Konstantinos Ligris, a DOJ nominee floated by President Donald Trump, seemed surprised when he was asked about tweets insulting two sitting senators serving on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Trump sent Ligris’s nomination to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on Wednesday. If confirmed, Ligris would become an assistant attorney general for the Office of Justice Programs. The OJP is an agency under the Department of Justice best known for controlling criminal justice grants.

In Wednesday’s hearing, in clips surfaced by journalist Aaron Rupar, committee ranking member Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) grilled the DOJ nominee about tweets he had written insulting a number of politicians, including Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), as well as police officers as a whole.

READ MORE: ‘Coverup’: Kristol Says a Senate Vote on Blanche Should Be a Vote on Epstein

“I can’t imagine how you can defend some of the things that you’ve been posting for years, some of the things that you’ve written,” Durbin said. “There’s this awful tweet that you put in the record, a matter of public record, now. In light of what you’re seeking here… in 2024, Ligris referred to police officers as ‘dumb as dirt,’ close quote, when writing quote ‘breach of peace, typical cop dumb as dirt.’  And 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’ve referred to as dumb as dirt. You’re going to be allocating federal funds. How could you do that?”

Ligris hedged and replied that he wasn’t familiar with the context and purged his tweets every 90 days “for cybersecurity,” but Durbin wasn’t having it. Durbin demanded he address the “dumb as dirt” comment. Ligris again said he didn’t know the context, but said that as “most of my family serves in law enforcement,” he did not think that “law enforcement is dumb as dirt.”

"That's it?" — Durbin confronts a Trump DOJ nominee named Konstantinos Ligris with some of his tweets — including calling Walz "tampon Tim," Biden officials "retarded," and referring to cops as "dumb as dirt" — and Ligris doesn't even try to defend them, leaving Durbin… pic.twitter.com/j8W7cxCulj

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 24, 2026

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) continued this line of questioning, focusing on tweets Ligris made insulting two members of the Judiciary Committee.

“You have tweets that call Donald Trump and Kamala Harris ‘two clowns,’ you have tweets that call Senator Murkowski ‘almost as dumb as Kamala,’ you have tweets that call Senator Collins a ‘fraud.’ You have tweets that call Senator [Alex] Padilla, who sits on this committee, a ‘thug.’ You have tweets that call Senator [Adam] Schiff a ‘fraud.’ He also sits on this committee. And you undertook no preparation to face questions about that as you come before the Senate Judiciary Committee,” Sen. Whitehouse asked.

The DOJ nominee said he hadn’t prepared to answer those questions, and confirmed he did not inform the DOJ about his tweet history. He added that the DOJ “never raised” any questions about the tweets with him. Sheldon then asked if Ligris could be relied on to approve grants filed from the state of California, which Padilla and Schiff represent.

WHITEHOUSE: You have tweets calling Donald Trump and Kamala Harris '2 clowns,' calling Murkowski 'almost as dumb as Kamala,' calling Sen. Collins 'a fraud,' calling Sen. Padilla a 'thug.' You didn't tell the DOJ about those tweets?

LIGRIS: No pic.twitter.com/59dZs66Jgj

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 24, 2026

“Having called Senator Padilla a thug at least five times, and Senator Schiff a fraud, what reasonably could they expect about you giving California programs a fair hearing if you’re put in charge of OJP?” Whitehouse asked.

“Every state and every jurisdiction would expect that they would go through the process of applying for grants with the Office of Justice Programs, and reviewed through the process… of applying for grants with the Office of Justice Programs, and those and those grant applications would would be administered and reviewed through the process of the of the department,” Ligris replied.

“Yeah, that’s what they would expect. And then there’d be a guy at the head of the program who thinks that the senators involved are a thug and a fraud. How do you convince us that you’re not going to let that personal bias against these two individuals affect your judgment?” Whitehouse fired back.

“Because I believe that the Office of Justice Programs has a mission to support the entire country, every state and every city, and protect our communities, irrespective of the elected leadership that exists there today or tomorrow,” he said.

“So, ‘just trust me,’ I guess, is what you’re saying,” Whitehouse said.

LIGRIS: I suspect you're quoting retweets or comments to other tweets

WHITEHOUSE: No. They're your tweets. You're responsible for knowing what you said. Don't put it on us to have to explain to us your own tweets. This is your mess, not ours. If you can't explain that, that's on… pic.twitter.com/l0k4NXhGsr

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 24, 2026

Ligris’ background is as a real estate attorney, but he went into the technology sector. He is currently a managing director at security consulting firm RoyStark as well as a director at CATIC Financial and CATIC Holdings, a title insurer, according to Criminal Justice Journalists Crime and Justice News Digest. He also founded the digital real estate platform Stavvy Inc., and the legal firm Ligris, which focuses on real estate.

Image via Shutterstock