President Trump’s nominee for Office of Special Counsel, Paul Ingrassia, is threatening Politico with legal action over a report accusing him of inappropriate behavior toward a female colleague during a work trip at Orlando, Florida.

In a statement on Friday, Mr. Ingrassia’s attorney, Edward Andrew Paltzik, said Politico’s “defamatory” report was a “vexatious political attack masquerading as ‘journalism,’” adding it will be “addressed in forthcoming legislation.”

Politico’s “hit piece” about Mr. Ingrassia “is calculated to cause maximum harm to his promising career — and torpedo his nomination for Special Counsel,” Mr. Paltzik said. He is demanding a public apology and a full retraction “of this disgraceful and partisan sludge.”

According to the Politico report, Mr. Ingrassia, the 30-year-old Department of Homeland Security White House liaison, and his DHS colleagues were checking into the Ritz-Carlton at Orlando in July when the woman was informed that she did not have a reservation.

Politico says it was told by five unidentified Trump administration officials that Mr. Ingrassia then “informed” the woman — described as a “lower-ranking female colleague” and “fellow Trump appointee” — that she would be staying with him.

The woman would later learn that Mr. Ingrassia “arranged” to have her hotel room canceled in advance of the trip, thereby having her lodge with him, the administration officials are quoted as having told the news site. 

Despite objecting to the room arrangement, the report says, the woman agreed to stay in his room, which had two beds, because she did not want to “cause more of a scene around other colleagues.” 

A “career official” filed a complaint over the incident, and the woman filed a human resources complaint of her own in which she “expressed that she wanted Ingrassia to start speaking to her in a more professional manner.” That complaint was retracted days later out of fear of retaliation, administration officials told Politico.

The woman said in a statement to Politico, which was the first to report on the allegations, that she “never felt uncomfortable” about Mr. Ingrassia’s behavior during the business trip and that there was “no wrongdoing.” She added that she never made a complaint.

“A colleague misjudged the situation and made claims of alleged harassment that are not true,” the woman said. In his statement, Mr. Paltzik said the woman’s clarification “is one of the only accurate parts of POLITICO’s otherwise fantastical and fictional partisan fairy tale.”

A former White House presidential personnel office director, Sergio Gor, “spoke” with Mr. Ingrassia about the incident, and his federal employee badge and access to DHS headquarters were temporarily revoked between August 27 and September 2, according to the report. 

An HR investigation has since ended and Mr. Ingrassia has been “cleared” of  any wrongdoing, a DHS representative said in a statement. 

Mr. Ingrassia has returned to the building. Mr. Gor, now the U.S. ambassador to India, did not respond to a request for comment from Politico. 

Mr. Paltzik is quoted by Politico saying his client did not cancel the woman’s hotel reservation and that “no party engaged in inappropriate behavior.”

“Mr. Ingrassia has never harassed any coworkers — female or otherwise, sexually or otherwise — in connection with any employment,” Mr. Paltzik said in a statement.

The Politico report comes at a time when Mr. Ingrassia’s nomination to head the Office of Special Counsel  hangs in the balance. The office is charged with protecting federal government whistleblowers and investigating and prosecuting so-called prohibited personnel practices, including discrimination and retaliation in the workplace. 

In May, Mr. Trump announced on Truth Social the nomination of Mr. Ingrassia, whom he praised as “a highly respected attorney, writer, and Constitutional Scholar,” despite questions about the nominee’s brief but colorful career as a conservative attorney whose clients include a controversial social media personality, Andrew Tate. 

In the hours immediately after the slaughter of 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023, he expressed isolationist views popular among some far-right conservatives, arguing, “We shouldn’t be beating the war drum, however tragic the events may be overseas, until we resolve our domestic problems first.”

He also supported free speech rights for some of the right’s most controversial figures, including the white supremacist Nick Fuentes after he was kicked out of a Turning Point USA meeting.

After Mr. Fuentes was ejected from X, Mr. Ingrassia wrote, “Conservatives should always uphold the First Amendment and allow for dissident voices, especially those that abide by the venue’s rules — which was the case here.” 

In July, an appearance by Mr. Ingrassia before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee was canceled without explanation. Republican senators told the Sun that there were no updates to Mr. Ingressia’s nomination. Senator James Lankford, a Republican of Oklahoma, told the Sun he still had questions about Mr. Ingrassia’s background.  

“Special Counsel’s a pretty important position, and we want to make sure that it’s a good fit for the president,” Mr. Lankford said. 

Before taking on his current role at DHS, Mr. Ingrassia served as White House liaison to the Department of Justice, where he feuded with the chief of staff, Chad Mizelle, over Mr. Ingrassia’s insistence on hiring candidates who showed “exceptional loyalty” to Mr. Trump. 

In September, a lawsuit filed by three former FBI officials against the justice department and FBI leadership highlighted questioning by Mr. Ingrassia during a January 17 telephone interview with a former acting FBI director, Brian Driscoll. Mr. Driscoll was asked about his thoughts on DEI and whether he voted for a Democrat in the previous five elections. 

After the interview, Mr. Ingrassia told the then-acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove, that Mr. Driscoll was “combative and not ‘based out’ enough,” according to the lawsuit.

Mr. Ingrassia was reassigned to DHS in February.