Paul Ingrassia, the 30-year-old lawyer whom President Donald Trump has nominated to a five-year term leading DOJ’s special counsel office, appears to be dead in the water ahead of his Thursday Senate confirmation hearing.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters on Monday that he hopes the White House will withdraw the embattled nominee in the wake of a Politico report that revealed Ingrassia had allegedly described himself as having “a Nazi streak” while using racial slurs in a private group chat.
“He’s not gonna pass,” Thune said.
Ingrassia, a Cornell Law School graduate who currently serves as a White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, was tapped by Trump to lead the Office of Special Counsel shortly after his inauguration in January. The independent agency is charged with protecting government whistleblowers and enforcing ethics laws.
The agency, which has nothing to do with the individual special counsels used by the Department of Justice to investigate high-profile or politically charged matters, is tasked with investigating and prosecuting violations of the Hatch Act, the Whistleblower Protection Act, the Civil Service Reform Act and the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Act.
Ingrassia, who only recently passed the bar and lacks experience with those arcane laws, reportedly made the incendiary remarks in a group chat with other GOP operatives and influencers.
One message revealed in the report portrays him as allegedly calling the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. “the 1960s George Floyd” and stating that the federal holiday which memorializes King “should be ended and tossed into the seventh circle of hell where it belongs.”
Another message from the same text chain showed him using a racial slur for Black people and complaining about multiple federal holidays and other observances.
No m******n holidays … From kwanza [sic] to mlk jr day to black history month to Juneteenth,” he allegedly said.
The Senate Homeland Security Committee and Government Affairs Committee is scheduled hear testimony from Ingrassia on Thursday, months after he was initially set to appear before the panel.
Senators pushed back his nomination hearing in July amid concerns over alleged antisemitic remarks made by the young operative, as well as misgivings over his relative youth and inexperience for a position that has generally gone to career experts in ethics law.
At the time, Florida Senator Rick Scott said Ingrassia had “had some statements about antisemitism” that were “a big thing” for his Sunshine State constituents.
Scott told Semafor on Monday that he “doesn’t plan on voting for” Ingrassia in the wake of the Politico report.
Another GOP member of the panel, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, told reporters he hopes the White House will pull the pick.
But as of Monday, HSGAC chair Rand Paul said Ingrassia is “still on the list” for Thursday’s hearing “unless somebody tells us otherwise.”
“They have to decide if he can go through. I’ve told them to count the votes … the White House needs to make a decision. I’m leaving it up to them,” Paul added.
Ingrassia’s nomination was not expected to receive support from any Democratic senators, but Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer nonetheless called for Trump to withdraw the pick and sack him from his current position in remarks on the Senate floor on Tuesday.
Schumer said Ingrassia’s texts were “appalling” and “point to a really disturbed individual.”
“These texts are foul and disqualifying, and it’s hard to believe there be any process in any White House that would allow such a man through to be nominated,” he said.
“This person does not merit confirmation by this body … the president should pull Mr. Ingrassia’s nomination immediately, he should be fired from his current job within the administration, and he should never, never hold a position of leadership within the Republican Party or the government again.”
A decision to withdraw Ingrassia would mark a rare retreat by the White House rather than confront and push through GOP opposition to a controversial nominee.
The Republican-controlled upper chamber has routinely confirmed the president’s picks regardless of qualifications, including by voting along party lines to change Senate rules to confirm nominees in groups rather than by individual up-or-down votes last month.
Multiple White House officials contacted by The Independent about whether Trump intends to withdraw Ingrassia did not immediately respond.
