DOL Official’s Double Duty Sparks Democrat’s Ethics Questions

The leading Democrat on the committee overseeing the Labor Department wants the agency to hand over information about an official who continued to work on a private lawsuit for months after joining the department.

Rep. Bobby Scott, chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor, sent a letter to the department March 18 demanding more information on Associate Deputy Labor Secretary Michael Avakian’s involvement in the lawsuit. Scott wants to know when agency officials became aware that Avakian was still representing a steel company suing an Ironworkers Union in Indiana.

The request cites a Bloomberg Law report that uncovered ...