{"id":228250,"date":"2025-10-21T01:54:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T01:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/228250\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T01:54:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T01:54:07","slug":"paul-ingrassia-thune-says-controversial-trump-nominee-for-special-counsel-wont-be-confirmed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/228250\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Ingrassia: Thune says controversial Trump nominee for special counsel won\u2019t be confirmed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Paul Ingrassia\u2019s<\/a> nomination to lead the Office of Special Counsel is dead on arrival in the Senate, per Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who declared Monday night that \u201che\u2019s not going to pass\u201d after Politico reported<\/a> <\/a>on racist text messages allegedly sent by Ingrassia to a group chat.\n <\/p>\n

\n Ingrassia is set to appear before the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Thursday for his confirmation hearing, and at least one Republican senator on the panel is already planning to vote against advancing Ingrassia\u2019s nomination.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cNo, I do not support him,\u201d Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said Monday night. If every Democrat on the committee opposes Ingrassia, and Scott joins them, that would be enough to block the nomination.\n <\/p>\n

\n Asked if the White House should pull Ingrassia\u2019s nomination, Thune told reporters, \u201cI hope so,\u201d and chuckled before adding, \u201cHe\u2019s not going to pass.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n President Donald Trump nominated Ingrassia in May to lead the Office of Special Counsel, an independent agency tasked with protecting federal whistleblowers and enforcing civil service laws.\n <\/p>\n

\n CNN\u2019s KFile<\/a> <\/a>has previously reported on Ingrassia\u2019s history of racist invective and conspiratorial rants, as well his claims that straight White men are the most intelligent demographic group.\n <\/p>\n

\n His nomination has drawn scrutiny over his past promotion of conspiracy theories and tweets from his podcast that included calls for martial law following Trump\u2019s 2020 election loss and harsh anti-Israel rhetoric aimed at the GOP. Ingrassia has also been scrutinized for his ties to Nick Fuentes<\/a>, a noted White nationalist and Holocaust denier, as well as his defense of Fuentes\u2019 ability to post on social media.\n <\/p>\n

\n CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.\n <\/p>\n

\n Senate Homeland Security Chairman Rand Paul would not say if he\u2019d oppose Ingrassia, but he noted that the administration will have to decide if it is comfortable with Ingrassia\u2019s nomination moving forward.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI think that ultimately, there are a lot of questions on the nomination that the White House has to make a determination whether they think his nomination can get through, and we\u2019re going to wait and hear from them what their thoughts are, whether they\u2019ve talked to all the Republican members, and whether they think they have the votes,\u201d Paul told reporters.\n <\/p>\n

\n Other GOP senators refused to say if they\u2019d back Ingrassia and said they want to hear from him on Thursday. \u201cIt sounds like there\u2019s new information out tonight, I haven\u2019t seen,\u201d said Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley. \u201cI\u2019m sure we will welcome the opportunity to have his hearing on Thursday and respond to folks\u2019 questions.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio added that he hasn\u2019t \u201cdelved into it yet,\u201d but he imagined they\u2019d learn more on Thursday, and Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford said he\u2019d like to speak with Ingrassia again, noting there are \u201cplenty of questions\u201d after the text messages came to light. \u201cI want to be able to talk to him about it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The text messages in question, obtained by Politico, allegedly included Ingrassia saying he has \u201ca Nazi streak,\u201d and arguing that Martin Luther King Jr. Day \u201cshould be ended and tossed into the seventh circle of hell where it belongs.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Ingrassia\u2019s lawyer, Edward Andrew Paltzik, wouldn\u2019t confirm to Politico if the texts were authentic and suggested the messages were \u201cmaking fun\u201d of liberals.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cLooks like these texts could be manipulated or are being provided with material context omitted. However, arguendo, even if the texts are authentic, they clearly read as self-deprecating and satirical humor making fun of the fact that liberals outlandishly and routinely call MAGA supporters \u2018Nazis,\u2019\u201d he said in a statement.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIn reality, Mr. Ingrassia has incredible support from the Jewish community because Jews know that Mr. Ingrassia is the furthest thing from a Nazi.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n In a later statement to Politico, Paltzik said, \u201cIn this age of AI, authentication of allegedly leaked messages, which could be outright falsehoods, doctored, or manipulated, or lacking critical context, is extremely difficult. What is certain, though, is that there are individuals who cloak themselves in anonymity while executing their underhanded personal agendas to harm Mr. Ingrassia at all costs. We do not concede the authenticity of any of these purported messages.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n CNN\u2019s Andrew Kaczynski, Em Steck and Kit Maher contributed to this report.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul Ingrassia\u2019s nomination to lead the Office of Special Counsel is dead on arrival in the Senate, per…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-228250","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}