WASHINGTON, D.C. — Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, one of Donald Trump’s earliest and most enthusiastic backers to be president, has been offered the job of attorney general, according to two people familiar with the transition effort.

Sessions, 69, is considered one of the most conservative Republicans in the Senate and has extensive legal experience as a federal prosecutor in his home state of Alabama.

If he accepts the job and is confirmed, Sessions would lead an agency of more than 100,000 employees and a nearly $30 billion budget that is tasked with investigating and prosecuting terrorists, civil rights violators and those who break environmental laws.

Generally liked and respected by his colleagues in both political parties, Sessions has earned a reputation for being one of its most conservative members and often backed tough-on-crime legislation. He is particularly tough on illegal immigration, one of Trump’s signature issues. He voted against President Obama’s two selections for the Supreme Court, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.

Sessions, who became the first U.S. senator to endorse Trump in February, has since emerged as one of the business mogul’s closest advisers.

Senate staffers said they expected him to be confirmed, but the process may not be an easy one.

In 1986, his nomination to be a federal judge was rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee after it emerged he made racially insensitive remarks.

During his hearings, four Justice Department lawyers testified that he had expressed racist views or endorsed them. He acknowledged in testimony that he called the NAACP and ACLU “un-American,” though he denied believing such statements.

He testified that he believed such organizations may have taken positions “adverse to the security of the United States,” and has since consistently praised the work of the NAACP.

A colleague also testified that Sessions had agreed with a statement that a white lawyer was a “disgrace” to his race for handling civil rights cases. A black lawyer testified that Sessions once called him “boy.” Sessions denied having made those statements.

If confirmed to be attorney general, Sessions would lead an agency that under President Barack Obama has waded aggressively into civil rights issues, particularly in the wake of unrest sparked by the killings of black men by police officers in recent years.

The Justice Department has investigated nearly two-dozen police departments on allegations their officers violated the rights of citizens they served.

Sessions was born and raised in Alabama. He graduated from Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1969 and obtained his law degree from the University of Alabama in 1973. He was tapped by President Reagan in 1981 to be the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, a position he held through 1993. In 1994, he was elected to be the state’s attorney general. Two years later, he won a Senate seat.