Key Trump Nominee Accused Of Sexual Harassment

In late July, Paul Ingrassia, the White House liaison for the Department of Homeland Security, arrived at a Ritz-Carlton in Orlando with a lower-ranking female colleague and others from their department. When the group reached the front desk, the woman learned she didn’t have a hotel room.

Ingrassia then informed her that she would be staying with him, according to five administration officials familiar with the episode. Eventually the woman discovered that Ingrassia had arranged ahead of time to have her hotel room canceled so she would have to stay with him, three of those officials said.

The woman, a fellow Trump appointee, initially protested the room arrangement. But, not wanting to cause more of a scene around other colleagues, she relented, according to the officials. So the two, who knew each other previously as friends, went to the room and slept in separate beds. Ingrassia’s attorney said no last-minute changes were made to the hotel reservations.

What’s not disputed is that the two ended up sharing a room on the business trip, and that it resulted in an official investigation.

The fallout from the incident has been the talk of the upper echelons of DHS ever since. It adds to a swirl of controversy surrounding Ingrassia, a 30-year-old conservative lawyer and activist who is President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, which deals with federal employee whistleblower complaints and discrimination claims. Ingrassia would be two decades younger and less experienced than recent leaders of the agency.

Ingrassia’s nomination is already on the rocks after Republican senators raised concerns about his background and amount of experience, as well as possible antisemitism, which the administration has disputed.

The Florida episode comes as DHS is struggling to meet White House demands for mass deportations and battling Democratic states and cities that refuse to help with Trump’s immigration agenda. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has been a key messenger for the president, but has received some criticism for appearing more focused on getting attention on television than running her department.

Ingrassia’s female colleague filed a human resources complaint against him before retracting it days later, fearing retaliation, according to three of the officials. However, five administration officials told POLITICO she complained to them that Ingrassia was making her feel uncomfortable and that it was hurting her ability to do her job.

Ingrassia declined to comment, but his attorney denied the allegations.

“Mr. Ingrassia has never harassed any coworkers — female or otherwise, sexually or otherwise — in connection with any employment,” Edward Andrew Paltzik wrote in a letter to POLITICO. He acknowledged that Ingrassia and the woman shared a hotel room, but said that Ingrassia didn’t have her hotel reservation canceled and that “no party engaged in inappropriate behavior” on the trip.

The woman, whom POLITICO is not naming, said in a statement that she “never felt uncomfortable” about Ingrassia’s behavior and said she had never made a complaint.

“A colleague misjudged the situation and made claims of alleged harassment that are not true,” the woman added. “There was no wrongdoing.” Though a career official initially filed a complaint, the woman filed her own complaint afterward, according to two officials who were granted anonymity to speak about sensitive internal personnel matters. In addition to including the Florida incident in the complaint she later retracted, the woman expressed that she wanted Ingrassia to start speaking to her in a more professional manner.

The attorney for Ingrassia and a DHS spokesperson said the HR investigation into him ended and cleared him. “Career human resources personnel thoroughly looked into every allegation and concern and found no wrongdoing,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

Separate from the HR probe, however, POLITICO spoke with two officials who said they were interviewed in September by the DHS inspector general about allegations of sexual harassment involving Ingrassia. The IG’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Ingrassia’s attorney said there is no ongoing investigation and the DHS spokesperson said they weren’t aware of an IG investigation into the matter.

After the Florida incident, presidential personnel director Sergio Gor spoke to Ingrassia, and from Aug. 27 to Sept. 2, Ingrassia’s federal employee badge and access to DHS headquarters were revoked, according to the two officials. Ingrassia is now back in the building.

Gor didn’t respond to a request for comment, and a White House spokesperson declined to comment.

In his role as the White House liaison to DHS Ingrassia is a powerful figure, managing DHS political appointees and helping hire new ones. He also serves as a conduit to the White House Presidential Personnel Office.

In May, Trump nominated Ingrassia, who received his law degree in 2022, to head the Office of Special Counsel. After he drew publicity for ties to white supremacist Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate — an influencer who has been charged in Britain with rape and human trafficking, which he denies — Ingrassia’s July nomination hearing was indefinitely delayed.

It was a rare instance of Senate Republicans pushing back on a Trump nominee.

Ingrassia has shared conspiracy theories about 9/11 and praised far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. A podcast that he co-hosted called for martial law and secession after the 2020 election if legal efforts to overturn the election didn’t succeed. He has advocated for some people who rioted at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. On his Substack, Ingrassia, who interned for the first Trump White House, dubs himself “President Trump’s favorite writer” because Trump shared his comments almost 100 times last year on social media.

A month into Trump’s term this year, Ingrassia was reassigned out of the Department of Justice, where he was appointed White House liaison, after he clashed with DOJ’s chief of staff. ABC News reported that Ingrassia had been telling Trump appointees that he was looking for “exceptional loyalty” to the president, which was perceived as an inappropriate injection of politics into the law enforcement agency.

Last month, he was singled out in a lawsuit that former top FBI career officials filed against the government alleging he asked political questions to an FBI official as part of an effort to determine loyalty to Trump.