{"id":242301,"date":"2025-10-22T01:02:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T01:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/242301\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T01:02:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T01:02:08","slug":"trump-pick-to-lead-federal-watchdog-agency-withdraws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/242301\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump pick to lead federal watchdog agency withdraws"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump<\/a> \u2019s pick to lead a federal watchdog agency withdrew from consideration Tuesday evening, after his offensive text messages were made public and GOP senators revolted.<\/p>\n

Paul Ingrassia<\/a>, who was nominated to lead the Office of Special Counsel, had been scheduled to have his confirmation hearing this week. <\/p>\n

On Monday, however, Politico reported on a text chat that showed him saying the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday should be \u201ctossed into the seventh circle of hell.\u201d Ingrassia also described himself in the chat as having \u201ca Nazi streak\u201d at times.<\/p>\n

After the texts came to light, several Republican senators said they would not support his nomination. They included some of the most conservative and stalwart Trump allies in the Senate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will be withdrawing myself from Thursday\u2019s HSGAC hearing to lead the Office of Special Counsel because unfortunately I do not have enough Republican votes at this time,\u201d Ingrassia posted in an online message. \u201cI appreciate the overwhelming support that I have received throughout the process and will continue to serve President Trump and the administration to Make America Great Again!\u201d HSGAC is the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs.<\/p>\n

Asked for comment on Ingrassia withdrawing his name from consideration, the White House said simply, \u201cHe is no longer the nominee.\u201d But Ingrassia\u2019s post came after Senate Majority Leader John Thune<\/a> had said he hoped the White House would withdraw Ingrassia\u2019s nomination. <\/p>\n

Republicans have been able to muscle through the vast majority of Trump\u2019s nominees in roll call votes despite stiff Democratic opposition. But there have been sporadic instances when Republicans have pushed back, generally behind the scenes, showing there are limits to their support.<\/p>\n

Most notably, Matt Gaetz<\/a> withdrew as Trump\u2019s first choice for attorney general soon after being tabbed for the job. In May, Trump pulled his nomination of Ed Martin Jr. to be the top federal prosecutor for the nation\u2019s capital, bowing to bipartisan concerns about the conservative activist\u2019s modest legal experience and support for Jan. 6 rioters<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Last month, the White House announced it would be withdrawing the nomination of E.J. Antoni<\/a> to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Antoni was supposed to succeed a BLS director who was fired following a disappointing jobs report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to texts viewed by Politico, Ingrassia told those in the chat that \u201cMLK Jr. was the 1960s George Floyd and his \u2018holiday\u2019 should be ended and tossed into the seventh circle of hell where it belongs.\u201d <\/p>\n

Politico spoke to Ingrassia\u2019s lawyer, who said the text messages might have been manipulated or were missing context. The lawyer did not confirm the texts were authentic.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s also responsible for enforcing the Hatch Act<\/a>, which restricts the partisan political activities of government workers.<\/p>\n

In May, Trump described Ingrassia in a social media post as a \u201chighly respected attorney, writer and Constitutional Scholar.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump \u2019s pick to lead a federal watchdog agency withdrew from consideration Tuesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,1927,3505,12,49711,41865,793,25217,3138,9283,4551,66289,3,42019,111,3438,21,19,22,20,25,24,800],"class_list":["post-242301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-ap-top-news","tag-district-of-columbia","tag-donald-trump","tag-ed-martin","tag-email-and-messaging","tag-general-news","tag-george-floyd","tag-government-and-politics","tag-john-thune","tag-martin-luther-king-jr","tag-matt-gaetz","tag-news","tag-paul-ingrassia","tag-politics","tag-u-s-republican-party","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-washington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}