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nick fuentes
Trump Taps 'Comically Unfit' Election Denier to Head Key Legal Ethics Office
"Leading the Office of Special Counsel requires independence and experience," said one watchdog. "Paul Ingrassia seemingly has neither of these things."
May 30, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday nominated a far-right former podcast host with white supremacist views who called for martial law to keep Trump in power after his 2020 election loss to lead a key legal ethics office.
Trump tapped 30-year-old Paul Ingrassia—who is currently serving as the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security—to head the Office of Special Counsel, an independent investigative and prosecutorial agency tasked with enforcing ethics laws and protecting federal whistleblowers.
"Paul is a highly respected attorney, writer, and Constitutional Scholar, who has done a tremendous job serving as my White House Liaison for Homeland Security," Trump wrote Thursday on his Truth Social network. "Paul holds degrees from both Cornell Law School and Fordham University, where he majored in Mathematics and Economics, graduating near the top of his class."
Critics, however, had a different assessment of Ingrassia's qualifications.
Hampton Dellinger, the previous OSC chief, was initially fired by Trump in February but was temporarily reinstated via court order before being fired again after he began investigating the administration's mass layoffs of federal workers under the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Dellinger dropped his legal challenge in March and announced that "my time as special counsel... is now over."
The OSC enforces the Hatch Act, which restricts the political activity of civilian executive branch employees. In 2021, the agency found that 13 senior Trump aides violated the law by campaigning for the president's failed 2020 reelection bid.
At that time, Ingrassia and his sister Olivia Ingrassia were hosting the "Right on Point" podcast. As Trump stoked the conspiracy theory that Democrats stole the election, Ingrassia amplified the president's "Big Lie" and called for authoritarian measures to keep him in the White House.
On December 12, 2020, the podcast's handle on its Twitter page was renamed "Stop the Steal HQ." The account reposted a tweet from prolific white supremacist and antisemite Nick Fuentes with the added message, "Time for @realDonaldTrump to declare martial law and secure his re-election!"
Ingrassia has expressed his own white supremacist views, including the assertion that "exceptional white men are not only the builders of Western civilization, but are the ones most capable of appreciating the fruits of our heritage." He also replied to a call for slavery reparations by demanding that the descendants of slaves "pay reparations to the descendants of slave owners" and advocated replacing the "treasonous" Ukrainian flag with the Confederate battle flag under penalty of "serious fines."
During the 2024 Republican presidential primaries, Trump boosted a false birther smear by Ingrassia that Nikki Haley—the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador during the first Trump administration—was ineligible to run for president because her parents were not American citizens when she was born. Ingrassia posted several racist aspersions of Haley's Americanness, which have been archived by freelance journalist Jason Hart.
In March, Daily Dot's Amanda Moore revealed that Ingrassia misrepresented himself as an attorney for more than a year prior to his admission to the bar. During this time, he represented former professional kickboxer, self-described misogynist, and alleged rapist, sex trafficker, and money launderer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan Tate in a civil suit. The Tates deny the charges.
As Moore reported:
As early as May 16, 2023, months before he took the bar exam, Ingrassia referred to himself as "an Associate Attorney at The McBride Law Firm, PLLC" on his personal Substack. But his bio on the site frequently changed. In a July 2023 piece on Tate, he described himself simply as an "associate" at the firm. In August, he referred to himself as a "law clerk." New York state records show that Ingrassia, a 2022 graduate of Cornell Law, took the bar on July 25-26, 2023, under his given name, Paolo Ingrassia. While Ingrassia received his results in October 2023, he was not admitted to the New York State Bar until July 30, 2024.
Responding to his nomination, Ingrassia wrote Thursday on X that "it's the highest honor to have been nominated to lead the Office of Special Counsel under President Trump!"
"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 revitalize the rule of law and fairness in Hatch Act enforcement," he added.
"This is a pattern with the president's picks for watchdogs: partisan yeasayers whose willingness to stand up to the administration is questionable at best."
However, the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a nonpartisan watchdog, said Friday: "Leading the Office of Special Counsel requires independence and experience. Paul Ingrassia seemingly has neither of these things."
"This is a pattern with the president's picks for watchdogs: partisan yeasayers whose willingness to stand up to the administration is questionable at best," POGO added.
