An aide at the U.S. Department of Labor, Leif Olson, who resigned on Friday after a 2016 Facebook post that appeared to be anti-Semitic, was reported by Bloomberg has been reinstated.
“Following a thorough reexamination of the available information and upon reflection, the Department has concluded that Mr. Olson has satisfactorily explained the tone of the content of his sarcastic social media posts and will return to his position in the Wage and Hour Division,” announced the department in a statement on Wednesday.
Olson, 43, began at the department’s Wage and Hour Division on Aug. 12 after being cleared by the White House as a senior policy adviser to be part of the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda.
The Facebook post under fire, Olson told Bloomberg, “was sarcastic criticism of the alt-right’s conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic positions.”
The post was in response to then-U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan defeating alt-right and anti-Semitic activist Paul Nehlen in the Republican primary in Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional district.
Olson said Ryan “suffered a massive, historic, emasculating 70-point victory.”
In comments, Olson wrote, “Neo-cons are all Upper East Side Zionists who don’t golf on Saturday if you know what I mean” and, in response to a comment that falsely claimed that Ryan is Jewish, replied, “It must be true because I’ve never seen the Lamestream Media report it, and you know they protect their own.”
The Bloomberg piece was criticized by both sides of the political aisle—from Vox and Trump critic Jonathan Chait to Washington Examiner editor Philip Klein and National Review senior writer Michael Dougherty.
