President Trump plans to name Wall Street financier and loyalist Anthony Scaramucci as White House communications director, according to a report Thursday night.
The news website Axios says Scaramucci will take over the vacant White House communications role, which has been open since Mike Dubke resigned in late May.
Axios says Chief of Staff Reince Priebus was not aware of Trump’s plan to appoint Scaramucci until after the decision was made.
Scaramucci is a prolific Republican donor who backed Trump during the general election campaign, after raising money for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush during the primaries.
He currently works in the Trump administration as chief strategy officer of the Export-Import Bank.
But he initially struggled to land a job in the White House because his efforts to disentangle himself from his businesses drew conflict-of-interest questions. Scaramucci recently sold his stake in his hedge fund, SkyBridge Capital.
News of his appointment comes on the same day that Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Trump’s outside legal team, resigned.
Corallo, a former spokesman for the Justice Department, reportedly has been pushing back against any public criticism of Robert Mueller, who is the special counsel running the federal probe looking into Russian meddling.
