Overview
- Ingrassia announced on Truth Social that he was pulling out of Thursday’s Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing, citing insufficient Republican support.
- Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the nominee was “not going to pass,” as GOP Senators Rick Scott, Ron Johnson and James Lankford publicly broke with the pick.
- Politico reported texts attributed to Ingrassia in which he called himself as having a “Nazi streak,” denigrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day and used an anti-Black slur; the outlet said it verified the phone number tied to the chat.
- Attorney Edward Andrew Paltzik questioned the messages’ authenticity and context, raising the possibility of manipulation or AI alteration and describing the tone as satirical.
- The White House must formally withdraw the nomination, and without a path forward the planned confirmation hearing will not proceed for the nominee to lead the agency that protects whistleblowers and enforces civil-service rules.