Conservative writer Bobby Miller said on X that "the most insane thing about the Paul Ingrassia appointment is that he's been tapped to lead the Office of Special Counsel, an ethics watchdog tasked with enforcing laws that protect federal employees from abuse and safeguard the government from politicization."
"No one's even pretending that this Andrew Tate fanboy, Putin stooge, and martial law enthusiast would do anything even close to the job description," Miller added.
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An Adjudicated Rapist in the White House
Not only are women and girls getting the message, but so are the men and boys.
Nov 17, 2024
As a trauma-informed psychotherapist, for decades I’ve had the privilege of working with countless sexual assault survivors while consulting at a rape crisis center and more recently in my private practice. During Trump’s defamation and sexual assault trial (E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump), I was contacted by former and current patient-survivors who were understandably shaken by how Carroll was treated. She was disbelieved, her motives were questioned, and she was mocked or ignored.* This is precisely why many survivors never come forward. Such ill-treatment precisely when someone needs support the most compounds the trauma.
In the days since the election, I’ve had a similar spate of texts/calls/sessions with women who are devastated, disoriented, and scared. (All genders can be sexual assault victims. I just happen to have been in touch with women.)
“It’s mindboggling to me that the fact that [Trump] is an adjudicated rapist, all by itself isn’t enough to make voting for him out of the question,” one woman sobbed, as she buried her face in her hands.
“Why in the hell does the media treat a rapist like a “normal” candidate?” asked another.
Still another texted, “I thought this was the #MeToo era. How can this be?”
Deep-rooted sexism is how. Ask E. Jean Carroll. Ask Christine Blasey Ford. Ask Kamala Harris. Ask millions of women. If you’re someone who voted for Trump, regardless of your reason, there’s no escaping the fact that you participated in that sexism. And before you say it: yes, the 53% of white women who voted for Trump are accountable, as well. Sexism isn’t bound by gender. It can be internalized and championed by anyone. (Same with racism, ableism, ageism, homophobia, etc.) It’s not all that uncommon. To be clear, my goal isn’t to shame. But rather, I hope to invite an honest reckoning, just as I do with my patients as I support them on their journeys, and just as I do with myself. And in that reckoning, perhaps, there can come some awareness and a future dialogue.
Make no mistake, this is going to have a chilling effect on survivors to come forward to report sexual assault.
If you don’t see yourself as someone who could be sexist, remember that sexism isn’t always the “grab ‘em by the pussy” variety. Those who voted for Trump told their daughters and sisters and mothers and women friends tacitly, but unmistakably, that they don’t care enough that the president of the United States is an adjudicated rapist not to vote for him. What reason could make it okay to vote for an adjudicated rapist? It seems that would be a deal breaker for folks who respect and want to protect women. Perhaps it never occurred to some that many women will no longer feel psychologically and physically safe knowing a man with so much power over them has paternalistically and threateningly said he’d “protect [us], whether [we] like it or not.” If a patient reported a partner/spouse had a pattern of saying things like that to her, we’d be discussing safety plans and where she was going to stash her “go bag” in case she needed to quickly flee.
Not only are women and girls getting the message, but so are the men and boys. A Trump vote signaled to men and boys that sexual assault isn’t that big of a deal. In just a few short days since Trump was elected, we’ve already seen how emboldened and entitled men and boys have become. The sickening Nick Fuentes post, “Your body, my choice” has gone viral. Men and boys of all ages are repeating it, some as young as grammar school. Those words are the promise of a predator. The philosophy of a rapist.
A vote for Trump has also given the message to sexual assault survivors, specifically, and women who go through life hoping like hell not to become a sexual assault survivor, that being held legally accountable for rape/sexual assault doesn’t really mean all that much, particularly if you’re a rich, white guy. Despite a jury’s findings of liability, you can be unrepentant and take zero responsibility for your actions, mock your victim on an international platform, and then be voted in by millions of people to hold the most powerful position on Earth.
“All hail, the Rapist-in-Chief,” one of my patients said, saluting and trying to joke through her tears.
Make no mistake, this is going to have a chilling effect on survivors to come forward to report sexual assault. It’s going to discourage them from getting the care and support they need. And just as with the undoing of Roe v. Wade, which robs women of bodily autonomy and the right to fully decide their own futures, it demeans and demoralizes all women.
