Latest news with #RightOnPoint
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Trump nominates Paul Ingrassia to lead Office of Special Counsel
President Trump nominated former right-wing podcaster Paul Ingrassia to lead the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), a key role for protecting whistleblowers and enforcing laws against electioneering. Ingrassia is serving as a White House aide and formerly was a writer for the Daily Caller and hosted the podcast Right On Point. He is also an attorney and served on the legal team representing self-described misogynist Andrew Tate. 'I am pleased to nominate Paul Ingrassia to head the United States Office of Special Counsel (OSC),' Trump wrote on his social media site. '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.' Ingrassia will take the reins of the OSC at a key time for the agency. Trump fired previous special counsel Hampton Dellinger, even after he was confirmed to a five-year term for the role under President Biden. Dellinger initially contested his firing and prevailed in court, staying in his post and forwarding challenges to Trump's plans for widespread firings of probationary employees — those hired within the past year or two. But an appeals court then declined to keep Dellinger in his role while the legal battle advanced, pushing him to quit. Without Dellinger on the job, the OSC has switched positions on cases now before the Merit Systems Protection Board — another board where Trump has sought to fire leadership appointed to several-year terms. That includes fighting to keep probationary workers in their roles. If confirmed, Ingrassia would also be responsible for enforcing the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from campaigning for a candidate while on the job. During the first Trump administration, officials repeatedly ran afoul of the law, in particular then-aide Kellyanne Conway, who was cited for numerous violations. In his prior life as a conservative commentator, Ingrassia lavished praise on Tate, calling him the 'embodiment of the ancient ideal of excellence' for his 'sheer physical prowess' and being 'sharp as a tack' and full of 'willpower and spirit.' Tate has been charged with human trafficking in Romania as well as rape in the United Kingdom. Ingrassia has also pushed for Nick Fuentes, a far-right activist who has espoused white supremacist and antisemitic views, to be reinstated to Twitter, now known as X, calling it a First Amendment issue in a Substack post. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Trump nominates Paul Ingrassia to lead Office of Special Counsel
President Trump nominated former right-wing podcaster Paul Ingrassia to lead the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), a key role for protecting whistleblowers and enforcing laws against electioneering. Ingrassia is currently serving as a White House aide but was formerly a writer for The Daily Caller and hosted the podcast Right On Point. He is also an attorney, and previously served on the legal team representing self-described misogynist Andrew Tate. 'I am pleased to nominate Paul Ingrassia to head the United States Office of Special Counsel (OSC),' Trump wrote on his social media site. '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.' Ingrassia will take the reins of the OSC at a key time for the agency. Trump fired previous special counsel Hampton Dellinger, even after he was confirmed to a five-year term for the role under President Biden. Dellinger initially contested his firing and prevailed in court, staying in his post and forwarding challenges to Trump's plans for widespread firings of probationary employees – those hired within the last year or two. But an appeals court then declined to keep Dellinger in his role while the legal battle advanced, pushing him to quit. Without Dellinger on the job, the OSC has switched positions on cases now before the Merit Systems Protection Board – another board where Trump has sought to fire leadership appointed to several-year terms. That includes fighting to keep probationary workers in their roles. If confirmed, Ingrassia would also be responsible for enforcing the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from campaigning for a candidate while on the job. During the first Trump administration, officials repeatedly ran afoul of the law, in particular then-aide Kellyanne Conway, who was cited for numerous violations. In his prior life as a conservative commentator, Ingrassia lavished praise on Tate, calling him the 'embodiment of the ancient ideal of excellence' for his 'sheer physical prowess' and being 'sharp as a tack' and full of 'willpower and spirit.' Tate has been charged with human trafficking in Romania as well as rape in the United Kingdom. Ingrassia has also pushed for Nick Fuentes, a far-right activist who has espoused white supremacist and antisemitic views, to be reinstated to Twitter, now known as X, calling it a First Amendment issue in a Substack post.
New York Times
5 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
Trump Nominates a Former Far-Right Podcast Host to Head an Ethics Watchdog
President Trump on Thursday nominated Paul Ingrassia, a former far-right podcast host now serving as the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, to a new key role: head of the Office of Special Counsel, an independent corruption-fighting agency that safeguards federal whistle-blowers and enforces some ethics laws. The office has had a bumpy ride in the second Trump presidency. In February, Mr. Trump fired the office's head, Hampton Dellinger. Mr. Dellinger sued to keep his job, was temporarily reinstated by a court order, began investigating complaints arising from the Trump administration's mass firings of federal workers and was removed again in March after an appeals court ruled in the administration's favor. The Office of Special Counsel dropped its inquiry into the mass firings in April. The office had annoyed Mr. Trump during his first term by pursuing allegations of misconduct, resulting in a finding that 13 senior aides had campaigned for his re-election in violation of the law known as the Hatch Act. Before working for Mr. Trump, Mr. Ingrassia hosted a podcast, 'Right on Point,' with his sister, Olivia Ingrassia. In December 2020, as Mr. Trump was contesting his election loss to Joseph R. Biden Jr., the podcast posted on Twitter, 'Time for @realDonaldTrump to declare martial law and secure his re-election.' Mr. Ingrassia has represented the 'manosphere' influencer Andrew Tate, who is currently facing criminal charges in Romania and Britain, and pushed a false theory that Nikki Haley was ineligible to run for president. He graduated from Cornell Law School in 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile. In a Truth Social post on Thursday night, Mr. Trump called Mr. Ingrassia 'a highly respected attorney, writer and Constitutional Scholar.' Mr. Ingrassia posted on X that as head of the office, he would 'make every effort to restore competence and integrity to the Executive Branch — with priority on eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in the federal workplace, and Revitalize the Rule of Law and Fairness in Hatch Act enforcement.'
