Trump nominee Paul Ingrassia drops bid for special adviser

Paul Ingrassia, whom President Donald Trump nominated to head the Office of Special Counsel, withdrew Tuesday evening from Senate consideration for the post after renewed controversy over a series of racist text messages he allegedly sent in which he said he had a “Nazi leaning.”

Ingrassia’s nomination was already seen as doomed to failure in the Senate, where Trump’s Republican Party holds a majority and several key GOP senators have said they would not vote to confirm the former far-right podcaster as special counsel.

“I will be withdrawing from Thursday’s (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 serve President Trump and this administration to make America great again!”

Three Republican senators on the Homeland Security Committee said earlier that they would oppose Ingrassia’s nomination, which would have meant the nomination would effectively die in that committee and not come up for a vote by the full Senate.

“It will not pass,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Tuesday.

Politico reported Monday that Ingrassia, 30, told a group of fellow Republicans in a text message chain in January 2024 that the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday should be “thrown into the seventh circle of hell” and said he had Nazi leanings. “

The outlet said that a month earlier, Ingrassia used an Italian slur for black people to say that “each” of the many black-related holidays “must be eviscerated.”

“No Moulignon Holiday… From Kwanza (sic) to MLK Jr Day to Black History Month until June 16,” 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, who is the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, 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 by the DHS human resources department found no wrongdoing.