President Donald Trump picked Andrew Puzder, who withdrew from a Cabinet nomination in Trump’s first term after spousal abuse allegations surfaced, as his ambassador to the European Union.

Trump nominated Puzder, the former chief executive of CKE Restaurants, the parent company of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, to be the secretary of labor in 2017. He called him a “successful attorney, businessman, economic commentator, and author,” when announcing the nomination Wednesday on Truth Social. 

Puzder is the latest second-term Trump nominee who has faced allegations of sexual misconduct, harassment or gender-based violence. The position of U.S. ambassador to the European Union is subject to Senate approval. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Shortly after his nomination, news outlets resurfaced a 2004 lawsuit that accused Puzder of sexually discriminating against, harassing and wrongfully terminating Caroline Leakan, a former CKE vice president of investor relations. The lawsuit appears to have been settled out of court, Capital & Main reported at the time, with the company and Leakan citing a confidentiality agreement in not discussing the case.  

Separately, in the late 1980s, Puzder’s ex-wife Lisa Henning, now Lisa Fierstein, filed documents alleging physical abuse, including beatings around the neck and body, as part of her 1987 divorce from Pudzer. She dropped the charges as part of a child custody agreement in 1990 and signed a legal document saying: “All allegations of abuse of any kind were made in the context of divorce proceedings. I fully withdraw these allegations.”

In 2017, Politico reported that Fierstein spoke about her claims of abuse in a 1990 episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” entitled: “High-Class Battered Women.” Fierstein, appearing in disguise and under a pseudonym, did not discuss her previous allegations of physical abuse but spoke about how Pudzer “vowed revenge” and told her: “I will see you in the gutter. This will never be over. You will pay for this.”

In a statement to Politico at the time, a spokesperson for Puzder and Fierstein said the two “are close friends today and often spend time together, but none of that context seems to matter to Andy’s critics,” said the spokesperson, George Thompson. 

“Perpetuating these retracted 30-year-old allegations and an impulsive decision to appear on a talk show is nothing more than a desperate attempt to tarnish Andy Puzder at the expense of Lisa and their family,” Thompson added. 

In a 2017 letter to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), Fierstein said she was “caught up in the notion of a free trip to Chicago and being a champion of women and women’s issues.”

“I regret my decision to appear on that show,” she wrote, per Politico. “I never told Andy about it.”

Puzder withdrew his nomination for the role of labor secretary one day before he was set to appear at a congressional confirmation hearing. In an interview on Fox Business, Puzder said: “There was never any substance to the abuse. I always denied it. She admitted very shortly after the divorce that they weren’t true.”

Mariel Padilla contributed reporting.