President Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel withdrew from consideration Tuesday night, October 21, after acknowledging he lacked sufficient Republican support following revelations about racist text messages in which he described himself as having “a Nazi streak” and called for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday to be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell.” Paul Ingrassia’s collapse represents a rare instance where Senate Republicans publicly broke with Trump over a controversial nomination.
Ingrassia posted on Truth Social that he would be withdrawing himself from Thursday’s Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing because unfortunately he does not have enough Republican votes at this time. The 30-year-old attorney added that he appreciates the overwhelming support received throughout the process and will continue to serve President Trump and the administration to Make America Great Again.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Monday night that Ingrassia was not going to pass, signaling that GOP leadership had concluded the nomination was dead on arrival. At least four Republican senators indicated they would vote against Ingrassia, making confirmation impossible even if all Democrats also opposed him. Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, who sits on the committee scheduled to consider the nomination, said he was a no and that it never should have got this far.
The text messages obtained by Politico showed Ingrassia telling fellow Republicans in a January 2024 group chat that MLK Jr. was the 1960s George Floyd and his holiday should be ended and tossed into the seventh circle of hell where it belongs. The messages also included Ingrassia stating he has a Nazi streak in him from time to time and using ethnic slurs while calling for Black holidays including Kwanzaa, MLK Jr. Day, Black History Month and Juneteenth to be eviscerated.
Ingrassia’s lawyer Edward Andrew Paltzik wouldn’t confirm to Politico if the texts were authentic and suggested the messages clearly read as self-deprecating and satirical humor. However, the explanation failed to satisfy senators from both parties who viewed the content as disqualifying regardless of whether Ingrassia intended the statements as jokes or genuine expressions of his beliefs.
The Office of Special Counsel is an investigative and prosecutorial office that works to protect government employees and whistleblowers from retaliation for reporting wrongdoing. It’s also responsible for enforcing the Hatch Act, which restricts partisan political activities of government workers. Trump described Ingrassia in May as a highly respected attorney, writer and Constitutional Scholar when announcing the nomination.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer demanded that Trump not only withdraw the nomination but fire Ingrassia from his current position as White House liaison for the Department of Homeland Security. The New York Democrat said on the Senate floor that if the texts are authentic, they are foul and disqualifying, adding that Ingrassia should never hold a position of leadership within the Republican Party or the government ever again.
Representative Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Trump demanding he pull the nomination and fire Ingrassia from federal government employment entirely. The Maryland Democrat wrote that Ingrassia is not just unqualified but has been credibly accused of sexual harassment and is an unabashed white supremacist and vicious racist who is clearly unfit to be anywhere in our government.
Raskin’s letter referenced additional text messages where Ingrassia wrote that education should focus on elevating the high IQ section of your demographics, so you know, basically young men, straight White men. The messages also included Ingrassia declaring that exceptional white men are not only the builders of Western civilization but are the ones most capable of appreciating the fruits of our heritage.
The leaked private conversations revealed Ingrassia recently affirming his worldview by writing that we need competent white men in positions of leadership and that the founding fathers were wrong that all men are created equal, adding that we need to reject that part of our heritage. These statements demonstrated that Ingrassia’s controversial views were not merely youthful indiscretions but represented his current ideology about race and American political philosophy.
Politico reported last week that Ingrassia was previously investigated in connection with an incident in late July where he allegedly told a lower-ranking female colleague on a business trip that she would be sharing a hotel room with him. Ingrassia’s lawyer said a probe conducted by DHS’s human resources department found no wrongdoing, though the allegation added to growing concerns about his fitness for the position.
Ingrassia graduated from Cornell Law School in 2022 and during the 2024 election promoted a false claim that former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley was ineligible to run for president. Trump shared the theory on his social media platform, demonstrating the access and influence Ingrassia wielded within MAGA movement circles despite his relative youth and limited professional experience.
Republicans have been able to muscle through the vast majority of Trump’s nominees in roll call votes despite stiff Democratic opposition throughout his second term. However, there have been sporadic instances when Republicans pushed back, generally behind closed doors, showing there are limits to their support. Most notably, Matt Gaetz withdrew as Trump’s first choice for attorney general soon after being tabbed for the job when it became clear he lacked sufficient Republican votes.
The Ingrassia withdrawal came as the government shutdown entered its 21st day with Democrats maintaining their position that any funding legislation must include extensions of Affordable Care Act subsidies. Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon delivered remarks on the Senate floor pointing to the Trump administration’s previous halting of research grants for universities and recent indictments of several Trump political foes as evidence of authoritarian tendencies.
Merkley argued that President Trump wants Americans to believe Portland is full of chaos and riots because if he can say there are riots, he can say there’s a rebellion, and if there’s a rebellion, he can use that to strengthen his authoritarian grip on the nation. The Oregon Democrat’s remarks represent symbolic Democratic resistance as his party has blocked Republican efforts to reopen the government 11 times while remaining in a standoff over healthcare subsidies.
The Education Department announced Tuesday that it is exploring putting other federal agencies in control of its special education programs, representing the latest effort from the Trump administration to wind down the department’s operations. The department stated it is exploring additional partnerships with federal agencies to support special education programs without any interruption or impact on students with disabilities.
President Trump plans to meet NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at the White House on Wednesday as Europe looks to continue working with the administration to bring an end to the Ukraine war. The meeting comes as the Trump administration reversed course on a near-term summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying there are no plans for a meeting in the immediate future after Trump initially stated the two would meet within two weeks or so following a Thursday phone call.
Asked for comment on Ingrassia withdrawing his name from consideration, the White House said simply that he is no longer the nominee, declining to address whether he would be removed from his current position as DHS liaison or whether Trump regretted making the nomination in the first place. The terse response suggested the administration views the episode as closed and wishes to move on without extended discussion of the embarrassing setback.
Conservative commentators acknowledged that Ingrassia’s text messages were indefensible and that Republican senators acted appropriately by forcing his withdrawal. However, some on the right noted that the episode demonstrates Trump’s personnel selection process sometimes elevates individuals based on loyalty and ideological commitment rather than thorough vetting of their backgrounds and public statements.
The collapse of Ingrassia’s nomination creates another vacancy requiring Trump to identify a replacement candidate for the Office of Special Counsel position. The office has operated under acting leadership since Trump took office, with the administration struggling to find nominees capable of winning Senate confirmation while also committed to the president’s agenda of reforming what conservatives view as a weaponized federal bureaucracy.
The question facing the White House is whether to nominate another loyalist who shares Trump’s skepticism of federal whistleblower protections and Hatch Act enforcement, or select a more conventional nominee who could win bipartisan support but might prove less willing to aggressively pursue the administration’s reform agenda. The decision will signal whether Trump views the Ingrassia debacle as a personnel failure requiring more careful vetting or a communications problem where leaked private messages unfairly portrayed a qualified nominee.
