WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The nominee for U.S. Office of Special Counsel, Paul Ingrassia, told a group of other Republicans in a text chain that the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday should be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell” and that he has a “Nazi streak,” according to a report published on Monday by Politico.
Ingrassia, who currently works as White House liaison at the Department of Homeland Security, also called assassinated civil rights leader King the “1960s George Floyd,” referring to the Black man killed by Minneapolis police in 2020, the report said.
Ingrassia’s Senate nomination hearing for the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates federal whistleblower complaints and discrimination claims, is scheduled for Thursday.
A lawyer for Ingrassia, Edward Andrew Paltzik, told Politico that the messages could have been manipulated or doctored to damage Ingrassia’s confirmation chances. “We do not concede the authenticity of any of these purported messages,” Paltzik said.
Paltzik did not respond to a request for comment, and Reuters was unable to reach Ingrassia directly. Both the White House and DHS did not respond to requests for comment.
Over the summer, the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee postponed Ingrassia’s hearing, without giving a reason. Politico said in its report that the delay was over concerns that Ingrassia had expressed antisemitic views. Senators have also said they are concerned about 30-year-old Ingrassia’s lack of legal experience.
As part of the group chat obtained by Politico, Ingrassia at one point said he didn’t believe in holidays that celebrate Black Americans “from kwanza [sic] to mlk jr day to black history month to Juneteenth.” He then added: “Every single one needs to be eviscerated.”
In another chat, he reportedly said, “I do have a Nazi streak in me from time to time, I will admit it.”
The text chains date back as far as December 2023, according to Politico.
(Reporting by James Oliphant, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
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