issuing pardons, the media spin machine kicks into high gear. They treat his acts of clemency with the same tired bias they always do, suddenly acting like mercy itself is suspicious. What they never stop to ask is what mercy actually means when the justice system is no longer acting justly.

That’s the foundation of Ed Martin’s piece on mercy in the Trump era. He walks readers through pardon power, mercy, and the deeper moral meaning behind clemency. But beneath all of that is something truly relevant right now. When institutions become political weapons, when process becomes punishment, and when the state starts operating like a Gestapo, mercy isn’t optional. It’s necessary.

That’s why Ed Martin’s article matters to Weaponization Watch. This isn’t just some stuffy discussion about forgiveness. It’s a living, breathing piece about what happens when the American people believe the justice system is unjust. In a country now shaped by lawfare, selective prosecution, and the open use of state power against political enemies, clemency becomes one of the last real lines of defense.

And I just want to pause here for a moment and say something about Ed Martin himself, because this article of his carries a lot of extra weight coming from someone with serious legal and executive experience.

Edward R. Martin, Jr. brings serious legal, government, and operational experience to this fight. He clerked for Pasco Bowman II, a respected Reagan-appointed federal judge once shortlisted for the Supreme Court, an early mark of top-tier legal ability. He later worked at Bryan Cave LLP on complex legal matters and also became a New York Times bestselling author, showing he could communicate major issues to a national audience.

Martin went on to serve as Chief of Staff to Missouri Governor Matt Blunt, where he helped manage the workings of a major state government and gained firsthand experience with executive leadership and bureaucracy. He also served as Chairman of the St. Louis Board of Elections, overseeing election administration and the integrity of the electoral process. In other words, Ed isn’t speaking from the sidelines. He understands the law, government power, and how institutions actually operate, which is exactly why his role in the clemency fight matters.

Ed shows that President Trump has used the pardon power with seriousness, consistency, and a willingness to wield it throughout his presidency. That matters because it turns clemency from a ceremonial political favor into an active tool of judgment and a real line of defense against lawfare.

And that’s where the left starts panicking. Because once pardon power is treated as an answer to abuse instead of a footnote to a presidency, it forces a question out into the open for everyone to see: why does mercy suddenly become offensive when Trump is the one extending it?

In the end, it doesn’t matter what the left likes or doesn’t like, because President Trump is using clemency as part of his governance.

President Trump, as is so often true, does not act like a standard, run-of-the-mill politician. He uses the pardon power almost every month. He uses it to give second chances and to protect those whom he sees as wronged. He exercises this power without fear.

Most presidents avoid using the pardon power this aggressively because they know the press, the bureaucracy, and the establishment will frame it as corruption or favoritism. But Trump pushing forward anyway shows he sees clemency as a duty.

And for Weaponization Watch, the most important phrase in that passage is “to protect those whom he sees as wronged.” That is the whole point. That’s why we exist.

In 2025, a year I called the Year of Trump Mercy, President Trump performed thousands of acts of mercy through pardons. He did this for people whom he had met and thousands that he never personally knew. He pardoned cops, freed life-long and rehabilitated prisoners, and forgave debts.

The usual tired line is that pardons are suspicious because they must be personal, political, or self-serving. But Martin is describing something much bigger than that. This is about correction, restoration, and intervention. And as a bonus, President Trump is actually the one exercising that power, not handing it off to an autopen, which the media somehow never seemed to mind before.

And this is where the piece becomes especially relevant to the moment we’re facing in the United States.

Mercy and the pardon power appear to upend this system: the president can effectively end the delivery of justice. This may rightly be called the scandal of the pardon—it is a power ‘above the law.’

When it suits them, the left acts like “procedure” proves fairness. As if an indictment, a conviction, or a sentence is automatically legitimate just because it came from a court or a federal agency. But that’s exactly the lie Weaponization Watch is here to expose. Yes, institutions can be corrupted. Prosecutors can act politically. And the entire process can be turned into punishment.

The real scandal isn’t mercy interrupting political justice. The real scandal is political justice becoming totally normal and acceptable.

Though some call out acts of mercy like pardons as unjust, outside of the regular order of justice, there is something deeply restorative and healthy for the society that gives and receives pardon.

A society can’t survive on procedure. It can’t stay together if every institution becomes a machine that only punishes, never restores, never corrects, and never admits that power can be abused.

And that’s why clemency matters so much in this lawfare age. Mercy isn’t weakness. It’s one of the few ways a system can heal after overreach.

Martin brings the whole thing home by arguing that pardon power isn’t just about relieving punishment, but also about restoring human dignity.

So the divine pardon of the Good Thief is not only forgiving, but transformative. God’s mercy transcends justice and bestows transcendence in heaven. The same logic is at work on the natural level with the use of the pardon power by American presidents. Beneficiaries of a pardon tend to have a new and deepened sense of gratitude and responsibility—gratitude for this gift from above and responsibility to be worthy of it. We can say they have become more alive, more human. They have a new chance, a first step on a second chance.

One of the ugliest things about weaponized justice is that it doesn’t just try to convict people. It tries to shrink them and turn a human being into an everlasting symbol of guilt and a warning to everybody else.

Clemency pushes back against that. It says the state doesn’t get the final word on a person’s life. In cases like this, a person is more than his prosecution and more than the political value everybody’s squeezing out of him.

And that’s why mercy is so dangerous to the left. They’re now used to controlling the narrative by force. Mercy gives people their lives and their stories back.

This is also why Cynthia Hughes’ work matters so much. Weaponization Watch and the Patriot Freedom Project are about the human toll of a system that can eat you alive. It can decimate families, savings, reputations, and futures while still claiming it’s just “doing its job.”

For families living through politicized prosecutions, mercy is relief. It’s oxygen and room to breathe. It’s the difference between being buried alive by lawfare and being seen as a human being worth saving.

Ed Martin’s piece is definitely about mercy, but in this critical moment, it’s also an indictment of weaponized lawfare and the bad actors who call Trump’s mercy a “scandal.”

Weaponization Watch exists to expose these patterns, defend the people caught inside the machine, and keep telling the truth about what our once sacred institutions have become.

I don’t think its factually incorrect at all. Beryl Howell displayed an exceptional animus toward the protesters. J6ers got a court date if they pleaded guilty. J6ers had trouble hiring legal assistance in DC. The legal defenders were worthless. In comparison no BLM rioters were jailed

These Nazi fascists in the democrat party are scary as all hell and Trump should use every tool in the box to root them out. Our lives and the future of our nation may depend on it.

“These Nazi fascists in the democrat party are scary as all hell”

The first step is to root them out of the government financed SWAMP. Root them out of DEI offices. Root them out of FRAUD operations.

Root out both employees and contractors.

When I first started IT consulting Anderson/Accenture advised:
If the client is centralized, recommend decentralization.
If the client is de-centralized, recommend centralization.

Biden Admin followed that advise. Big money is still being spent on that Biden direction. The problem in HHS & CMS is not that it is centralized or decentralized.

The problem is that Deloitte if a FRAUD. Deloitte IES that enrolls recipients in Medicaid, CHIP, SNAP, WIC, TANF, Sec8, LIHEAP in 25 states in a FRAUD. In GA Deloitte Pathways is a FRAUD.

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