Trump Nominates Right-Wing Podcaster Paul Ingrassia, Who Has Used White Supremacist Rhetoric, To Head Ethics Agency

President Donald Trump has nominated a former right-wing podcaster to lead a federal watchdog agency.

Paul Ingrassia, who would lead the Office of Special Counsel, is just another in a long line of Trump-nominated media personalities to lead a government team. This office is in charge of enforcing the Hatch Act, which bans partisan political activity by federal employees.

This agency board was created as part of the Civil Service Reform Act, which was created following the Watergate scandal. Ingrassia, who has a long history of pushing conspiracy theories and antisemitic rhetoric, could be tasked with holding the executive branch accountable for misconduct. 

Ingrassia called for martial law after Trump lost the 2020 presidential election.

On social media, Trump described Ingrassia as a “highly respected attorney, writer and Constitutional Scholar.” 

Ingrassia most recently worked as the White House liaison for Homeland Security. Before that, he had a short stint as a liaison at the Justice Department.

Following his nomination, Ingrassia said being nominated is the “highest honor.”

“As Special Counsel, my team and I will make every effort to restore competence and integrity to the Executive Branch — with priority on eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal workforce and revitalizing the Rule of Law and Fairness in Hatch Act enforcement,” Ingrassia wrote on social media.

Before joining the Trump administration, Ingrassia worked at a law firm that represented Andrew and Tristan Tate, influencer brothers who were charged with rape and human trafficking in Britain and Romania. On social media during their case, he called Andrew, the self-proclaimed misogynist, “the ancient ideal of excellence.”

“It is for this reason that he and his brother have become public enemies number one and two in the eyes of the Matrix, the deep state, and the satanic elite that attempt to systematically program and oppress all men from womb-to-tomb – a form of communism that not even Karl Marx, in his wildest dreams, could have imagined,” Ingrassia wrote in a 2023 social media post.

During that same year, he posted in support of Nick Fuentes, a far-right activist who had his then-Twitter account suspended for pushing antisemitic and white supremacist rhetoric. According to The Intercept, Ingrassia attended a rally where Fuentes spoke.

The day after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Ingrassia posted on social media saying, “This ‘war’ is yet another psyop to distract Americans from celebrating Columbus Day.” Days later, he wrote: “I think we could all admit at this stage that Israel/Palestine, much like Ukraine before it, and BLM before that, and covid/vaccine before that, was yet another psyop.”