Paul J. Ingrassia, candidate to lead the Office of Special Counsel.
Source: DHS
Paul Ingrassia, whom President Donald Trump nominated to lead the Office of Special Counsel, withdrew from Senate consideration for the post on Tuesday evening after a new controversy was sparked over a series of racist text messages he reportedly sent in which he said he had a “Nazi streak.”
Ingrassia’s nomination was already considered doomed in the Senate, where Trump’s Republican Party holds the majority and several key Republican senators said they would not vote to confirm the far-right former podcaster as special counsel.
“I will withdraw from Thursday [Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee] Hearing to lead the Office of Special Counsel because unfortunately I do not have enough Republican votes at this time,” Ingrassia wrote in a post on the social media site X.
“I appreciate the overwhelming support I have received throughout this process and will continue to help President Trump and this administration make America great again!”
Three Republican senators on the Homeland Security Committee previously said they would oppose Ingrassia’s nomination, which would have meant the nomination would have effectively died in that committee and not been voted on by the full Senate
“It will not pass,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters early Tuesday.
Politico reported Monday that in January 2024, Ingrassia, 30, “told a group of fellow Republicans in a text chain that Martin Luther King Jr.’s holiday should be thrown into the seventh circle of hell, saying he had a Nazi streak.”
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The outlet said that a month earlier, Ingrassia had used an Italian insult for black people to say that “every single one” of several black-related holidays “needs to be gutted.”
“No Moulignon Holidays…From Kwanza [sic] “on Mlk Jr. Day for Black History Month to Juneteenth,” he wrote, according to Politico.
“In February 2024, Ingrassia wrote, ‘We need competent white men in leadership positions. … The Founding Fathers were wrong that all men are created equal… We must reject this part of our heritage,'” the outlet reported.
Ingrassia, the Department of Homeland Security liaison at the White House, was previously investigated in connection with an incident in late July in which he told a lower-ranking colleague on a business trip that she would be sharing a hotel room with him, Politico reported last week.
Ingrassia’s attorney said an investigation conducted by DHS’ human resources department found no wrongdoing.
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