JCPA Alarmed by Special Counsel Nominee Paul Ingrassia’s Support for Extremist Views and Individuals

Ahead of the scheduled confirmation hearing this week for Paul Ingrassia, President Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) continues to express alarm about Ingrassia’s support for extreme views and individuals – which were further spotlighted by a new report on Ingrassia’s history of sending racist and extreme text messages. 

JCPA CEO Amy Spitalnick released the following statement: 

“The fact that someone who professed to having ‘a Nazi streak’ and explicitly espouses white supremacist ideas is somehow still under consideration to lead a major federal investigative office shows just how normalized this extremism has become. 

Taken alongside the many other extremists appointed to senior government roles and the administration’s gutting of programs intended to counter domestic extremism and hate crimes, it raises dire concerns for the safety of communities across the country.

JCPA recently partnered with the National Council of Jewish Women to organize 13 national Jewish groups in a September 30 letter to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, expressing deep concerns about this nomination. As we noted, elevating and confirming Mr. Ingrassia to an important government role would send a dangerous message that his antisemitic, racist, and misogynistic views are not only tolerated, but endorsed and encouraged. 

This extremist rhetoric and ideology cannot be brushed off or ignored; it must be treated as the serious threat it poses. Ingrassia’s repeated endorsement of conspiracies like the ‘Great Replacement’ theory – an ideology that has motivated deadly violence from Charlottesville, Pittsburgh, Poway, El Paso, Buffalo, and elsewhere– threatens the safety of the Jewish community and so many other vulnerable minorities. It should have no place at the highest levels of our government.”