Senate Republicans have spent months effectively rubber-stamping Donald Trump’s most outlandish and unqualified nominees, but Paul Ingrassia was a bridge too far, even for GOP senators. There was no great mystery as to why.
The president tapped the right-wing lawyer and former podcast host to lead the Office of Special Counsel, but Ingrassia’s history of radicalism, including a group text in which Ingrassia acknowledged his “Nazi streak,” derailed his nomination and created the latest in a series of embarrassments for the White House.
But as the dust settled on the fiasco, there was one question that still needed an answer. When Trump chose Ingrassia for the OSC job, he was serving as the White House liaison for the Department of Homeland Security. Given the revelations about his record, would the president and his team show him the door or not?
Now we know. Politico reported:
Paul Ingrassia, a conservative activist who withdrew his nomination to oversee a government watchdog agency last month after POLITICO reported he made racist comments in a group chat, said Thursday he is moving to a new job in the administration. The 30-year-old lawyer had been serving since February as White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security. But in an email obtained by POLITICO, he told colleagues that he is leaving to become deputy general counsel at the General Services Administration.
According to the email Ingrassia sent, Trump personally called him into his office Wednesday night to offer him the GSA job.
Politico’s report added, “A White House official confirmed the move and added that Ingrassia ‘is a very helpful addition to GSA and will successfully execute President Trump’s America First policies.’”
Let’s take stock. The president hired a right-wing lawyer with a record of extremism, then offered him a promotion. At that point, the right-wing lawyer’s record generated additional scrutiny, and the White House learned, among other things, about a message in which Ingrassia wrote, “I do have a Nazi streak in me from time to time, I will admit it.” This made him politically radioactive to Republicans on Capitol Hill.
Less than a month later, Team Trump decided to give him a different promotion. In other words, as the first year of the president’s second term nears its end, Trump and his team decided these revelations were not disqualifying. In the wake of Tucker Carlson’s recent interview with Nick Fuentes, there’s been an intensifying public conversation about the right’s antisemitism crisis. By any fair measure, the White House’s latest reward for Ingrassia makes that crisis worse. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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