Konstantinos Ligris, a tech entrepreneur and consultant, has been nominated to be assistant U.S. attorney general in charge of the Office of Justice Programs, which oversees awarding grants to support public safety and criminal justice programs around the country.
https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2026/06/24/senators-grill-trump-doj-pick-on-tweets-disparaging-police-democratic-lawmakers/
https://archive.ph/NxoNP
U.S. senators on Wednesday pressed President Donald Trump’s pick to head the Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs on his past tweets, including one in which he wrote that police are “dumb as dirt” and others in which he disparaged Democratic lawmakers. Konstantinos Ligris, a tech entrepreneur and consultant, has been tapped for an assistant attorney general position at the
OJP, which oversees awarding grants to support public safety and criminal justice programs around the country.
During a confirmation hearing Wednesday, Sen. Richard Durbin of the Senate Judiciary Committee read several tweets that the lawmaker said Ligris posted over the last few years and later deleted. When contacted by Law.com, Durbin’s office provided links to tweets archived on the nonprofit Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
In one, Ligris appears to have quote tweeted a post about an off-duty police officer who was accused of punching another driver in a road rage incident. The post included video of the incident, and Ligris wrote, “Breach of peace... typical cop... dumb as dirt.”
“Now you're seeking a position to work with police departments all over the United States, and to give to these officers who risk their lives for you and me, officers which you refer to as dumb as dirt, you're going to be allocating federal funds. How could you do that?” asked Durbin, of Illinois and the committee's ranking Democrat. “I don't understand why you were chosen for this position.” Ligris replied that he is “not familiar with some of the context or retweets that [Durbin] might be referencing.” He did not immediately respond Wednesday afternoon to an email providing links to the archived tweets and seeking further comment.
“As it relates to that tweet, which I don't have specific reference [as to] whether it was retweeted... I would like to go on the record: Other than my brother, most of my family serves in law enforcement. I do not believe that law enforcement is dumb as dirt,” Ligris said. “I believe that I would like to take a look at the entire post in its context, and what it was referencing.” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, read several tweets attacking Democratic lawmakers, including one where Ligris called Sen. Alex Padilla of California “a thug and a disgrace” and another calling Sen. Adam Schiff of California a fraud.
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