The astonishing return of the advice and consent power

Imagine a candidate too racist for Rick Scott and Ron Johnson? Because this is 2025, you don’t have to:

President Donald Trump’s pick to lead an office charged with protecting federal whistleblowers appeared to be in jeopardy on Tuesday after Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he hoped the White House would withdraw the nomination.

The growing opposition to Paul Ingrassia comes after a Politico report of a text chat that showed him saying the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday should be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell.” Ingrassia also described himself in the chat as having “a Nazi streak” at times.

“He’s not going to pass,” Thune told reporters.

Two Republicans who serve on the committee with jurisdiction over the nomination for the Office of Special Counsel job, Sens. Rick Scott of Florida and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, said they do not support Ingrassia’s confirmation.

“I’m a no. It never should have got this far,” Johnson said Tuesday. “They ought to pull the nomination.”

Here’s the report about the groyper Trump nominated:

Paul Ingrassia, President Donald Trump’s embattled nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, told a group of fellow Republicans in a text chain the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday should be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell” and said he has “a Nazi streak,” according to a text chat viewed by POLITICO.

Ingrassia, who has a Senate confirmation hearing scheduled Thursday, made the remarks in a chain with a half-dozen Republican operatives and influencers, according to the chat.

“MLK Jr. was the 1960s George Floyd and his ‘holiday’ should be ended and tossed into the seventh circle of hell where it belongs,” Ingrassia wrote in January 2024, according to the chat.

“Jesus Christ,” one participant responded.

Also my reaction to finding out that there was a nominee who would constitute a line that Trump could still cross and not get the Senate conference to go along, as it happens.