President Donald Trump is expected to tap former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli for a senior position at the Homeland Security Department, but the exact role is still under discussion, a White House official confirmed.
The White House official downplayed reports that Cuccinelli would be given the title “immigration czar,” signaling that the one-time Republican candidate for Virginia governor is being considered for a more narrow role.
Policy czars are typically based out of the White House, where they oversee issues across multiple agencies.White House officials cautioned that Cuccinelli’s title and duties remain in flux. It was unclear as of Tuesday afternoon how much influence Cuccinelli would have over the administration’s immigration agenda, one of Trump’s top priorities. Already, two of Trump’s most senior White House advisers, Stephen Miller and Jared Kushner, are deeply involved in the matter.
Cuccinelli has spoken to Trump and other administration officials in recent days, the White House official said.
Cuccinelli served as Virginia’s attorney general from 2010-2014, and then lost the 2013 Virginia governor’s race to Democrat Terry McAuliffe. He gained national attention for suing the Obama administration over the constitutionality of the federal health-care overhaul in 2010, and he became a regular on Fox News.
As attorney general, he took a series of controversial actions, including advising public colleges that they could not adopt nondiscrimination policies protecting gay people and asserting a climate scientist engaged in fraud as he took on global warming. But it was his high-profile lawsuit about the Affordable Care Act that put him on national TV.
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine