[3][4] He was the party's nominee for Missouri's 3rd congressional district in 2010,[5] but lost the November 2010 general election to incumbent Democrat Russ Carnahan.
[13] Martin grew up in the Whitehouse Station section of Readington Township, New Jersey, the middle of three children of a lawyer father and nurse mother.
Leaving Indonesia, Martin next attended Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Italy, on a Rotary International scholarship, earning a Bachelor of Philosophy (B.Phil.).
In addition, Martin served as law clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit under the Honorable Pasco M. Bowman II.
[19] In 2006 while doing pro bono work for the Institute for Justice and the Human Action Network, Martin represented a small business owner who sold caskets and funeral supplies at discounted prices.
[14] He also headed the leadership team[citation needed] that designed and implemented the Missouri Accountability Portal, an Internet search engine developed by the Blunt administration to track state government spending in order to increase transparency.
A Blunt spokesman said the administration did not have a policy of retaining emails, although the state Sunshine Law requiring retention for 3 years is widely known.
[24] After a year-long battle to gain access, in November 2008, the Kansas City Star and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch analyzed and reported on 60,000 pages of emails obtained from the administration.
In addition, the newspapers reported that Martin had encouraged outside groups to oppose the nomination of Patricia Breckenridge to an open seat on the Missouri Supreme Court, although Blunt supported her.
[28] In February 2008 Governor Blunt appointed Martin as a member of the Missouri State Parks Advisory Board, a position he held until April 2011.
[31] In 2008, Martin founded the American Issues Project, a political group financed by Harold Simmons that ran anti-Senator Barack Obama TV ads during the 2008 United States presidential campaign.
[39] On January 26, 2012, Martin announced he was dropping out of the Congressional race, and filed to run for Missouri Attorney General against incumbent Democrat Chris Koster.
[8] Noting that state Republican Party officials were often more conservative than most of their members, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorialized that Martin was an unfortunate choice for the GOP.
"[31] As party chairman, Martin criticized advertising in the Republican primary campaign for the United States Senate election in Mississippi, 2014, which was marked by race-based ads appearing to encourage Democrats to vote in support of candidate Thad Cochran, as well as robo-calls to African-American voters thought to be made by his opponent Chris McDaniel's campaign, which were derogatory to President Barack Obama.
[41] It was reported that Cochran and allies were "looking to increase voter turnout across the state, particularly among African Americans and Democrats who had not voted in the June 3 primary.
In his first weeks as interim U.S. Attorney, Martin made significant personnel changes, dismissing approximately 30 federal prosecutors who had worked on January 6 cases who were still on probationary status.
His foundation hosted a 2024 banquet at Trump's Bedminster golf club honoring Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, a convicted Capitol riot participant.
As interim U.S. Attorney, Martin initiated an internal investigation into the use of obstruction charges in January 6 cases, characterizing their application as a "great failure.
"[44] Martin faced scrutiny for signing a motion to dismiss charges against Joseph Padilla, a January 6 defendant whom he had previously represented as defense counsel.
The action drew criticism from legal experts, who noted Justice Department regulations require lawyers to recuse themselves from cases involving former clients for at least one year.
[44] In February 2025, Martin publicly pledged his office's support to Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which was charged with recommending overhauls to the federal bureaucracy.