Yesterday we told you about a Bloomberg Law reporter who smeared a Trump appointee to the Labor Department as an anti-Semite, when it simply wasn’t true. Leif Olson, who was the accused, resigned from his position four hours after Bloomberg Law reporter Ben Penn contacted the Labor Department. Now it’s being reported that this injustice has been undone:
DAILY CALLER – The Department of Labor reinstated a political appointee Wednesday night who resigned under pressure after a Bloomberg Law article falsely accused him of anti-Semitism for a Facebook post in which he was actually condemning anti-Semites in the alt-right, the Daily Caller News Foundation exclusively learned.
A senior Labor Department official told the DCNF that “the acting secretary personally made this decision after carefully reviewing all the facts and circumstances. He concluded that a correction is much better than an injustice.”
The Acting Secretary of Labor is Patrick Pizzella and I’m glad he didn’t just let this go after Olson resigned.
It was clearly an injustice and he’s right that a correction is much better. Had they not done this it would’ve made the Labor Department look like a pushover and emboldened more false accusations from rogue reporters.
Leif Olson abruptly left the department 18 days after joining the federal government, after moving his family from Texas to take the job. The departure came four hours after Bloomberg Law reporter Ben Penn contacted the White House and the Labor Department about what he portrayed as an anti-Semitic Facebook post from 2016. Penn cropped out portions of the exchange that directly referenced it being “epic sarcasm.”
“On Friday, August 30, 2019, senior policy advisor of the Wage and Hour Division Leif Olson offered his resignation and the department accepted,” the department said in a statement to the DCNF. “Following a thorough reexamination of the available information and upon reflection, the department has concluded that Olson has satisfactorily explained the tone and content of his sarcastic social media post and will return to his position.”
Ben Penn clearly invented this phony controversy out of thin air and used it to get as much mileage out of it as possible.
He should be reprimanded by Bloomberg Law, but last I heard they were sticking by him. I hope they’ll reconsider because his reputation has been severely damaged at this point.