Trump to nominate son of Scalia to be next labor secretary

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he plans to nominate Eugene Scalia, the son of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, as his next secretary of Labor.

“I am pleased to announce that it is my intention to nominate Gene Scalia as the new Secretary of Labor. Gene has led a life of great success in the legal and labor field and is highly respected not only as a lawyer, but as a lawyer with great experience working with labor and everyone else,” Trump said Thursday night in a pair of tweets. “He will be a great member of an Administration that has done more in the first 2 ½ years than perhaps any Administration in history!”

If confirmed, Scalia would succeed Alex Acosta, who resigned from the position last week after a fresh round of scrutiny over a years-old plea deal he struck with wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was indicted earlier this month on federal sex trafficking charges. Politico first reported that Scalia is under consideration.

The White House has been asking senators, who would be tasked with confirming his ultimate nominee, what they think of Scalia for the job, according to one person familiar with the conversations. Trump and Scalia met privately on Thursday afternoon at the White House to discuss the post, another person familiar with the deliberations said.

The White House began considering Scalia for the job as the scrutiny over Acosta's plea deal intensified last week, according to one of the people, as the administration searched for a fallback option to Acosta should he leave his post.

The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal White House deliberations.

Scalia, a veteran attorney well-versed in deregulation policies, is currently a partner at Washington law firm Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher; he previously served as solicitor of labor during the George W. Bush administration.