Antigay Trump Appointee Reinstated After Being Fired

Update: Olson has been reinstated in his position, the Labor Department confirmed to the alt-right website The Daily Caller: "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."

A lawyer who once fought spousal benefits for same-sex couples has left the U.S. Department of Labor after just 18 days due to anti-Semitic Facebook posts.

Leif Olson, who joined the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division as a senior policy analyst August 12, resigned Friday, just hours after Bloomberg Law reported on the social media posts, according to the news service.

The posts in question came in 2016 and dealt with U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan's victory in the Republican congressional primary over Paul Nehlen, who was dubbed the "mini Donald Trump." Trump had praised Nehlen and had appeared reluctant to endorse Ryan, derided by some Republicans as too much of an establishment politician, although Trump did finally endorse him.

Olson sarcastically called Ryan an "establishment insider RINO corporate tool," RINO meaning "Republican in name only," and said he won a "massive, emasculating, 70-point victory." A commenter said Ryan was a neoconservative, a group that favors international intervention and is also disliked by Trump supporters, and Olson responded that Ryan was not, as neocons "are all Upper East Side Zionists who don't golf on Saturday if you know what I mean." The first commenter then said Ryan is Jewish (he's actually Catholic), and Olson replied, "It must be true because I've never seen the Lamestream Media report it, and you know they protect their own."

The ideas "that Jews control the media and that they look out for members of their own faith" are "anti-Semitic tropes," Bloomberg Law notes.

Speaking to the news service last week, Olson maintained that far from being anti-Semitic himself, he was making fun of anti-Semitism. "It was sarcastic criticism of the alt-right's conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic positions," he said. He declined to answer other questions, "including whether he wishes to apologize or if he regrets his actions," according to Bloomberg Law. Four hours after the story came out, a Labor Department spokeswoman said Olson had resigned, but she offered no additional comment.

In 2013, Olson joined anti-LGBTQ activist Jared Woodfill and other lawyers in representing two Houstonians in a lawsuit against the city's move to offer benefits to legally married same-sex spouses of employees, given that Texas banned same-sex marriage at the time. The suit continued even after the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court Obergefell v. Hodges ruling that struck down the bans in Texas and all other states, with the challengers contending that marriage equality didn't have to mean equal benefits. It appears to be dead for now, having gone to the Texas and U.S. Supreme Courts and back to a Houston court, which dismissed it in February, although there could be a further appeal.

In a Facebook post today, Olson challenged Bloomberg Law's assertion that "much of his work" was focused on the Houston case. It " was filed before the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Obergefell v. Hodges," he wrote. "I assisted with a technical jurisdictional issue when the case was argued before the Supreme Court of Texas, but, far from being 'much of [my] work,' I otherwise haven't worked on it since Obergefell was issued."

In today's post, he also wrote, "I never thought I'd see the day when making fun of alt-right anti-Semites led to being branded an anti-Semite."

Conservative outlets and commentators, including the Washington Examiner, National Review, Ben Shapiro, and John Podhoretz condemned the Bloomberg Law piece as an inaccurate hit job, and some who are generally liberal, such as New York magazine's Jonathan Chait, expressed objections as well.

But Jake Hyman, a spokesman for the Anti-Defamation League, which fights anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry, said, "The post in question is clearly anti-Semitic, and if it does indeed belong to Leif Olson of the U.S. Labor Department, we call on him to apologize and affirm that he no longer harbors such virulently hateful views."

Olson joins several other Trump administration employees who've left under clouds. They include Carl Higbie, an appointee to the Corporation for National and Community Service, "who reportedly made comments on the radio that were received as racist, sexist, and homophobic," Bloomberg Law notes, as well as White House staff secretary Rob Porter and Labor secretary nominee Andy Puzder, who were accused of domestic violence. They both denied the allegations, while Higbie apologized and said he no longer holds those views.