Fox News President Bill Shine departs after meeting with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower in the Manhattan borough of New York, U.S., November 21, 2016. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House will likely soon announce U.S. President Donald Trump’s pick of former Fox News executive Bill Shine to become the next White House communications director, a White House official on Wednesday.

The job has been vacant since Hope Hicks, Trump’s campaign confidante, left in February.

Shine resigned in May 2017 as co-president of Fox News Channel in the wake of a sexual misconduct scandal at the cable channel. Named in a number of lawsuits alleging sexual misconduct, Shine was blamed for not doing more to prevent it.

Multiple media outlets reported that Shine was the top candidate for the job. The New York Times, citing two unidentified people familiar with the decision, said he was expected to be offered the position.

Hicks was the third communications director of the Trump White House, following Mike Dubke, who held the post for about three months, and Anthony Scaramucci, who was fired after just 10 days in the job following obscene comments he made in an interview with The New Yorker magazine.