Top Labor Dept Official Resigns Amid Ethics Probe

Bloomberg Law reports:

A Labor Department official who worked for a steel company in a lawsuit against a worker union after joining the Trump administration has stepped down from his post in the face of ethics questions.

Associate Deputy Labor Secretary Michael Avakian resigned effective April 5, a Labor Department official told Bloomberg Law. The move comes less than one month after Bloomberg Law reported that Avakian was briefly suspended following an ethics inquiry.

Labor Department officials determined that Avakian didn’t use government resources for the case and didn’t “knowingly” violate “a criminal statute or particular ethics rule,” the department spokeswoman said. Instead, he misunderstood what ethics officials meant when they instructed Avakian to “wrap up” his work on the case.