Trump Withdraws U.S. Attorney Nominee, Whose Extremism Tested Limits for G.O.P. Senators

Ed Martin, the interim U.S. attorney for Washington, was breezing toward the office elevator in his signature trench coat in February when he passed a group of about 10 young prosecutors preparing to leave, framed diplomas and keepsakes in hand.

“Whoa, what’s going on here?” Mr. Martin asked with a chuckle, seemingly oblivious to who they were and where they were going, according to people with knowledge of the exchange.

The lawyers were too stunned to speak. They had just been fired — part of a purge, overseen by Mr. Martin, of about two dozen prosecutors detailed during the Biden administration to prosecute the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

President Trump nominated Mr. Martin, a conservative Republican political operative from Missouri, to permanently run the U.S. attorney’s office in part because he has emerged as one of the most passionate defenders of Jan. 6 rioters, a small but vocal far-right group that wields outsize influence. Mr. Martin has, in turn, used his authority to help carry out Mr. Trump’s retribution campaign, threatening to investigate Democrats, academic institutions and critics of Elon Musk even while seeking to dismantle and delegitimize the Jan. 6 inquiry.

On Thursday, after an internal debate in the West Wing, Mr. Trump pulled his nomination, telling reporters at the White House, “We have somebody else that will be great.”

Mr. Martin’s fate was sealed on Tuesday when Senator Thom Tillis, a key Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said he would not support the nomination because of Mr. Martin’s work on behalf of the rioters. That dealt a fatal blow to his path to confirmation, leaving the committee deadlocked at 11 to 11, with all 10 Democrats on the panel opposing Mr. Martin. Republican leaders had said they would not take procedural steps to force a vote on the floor.