William Emanuel, one of President Trump’s appointees to the National Labor Relations Board, the main federal labor law enforcement agency, vigorously denied he violated an ethics pledge by not recusing himself from a major board ruling in December.

In a March 22 letter to the board’s Office of the Inspector General, Emanuel’s lawyer argued that the inspector general’s office was wrong when it determined last month that Emanuel had a conflict of interest when he voted on a corporate liability case called Hy-Brand.