JTA — US President Donald Trump’s pick for general counsel of the agency that oversees federal workers’ labor rights testified in Congress on Wednesday that he does not believe a cartoon he published in college that depicted a Jewish student with devil horns was antisemitic.

Charlton Allen appeared at the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs for his confirmation hearing Wednesday afternoon. There, Senator Ruben Gallego, the Arizona Democrat, pressed him about the cartoon.

“If you look behind me, you’ll see the front cover of an edition of the Carolina Review depicting Aaron Nelson, a Jewish candidate for student body president. Your magazine altered Nelson’s photo depicting him with the horns and a pitchfork. Inside the article says, ‘The difference between Aaron Nelson is simple. He’s Jewish.’” Gallego said. “Yes or no, Mr. Nelson. Do you stand by this depiction?”

The cartoon ignited a firestorm when it was published in the Carolina Review, a campus conservative magazine that Allen founded as an undergraduate at UNC. The magazine’s faculty advisor said he resigned after it went to print against his advice, and nearly two dozen Jewish faculty members pressed UNC’s chancellor to denounce the cartoon and censure the magazine, which he did.

Allen fended off allegations of antisemitism at the time and again during a 2014 hearing to confirm him for a position in North Carolina. He did so again on Tuesday.

“I would not say that it’s antisemitic,” he said. “We were the group that was calling for........

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