Paul Ingrassia withdrew the nomination amid growing controversy

Paul Ingrassia withdrew his nomination to lead a government watchdog agency on Tuesday after his inflammatory rhetoric came to light this week in a report about race-fueled text messages he allegedly sent.

Ingrassia decided to remove himself from the special counsel’s office two days before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs was to consider his nomination.

“I am recusing myself from Thursday’s HSGAC hearing to lead the Office of Special Counsel because unfortunately I do not have enough Republican votes at this time,” Ingrassia wrote on social media.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, RSD, on Monday dashed all hopes of Ingrassia’s confirmation, saying, “It’s not going to pass.” Asked if it would be a mistake for Ingrassia to appear for the hearing on Tuesday, Thune laughed and said, “Yes.”

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Paul Ingrassia, White House liaison to the Justice Department, left, announces the release of brothers Andrew and Matthew Valentine outside the DC Central Detention Facility on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC (Pete Kiehart/The Washington Post)

Ingrassia, 30, said in a group chat, according to Politicothat he had a “Nazi streak” at times, and used the word “moulinignon,” an Italian slur for black people, to call for an end to Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Black History Month.

The leaked chat was just the latest point of contention as Ingrassia moves around the administration serving in two different roles.

In July, Ingrassia A formal complaint Ingrassia was informed by a lower-ranking female colleague, who alleged that when they arrived at the hotel for a work trip in Orlando, she found she didn’t have a room and would be sharing one with him, according to Politico. The woman who shared a room with him later retracted the complaint, which Ingrassia also disputed.

Ingrassia has publicly defended social media influencer and self-described “misogynist” Andrew Tate and previously worked at a law firm that said he was on Tate’s legal team before he was admitted to the New York bar in July 2024. Tate and his brother Face the UK charges Rape, actual bodily harm, human trafficking and controlling prostitution for profit, filed by the Crown Prosecution Service in May 2025. They deny the allegations.

Ingrassia was first called A The White House contacts at the Justice Department, where he was briefly put in charge of hiring Trump loyalists to account. But he suddenly left and took a job with the Department of Homeland Security instead.

President Donald Trump nominated Ingrassia in May to lead the Office of Special Counsel, an independent agency (unaffiliated with the DOJ) that investigates workplace complaints from federal employees.

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President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025, in Washington. (Jacqueline Martin/AP Photo)

“Paul is a highly respected attorney, author and constitutional scholar who has served as my White House liaison on homeland security,” Trump wrote on Truth Social at the time.

Ingrassia rejected Politico’s characterization of the text messages, saying through his lawyer that even if they were true, “they clearly read as a self-deprecating and derisive joke that liberals oddly and routinely call MAGA supporters ‘Nazis.'”

Ingrassia has been repeatedly scrutinized for controversial writings and pressured Trump to cancel the nomination.

Deleted from in X post Days after Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel, Ingrassia called the Palestine-Israel conflict “a mentality.”

Controversial influencer Andrew Tate (C) arrives at the Municipal Court in Bucharest, Romania on June 21, 2023. (Daniel Mihailescu/AFP via Getty Images)

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Alliance of Jewish Organizations He was among those demanding the withdrawal of Ingrassia’s candidacy.

“Mr. Ingrassia’s public statements and associations with people who espouse anti-Semitic, racist and misogynist views raise serious questions about his ability to carry out these responsibilities with the integrity, fairness and commitment required of the office,” the coalition wrote.

A White House official confirmed to Fox News Digital that Ingrassia is no longer the nominee.

Alex Miller contributed to this report.