Paul Ingrassia, President Donald Trump’s embattled nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, told a group of fellow Republicans in a text chain the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday should be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell” and said he has “a Nazi streak,” according to a text chat viewed by POLITICO.
Ingrassia, who has a Senate confirmation hearing scheduled Thursday, made the remarks in a chain with a half-dozen Republican operatives and influencers, according to the chat.
“MLK Jr. was the 1960s George Floyd and his ‘holiday’ should be ended and tossed into the seventh circle of hell where it belongs,” Ingrassia wrote in January 2024, according to the chat.
“Jesus Christ,” one participant responded.
Using an Italian slur for Black people, Ingrassia wrote a month earlier in the group chat seen by POLITICO: “No moulignon holidays … From kwanza [sic] to mlk jr day to black history month to Juneteenth,” then added: “Every single one needs to be eviscerated.”
POLITICO interviewed two people in the chat and granted them anonymity after they expressed concerns about personal and professional repercussions. One retained the messages and showed the text chain in its entirety to POLITICO, which independently verified that the number listed on the chain belongs to Ingrassia. The person said he came forward because he wants “the government to be staffed with experienced people who are taken seriously.” The second person has since deleted the chain and didn’t recall specifics about it, but did confirm the discussions took place.
A lawyer for Ingrassia, Edward Andrew Paltzik, initially suggested that some of the texts were intended to be poking fun at liberals, though he didn’t confirm they were authentic.
“Looks 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 ‘Nazis,’” he wrote in a statement.
“In reality, Mr. Ingrassia has incredible support from the Jewish community because Jews know that Mr. Ingrassia is the furthest thing from a Nazi.”
In a subsequent statement to POLITICO a few days later, Paltzik called out anonymous critics trying to hurt Ingrassia.
“In this age of AI, authentication of allegedly leaked messages, which could be outright falsehoods, doctored, or manipulated, or lacking critical context, is extremely difficult,” he said. “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.”
In May 2024, the group was bantering about a Trump campaign staffer who’d been hired in Georgia and was working on outreach to minority voters, when Ingrassia suggested she didn’t show enough deference to the Founding Fathers being white, according to the chat.
“Paul belongs in the Hitler Youth with Ubergruppenfuhrer Steve Bannon,” the first participant in the chat wrote, referring to the paramilitary rank in Nazi Germany and the Republican strategist. POLITICO is not naming the participants to protect the identity of those interviewed for this article.
“I do have a Nazi streak in me from time to time, I will admit it,” Ingrassia responded, according to the chain. One of the people in the text group said in an interview that Ingrassia’s comment was not taken as a joke, and three participants pushed back against Ingrassia during the text exchange that day.
Referring to white nationalist Nick Fuentes and the “Live From America” show on the video-sharing platform Rumble, a second member of the group replied: “New LFA show coming starring Nick Fuentes & Paul Adolf Ingrassia.” To which Ingrassia wrote, “Lmao,” according to the group chat.
The existence of the messages comes as Ingrassia’s nomination to lead the Office of Special Counsel — an agency that investigates federal employee whistleblower complaints and discrimination claims, among other sensitive work — is already in trouble. Earlier this month, POLITICO reported that Ingrassia, 30, has been the subject of an internal investigation at the Department of Homeland Security, where he works as White House liaison, after a sexual harassment complaint was filed against him. The woman who filed the complaint later withdrew it and said there was no wrongdoing. Ingrassia’s attorney denied the allegations.
Spokespeople for the White House and DHS did not respond to requests for comment about the text messages.
In July, Republican senators delayed Ingrassia’s nomination hearing, with one airing concerns about “some statements about antisemitism.”
Ingrassia made other racist remarks, according to the chain. In January 2024, he wrote of former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy: “Never trust a chinaman or Indian” and then added: “NEVER,” the texts show. Ramaswamy, the son of Indian immigrants, declined to comment.
A month later, discussing why some Republicans feel that Democrats make Black people into victims, the texts show Ingrassia remarked: “Blacks behave that way because that’s their natural state … You can’t change them.” He then added, according to the chat: “Proof: all of Africa is a shithole, and will always be that way.” (In his first term, Trump used the term “shithole countries” to describe some African nations and Haiti.)
The May 2024 discussion surrounding the “Nazi” remark turned serious as Ingrassia dug in.
Ingrassia at first remarked that the Georgia operative should “read a book (if she’s able to) on George Washington and America’s founding,” according to the chain.
“Paul you are coming across as a white nationalist which is beneficial to nobody,” a third participant in the chat replied.
When Ingrassia apparently said that “defending our founding isn’t ‘white nationalist,’” that participant pushed back, saying Ingrassia “reflexively went to saying whites built the country.”
“They did,” Ingrassia said, according to the chat.
That comment prompted the same participant to respond, “You’re gunna be in private practice one day this shit will be around forever brother.”
Ingrassia posted an image of paintings showing several Founding Fathers, including Washington, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, into the chat. “We should celebrate white men and western civilization and I will never back down from that,” he wrote, according to the chain.
The third participant of the group criticized Ingrassia’s “white nationalist” tone then said he was coming across “with a tinge of racism.” The second participant then said he sounded like “a scumbag,” to which Ingrassia allegedly replied, “Nah it’s fine … Don’t be a boomer … I don’t mind being a scumbag from time to time,” the texts show.
In February 2024, Ingrassia wrote: “We need competent white men in positions of leadership. … The founding fathers were wrong that all men are created equal … We need to reject that part of our heritage,” according to the text exchange.
Ingrassia’s apparent comments in the text chain echo some of his public statements and associations.
Ingrassia has had ties to Fuentes and Andrew Tate, a far-right influencer who has been charged in Britain with rape and human trafficking, which he denies. One month after he apparently made the “Nazi” comment in the group chat, Ingrassia attended a rally for Fuentes, though he later claimed that he didn’t know who had organized the event and soon left. Fuentes did not respond to a request for comment.
After Fuentes was kicked out of a Turning Point USA event in June 2024, Ingrassia called it “an awful decision.” He also called the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a “psyop” a week after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack.
In March 2023, he said that education should focus on helping “elevating the high IQ section of your demographics, so you know, basically young men, straight White men.” And in December 2023, Ingrassia declared on X: “Exceptional white men are not only the builders of Western civilization but are the ones most capable of appreciating the fruits of our heritage.”
The person in the group chat who shared the messages, who has known Ingrassia for several years and met him through Republican political circles, said that Ingrassia’s personality changed in recent years as he went from a young law student interested in conservative politics to an “extreme ego-driven” Trump loyalist. The person said the shift began after Ingrassia, a Cornell Law School graduate, started working as a law clerk for the firm representing Tate and appeared several times on the “War Room” podcast with Bannon, who did not respond to a request for comment.
“He was too young and too inexperienced to deal with the fame,” the person said. “It was like giving an 18-year-old $10 million and saying, ‘Have at it, kid.’”
Periodically during the text chain, the group nudged Ingrassia to tone down his rhetoric, especially if he wanted to work in a future Trump administration, according to the person.
“Very influential people were trying to give him advice on how to be, and he threw that advice right back at them and basically said, ‘Fuck you. Look at me. I can write a Substack and get it posted by the president,’” the person said. “‘Who are you to talk to me?’”
Soon after the May 2024 text exchange, the group chat disbanded. People were tired of Ingrassia’s rhetoric, according to the chat participant who provided the messages to POLITICO.
“I will not be posting on this thread going forward,” the first participant said that day. Referring to Ingrassia, the person added: “There are enemies in this group. Please take my name out of this thread.”
