Trump Picks Eugene Scalia, Son Of Late SCOTUS Justice, As Secretary Of Labor
President Trump has named his pick for Labor Secretary.
Less than a week after the resignation of Alexander Acosta over his role in the negotiation of a plea agreement with convicted child molester Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump has selected his nominee for Secretary of Labor, and he has a familiar last name:
President Trump announced Thursday that he plans to nominate Eugene Scalia, the son of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, as his next Labor secretary — succeeding Alexander Acosta, who announced his resignation last week amid an uproar over an old plea deal he struck with a wealthy financier facing a new round of sex trafficking charges.
“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 1 /2 years than perhaps any Administration in history!”
Scalia, one of the late justice’s nine children, is a veteran attorney well-versed in regulatory matters who served as the top lawyer for the Labor Department under the George W. Bush administration. He is a partner at Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, a Washington law firm, specializing in administrative law and bringing with him deep experience in challenging federal regulations.
After his tenure as the solicitor for the Labor Department, Scalia was hired by Wal-Mart Stores in 2005 to defend the merchandise giant in court as it faced lawsuits accusing it of illegally firing corporate whistleblowers.
Scalia, whose family is revered among conservatives, is likely to face little trouble getting confirmed in the Republican-controlled Senate and already has his legions of admirers in the chamber.
One major booster on Scalia’s behalf was Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who privately spoke to a number of top administration officials — including presidential son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, Attorney General William P. Barr, White House counsel Pat Cipollone and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney — about nominating Scalia to the Labor job, according to a GOP official familiar with the discussions. Scalia served as a special assistant to Barr during his previous tenure as attorney general under President George H.W. Bush.
The White House had also asked senators for their feedback on Scalia for the Labor position, according to another official familiar with the deliberations.
Cotton praised Scalia as “an outstanding lawyer” in a statement late Thursday. “I’m confident he’ll be a champion for working Americans against red tape and burdensome regulation as Labor Secretary.”
Cotton spoke to Trump on Wednesday about nominating Scalia for the job and suggested the president bring in the lawyer for a private meeting. The White House had started considering Scalia for the job as the scrutiny over Acosta’s plea deal began to intensify last week, according to another person familiar with the deliberations, as the administration searched for a fallback option for Acosta should he leave his post.
Trump and Scalia, accompanied by Cotton, Mulvaney and other senior White House staff, met privately at the White House on Thursday afternoon, when the offer was made and Scalia accepted the nomination.
The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal White House deliberations.
The procedure by which Scalia had been installed to his Labor job also drew controversy more than a decade ago. President George W. Bush used a recess appointment in January 2002 to tap Scalia — who faced opposition from labor unions — for the solicitor post to circumvent the Senate, then controlled by Democrats. Bush then extended his tenure by designating him as acting solicitor, which kept him in the job until Republicans took control of the Senate and could more easily confirm Bush’s picks.
Here are Trump’s tweets announcing the nomination:
Scalia, who I believe is the eldest of the late Justice’s nine children, has a fairly long and impressive resume that should serve him well in the upcoming confirmation hearings. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Virginia, majoring in science and minoring in political science. He went on to attend and graduate from the University of Chicago’s Law School and then received a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Pennsylvania. After finishing his education, Scalia held brief stints in the Federal Government, working for both William Bennett when he was Education Secretary and William Barr when he served in his first stint as Attorney General under President George H.W. Bush. After that, Scalia went to work for one of the top law firms in Washington, D.C. before accepting the position of the top legal officer at the Labor Department from 2002 to 2003. After that, Scalia returned to private practice, where he has primarily represented employers, including large companies such as WalMart in labor litigation.
Absent anything in his background that ends up creating a road bump, Scalia seems like he’ll have a fairly easy confirmation process. As noted, Democrats will question him on his ties to big business but it is unlikely that they’ll be able to stop his nomination. Given that, we can expect that he should be confirmed easily.
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Only if they can keep the skeletons hidden in the closet, and we know he has them, he’s a trump nominee. They certainly didn’t do any vetting.
The question I have is did anyone bother to ask him first?
Given Scalia’s reputation, I wonder if he might actually say “uh, thanks but no thanks.”
People who get involved with Trump’s administration seem to end up thrown out as soon as they stick to their principles and don’t kiss Trump’s ass. It’s only the toadies that manage to stick around. I can’t believe Scalia doesn’t realise this.
@grumpy realist: I was thinking the same thing, but having seen that he mostly represents management side on litigation and was championed as a “champion” for working people by Cotton, my guess is that he’s enough of a sleaze to fit in just fine.
If the only thing you know about Scalia is that Cotton thinks he’d be great, warning bells should sound. It’s not hard to translate “a champion for working Americans against red tape and burdensome regulation” as “in favor of eliminating unions and antidiscrimination regs, letting management do whatever they want”.
If Dennison picked him, we should go with the assumption there’s something wrong with him.
@Kathy: I’m sure the Racist Rapist has picked many fine people for his cabinet — actual fine people, not Charlottesville “fine people” — but that they have politely declined.
I do wonder how far down the list Trump had to go to find Scalia The Younger, since he just doesn’t look the part. First, all the generals had to say no.
This is a Labor Secretary job, not an FCC commissioner or something. Look at this guy, with that big bald egglike head. An egghead like that should be in technology. For Labor, you want someone barrel chested, with a full head of hair, who looks like they have worked in a factory or something. Think Marlon Brando from “On The Waterfront”, but a corporate toady.
Seen on Twitter: “He’ll be an originalist like his dad. So, back to slavery and child factory labor! 🙂 “