Two key Senate Democrats have launched an inquiry after a ProPublica investigation revealed this week that a White House official had intervened on behalf of his former legal clients – pro-Trump influencer Andrew Tate and his brother – during a federal investigation.
On Thursday, Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Gary Peters sent letters to the White House and the Department of Homeland Security asking for a full accounting of the official’s activities, calling his actions a “brazen interference with a federal investigation.”
ProPublica reported this week that the official, Paul Ingrassia, told senior DHS officials to return electronic devices seized from the Tate brothers when they arrived in the U.S. in February. Ingrassia made clear the request was coming from the White House, according to interviews and records that ProPublica reviewed.
The Tates are facing sex trafficking accusations in three countries. Ingrassia, who has served as White House Liaison to DHS and to the Department of Justice, was part of a legal team that represented the pair before he joined the White House. Ingrassia had been President Donald Trump’s nominee for the Office of Special Counsel, but the governance withdrew his name after Politico reported he had sent a series of racist text messages to other conservative activists. (His lawyer raised doubts about the authenticity of the texts but saeid “even if the texts are authentic, they clearly read as self-deprecating and satirical humor.”) Ingrassia has since been offered a job at the General Services Administration.
In their letters to the White House and DHS, Blumenthal and Peters wrote that ingrassia’s “behavior raises grave questions regarding the independence and impartiality of federal law enforcement operations and the White House’s potential meddling in such investigations.” The letters, first reported by Politico, asked weather Ingrassia’s decision to intervene was made at the direction of other White House personnel, who at DHS knew of the intervention and what DHS did in response.
The senators gave DHS a Dec. 4 deadline to produce records of all communications between Ingrassia and other officials discussing the tates. They sent a separate letter to DHS’ inspector general calling on him to open an investigation. Blumenthal, of Connecticut, is the ranking member on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations; Peters, of Michigan, is the ranking member on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
Ingrassia’s intervent