Eugene Scalia, who served as the United States Secretary of Labour, in the last 16 months of Donald Trump’s presidency, told the January 6 committee that he urged the then-president to concede around Dec. 14, 2020, when the electoral college confirmed that the Joe Biden had won the presidency. 

“I might have called on the 13th — we spoke I believe on the 14th — in which I conveyed to him that I thought that it was time for him to acknowledge that President Biden had prevailed in the election”, Scalia said. 

Born on August 14, 1963, in Cleveland, Ohio, Eugene is the second of nine children of late US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia who was known for hardline views on abortion. Eugene Scalia majored in economics with a minor in political science from the University of Virginia and worked for the US government for two years, as a speechwriter for Education Secretary William J. Bennett, before getting a law degree from the University of Chicago. 

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In the US government, Scalia was Solicitor of Labour – the chief legal officer in the department of labour. He was appointed by then-president George Bush in 2001 after Scalia’s private practice firm, Gibson Dunn, represented Bush in the US Supreme Court in 2000, in the matter of Bush v Gore. It settled a dispute arising from the 2000 presidential election between Bush and Al Gore. 

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During Scalia’s private practice, the 58-year-old defended major corporations against various financial and labour regulations, though some said that during his time in the Bush government, the lawyer was “very supportive of enforcement litigation to vindicate the rights of workers”, as per Bloomberg. 

Following his time as Secretary of Labour, Scalia is currently back at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, working in their DC offices, and is a partner at the firm as well as co-chair of the Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Group. 

Scalia is married to Patricia Larsen and they have seven children.