If you’re a sexual assault survivor and a person of color, and/or also in the LGBTQ+ community, or disabled, low income, or unhoused, I don’t have to tell you about the added challenges those intersections bring. And sexual assault survivor or not, all of these communities, and more, will surely be deeply threatened under a second Trump term. As a psychotherapist, I’ve had the privilege of holding space for innumerable women who’ve told stories of violence and deep pain. I know what horrors we can inflict on each other and I’m not naïve about the uncertainty ahead. But I’ve also heard myriad stories of breathtaking resilience and kick-ass strength and triumph. If during these fraught times each of us commits, however we’re able, to meaningfully stand not only with survivors, but all women and girls, as well as marginalized communities, those are the empowering stories we’ll be sharing one day because it will have been the truth we lived.
*During the trial, I wrote about some of the misperceptions people have about how one “should” respond after being sexual assaulted here.
If you’re a survivor and need support and/or resources, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1.800.656.HOPE (4673); or go to www.rainn.org.
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Faith Leaders Say Jan. 6 Committee Report Downplays Role of Christian Nationalism
"If we don't confront Christian nationalism then we are leaving ourselves open to future attacks, like what we saw on January 6," said one critic.
Dec 29, 2022
In an effort to fill in what they say are critical gaps in the U.S. House select committee's report on the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, faith leaders are pushing the corporate media and the American public to confront the role Christian nationalism played in the insurrection, warning that ignoring the link could make similar violence more likely in the future.
The committee's report, released last week, laid out extensive evidence showing that former President Donald Trump was the driving force behind the attack aimed at stopping lawmakers from certifying the 2020 presidential election results, but mentioned Christian nationalism just once, despite the fact that many of the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol openly expressed Christian nationalist beliefs before, during, and after the attack.
As Religion News Servicereported last week, some Trump supporters who attempted to overthrow the government carried flags displaying a so-called "Jesus fish" painted red, white, and blue like the American flag along with the words "Proud American Christian." Hundreds took part in what they called a "Jericho March" and prayed for the election results to be overturned the day before the insurrection, and some were heard chanting, "Christ is king" in Washington, D.C. on January 6.
"The symbols of Christian nationalism were on full display not only on January 6 itself, but at numerous rallies leading up to the attack," Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJC), told Alicia Menendez on MSNBC on Wednesday.
Christian Nationalism Conspicuously Absent From January 6 Reportwww.youtube.com
The report, however, only noted that supporters of white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who was in Washington on January 6 but has not been accused of breaching the Capitol, have "repeatedly promoted white supremacist and Christian nationalist beliefs."
The inclusion of just a single reference to Christian nationalism—the belief that the government should actively ensure that the U.S. is a Christian nation—was something faith leaders warned against earlier this year when they called on lawmakers to closely examine the role the belief system played in convincing thousands of people to storm the Capitol and continue to question the 2020 election results long after January 6.
In June, Christians Against Christian Nationalism, a project of the BJC, wrote in a letter to the House committee that "Christian nationalism helped motivate and intensify the insurrection" and that lawmakers should "thoroughly investigate the role that Christian nationalism played in the attack."
"This seditious mob was motivated not just by loyalty to Trump, but by an unholy amalgamation of white supremacy and Christianity that has plagued our nation since its inception and is still with us today," wrote Robert P. Jones, president of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), at the time.
As Religion News Servicereported last week, a spokesperson for committee member Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wy.) suggested weeks before the report was released that the congresswoman objected to focusing seriously on Christian nationalism, telling The Washington Post that Cheney "won't sign onto any 'narrative' [that] suggests every American who believes God has blessed America is a white supremacist."
Lawmakers including Cheney, who leaves office next week, "fear that confronting Christian nationalism might be misconstrued as an attack on Christianity or Christians, and nothing could be further from the truth," Tyler told MSNBC. "We are trying to draw attention to what Christian nationalism is... Christian nationalism turns Christianity's gospel of love into a false idol of power. It turns John's gospel teaching us that God so loved the world on its head, saying falsely that God has a special plan for the U.S. or that God loves the U.S. more than any other country, or that God has preordained election results."
Faith leaders are working to explain "why that's not the case," added Tyler, "because if we don't confront Christian nationalism then we are leaving ourselves open to future attacks, like what we saw on January 6."
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