Trump’s Pick for Special Counsel Has Railed Against ‘Deep State’

President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the US Office of Special Counsel is a MAGA loyalist with few traditional legal credentials, signaling a stark shift for an agency that has operated as an independent watchdog for nearly half a century.

Paul Ingrassia, 30, launched into Trump’s orbit with social media posts that amplified Trump’s grievances and excoriated his enemies, earning praise from the president himself.

He would lead an agency tasked with investigating federal workers’ whistleblower claims and insulating them from political influence. But Ingrassia has expressed deep skepticism of the government workforce, a belief that could push the OSC into uncharted waters.

“His career has been that of an advocate for everything the Office of Special Counsel was created to challenge,” said Tom Devine, legal director for the Government Accountability Project. “If the special counsel is an aggressive opponent of free speech to expose administration abuses, the safe haven becomes a Trojan Horse.”

Ingrassia passed the bar exam in 2023, and became licensed to practice law in New York last summer, though he’s never worked as an attorney full-time, records show.

Ingrassia anchors a Substack with several thousand subscribers, hosted a podcast with his sister, and has an X account where he posts several times daily to more than 56,000 followers. He’s active on Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, where the president has re-posted his work.

Independent Voice

If confirmed by the Senate, Ingrassia’s appointment would transform an agency that until recently was seen as insulated from partisan politics. That changed Feb. 7 when Trump fired Biden-appointed Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger before his five-year term ended.

Dellinger’s firing threatened to erode the independence of the OSC, which processes ethics complaints under several statutes, including the Hatch Act. For example, the office recently released a report finding that former Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley violated the statute, which prohibits openly political speech from public servants.

Dellinger dropped his legal challenge to Trump’s firing after losing an appeal in March. In a statement, he warned that the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit “effectively erased” the office’s independence.

“My fight to stay on the job was not for me, but rather for the ideal that OSC should be as Congress intended: an independent watchdog and a safe, trustworthy place for whistleblowers to report wrongdoing and be protected from retaliation,” Dellinger said.

Before he was let go, Dellinger argued that the Trump administration’s firing of certain probationary workers may be illegal, and recommended officials pause the terminations. The special counsel’s office changed course after Dellinger’s ouster, telling fired workers that the office wouldn’t pursue their complaints.

There are limits on the special counsel’s discretion, providing a lane in court for groups monitoring the administration. For example, Devine said, anyone in the OSC—including the special counsel—who retaliates against a government whistleblower could be personally liable.

Rubbing Shoulders

Ingrassia aligned himself with Trump’s inner circle, posting photos with Rudy Giuliani and Alan Dershowitz and at numerous White House events.

His most recent Christmas card, posted on Facebook , was a photo of him and his sister with Trump, giving a thumbs up. Another post from after the election features a lifelike portrait of Trump adorned in a crown and ceremonial robes.

In numerous posts, Ingrassia conveys a deep distrust of the government and has amplified Trump’s assertion that the 2020 election was stolen. In a Feb. 23 Substack post, he lamented that the president’s will often is “subverted by the will of the bureaucracy or administrative or ‘deep’ state.”

“A government run on bureaucrats, not elected officials, cannot possibly be a representative democracy, as devised under the Constitution, but a bureaucratic technocracy: led by unelected administrators, who in many cases—and sometimes unwittingly—see fit to implement their own agendas, above the will of the people,” he wrote.

Ingrassia’s views have caused tension with Trump aides. Earlier this year, while serving as a liaison between the White House and the US Department of Justice, he clashed with Attorney General Pam Bondi’s top aide, Chad Mizelle, over his desire to fill the department with candidates that demonstrated “exceptional loyalty” to Trump, ABC News reported.

Ingrassia told colleagues finding Trump loyalists for DOJ positions was a top priority, privately claiming that career prosecutors were corrupt, according to ABC. Shortly thereafter, Ingrassia became a liaison with the Department of Homeland Security, a position he still holds, according to his LinkedIn profile.

“Paul Ingrassia is a respected attorney who has served President Trump exceptionally well and will continue to do so as the next head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel,” White House spokesman Harrison Fields said in a statement. “The eleventh-hour smear campaign will not deter the President from supporting this nomination, and the administration continues to have full confidence in his ability to advance the President’s agenda.”

Ingrassia didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Tate Defender

A touchstone of Ingrassia’s young legal career was defending Andrew and Tristan Tate, influencers known for their self-proclaimed misogynistic views. In 2023, the two were charged by Romanian authorities for human trafficking.

In a statement, their lawyers at the McBride Law Firm said the brothers were “targeted for cancellation for their message of male empowerment.” The firm didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Ingrassia is listed as an associate attorney on the case, though he wasn’t yet licensed to practice in New York. Claiming to be an attorney before being admitted to the bar is unusual but not necessarily untoward if Ingrassia was transparent with the firm, said Bruce Green, director of the Stein Center for Law and Ethics at Fordham University.

The press statement says Ingrassia helped facilitate an interview with Tucker Carlson and the Tates. He later praised Andrew Tate on X.

“Happy birthday to the Top G @Cobratate,” he wrote in December 2023, tagging the elder brother.