A senior Google executive clashed with a right-wing engineer prior to the latter’s firing, in a series of terse exchanges that federal regulators ruled violated labor laws. Insider has reported that new internal documents reveal the extent to which Urs Hölze, Google’s eighth employee, sent emails and wrote internal message board posts admonishing Kevin Cernekee, the engineer. Hölze also instructed him to “don’t do what you’re doing here,” an infringement on Cernekee’s legally protected speech and worker behavior, according to the National Labor Review Board’s decision.

When Cernekee, who frequently accused the company of persecuting conservative employees who opposed Google’s “Social Justice political agenda," was later fired, Donald Trump spoke up for him. The former president claimed Cernekee had been deliberately targeted. The National Labor Review Board said that while Cernekee’s discussion board comments were “somewhat insensitive towards women and political minorities in light of the conversation’s context,” they did not make for a hostile work environment. The case was settled without Google admitting wrongdoing or rehiring Cernekee.