Bloomberg Law has at long last, retracted its Sept. 3 hit piece which falsely accused Leif Olson, a Trump Labor Department appointee, of publishing “anti-Semitic” Facebook posts.
But don’t praise the newsgroup for finally doing the right thing. It withdrew the article only because it could no longer hide behind lies and weaselly denials.
“A few weeks ago, we wrote a story about a Labor Department official who resigned after we asked questions about his social media posts. He was subsequently re-hired by the Department of Labor. We received several complaints about our story,” Bloomberg Law editor-in-chief Cesca Antonelli said Friday in a memo to staff.
That is not an accurate version of events, but OK.
“The original story did not meet our editorial standards for fairness and accuracy. We regret that lapse and have retracted the story,” the memo adds. “We are also strengthening our policies and processes. Our customers put their faith in us every day. It is up to us to earn it.”
Sure, just ignore the part where the decision to retract the story comes exactly one day after Olson’s friend and fellow attorney Ted Frank published emails showing Bloomberg Law reporter Ben Penn was clearly seeking to collect a scalp when he made inquiries about the story.
In preparing the story, Penn contacted Olson’s Labor Department superiors. His email contained several questions, nearly all of which start from the position that Olson indeed trafficked in anti-Semitic tropes in 2016. The truth of the thing was quite otherwise — the conservative attorney was clearly mocking anti-Semite Paul Nehlen and his failed attempt to unseat Speaker Paul Ryan.
Penn’s list of questions to Labor Department chiefs reads in part:
– “If DOL was previously aware of it, did this post raise any flags inside the administration about whether he is fit for government service?
– “Does the Labor Department find comments that are disparaging to Jews acceptable for a senior appointee?”
– “Olson is on a team at WHD responsible for writing some top priority regulations — will he remain in this or any other role at DOL?”
The emails, which were obtained through a Freedom of Information request, also show Penn sent Labor Department officials truncated versions of the 2016 Facebook posts, omitting the most obvious signs that Olson was mocking Nehlen. Most telling of all, however, is the fact that the story that was published eventually by Bloomberg Law made no mentions of the name “Paul Nehlen.”
Penn was on a mission to destroy a Trump appointee, and he almost succeeded. Penn and his editors slandered an innocent man with allegations of anti-Semitism. Bloomberg Law vigorously defended its bogus reporting afterward, citing Olson’s resignation as evidence of its veracity. It later instructed staff not to advertise the fact that he was reinstated after basically everyone realized they had slandered him. Penn, for his part, claimed he merely asked Labor Department officials questions. Penn lied. There is no weaseling out of this one. The FOIA’d emails tell the tale.
You will excuse me, then, if I have a difficult time believing Bloomberg’s editor-in-chief when she claims they just happened to come to the decision Friday to retract the story — exactly one day after Penn’s emails were released.
