WASHINGTON \u2014 Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned from her position on Monday amid an internal misconduct probe, making her the third cabinet official to depart the Trump administration this year, sources told The Post.<\/p>\n
Chavez-DeRemer, 58, will follow four other staffers out of the Department of Labor who were all investigated and resigned amid the Office of Inspector General\u2019s sprawling inquiry.<\/p>\n
Deputy Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling will replace her as acting secretary.\u00a0NOTUS\u00a0first reported<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0the secretary\u2019s exit.<\/p>\n Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned from Trump\u2019s Cabinet on Monday. REUTERS<\/p>\n White House spokesman Steven Cheung announced minutes after the report that Chavez-DeRemer \u201cwill be leaving the Administration to take a position in the private sector.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe has done a phenomenal job in her role by protecting American workers, enacting fair labor practices, and helping Americans gain additional skills to improve their lives,\u201d Cheung\u00a0posted on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n Chavez-DeRemer\u00a0in a statement on X<\/a>\u00a0said she was \u201clooking forward to what the future has in store\u201d and that it \u201chas been an honor and a privilege to serve in this historic Administration and work for the greatest President of my lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n President Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in March, and Attorney General Pam Bondi the following month, making her the most recent victim of the cabinet shake-up.<\/p>\n Inspector General Anthony D\u2019Esposito had been expected to conclude the DOL investigation in the coming weeks, sources noted.<\/p>\n The Labor secretary took a personal trip to Las Vegas during the federal government shutdown in October. New York Post<\/p>\n President Trump had already fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in March, and Attorney General Pam Bondi the following month.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Inspector General Anthony D\u2019Esposito had been expected to conclude his Labor Department investigation in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n The Post\u00a0first exposed<\/a>\u00a0a whistleblower complaint filed against the labor secretary in January that alleged she drank in the office during work hours, created a hostile work environment with her top aides and was pursuing an extramarital affair with her security guard.<\/p>\n The complaint also claimed she committed \u201ctravel fraud\u201d by having those aides \u2014 chief of staff Jihun Han and deputy Rebecca Wright \u2014 \u201cmake up\u201d official trips to destinations where she could spend time with family or friends on the taxpayers\u2019 dime.<\/p>\n Chavez-DeRemer, in yellow bikini, had unprofessional interactions with her alleged paramour during the trips to Sin City, the complaint alleged.<\/p>\n New York Post<\/p>\n \u201cWhile she continues to strongly dispute the allegations that have been raised, Secretary Chavez-DeRemer believes it is in the best interest of the country to allow the administration to remain fully focused on delivering results for the American people,\u201d said her personal attorney Nick Oberheiden in a statement.<\/p>\n \u201cShe is grateful for the opportunity to serve and remains committed to supporting the President\u2019s agenda moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n White House and DOL reps said that the allegations were \u201cbaseless\u201d and \u201ccategorically false\u201d when first reported Jan. 9.\u00a0<\/p>\n The probe broadened over the next three months, involving dozens of staff interviews, as IG investigators gathered evidence of an alcohol \u201cstash\u201d in the secretary\u2019s office and that she\u00a0took subordinates to an Oregon strip club<\/a>, sources said.<\/p>\n Accusations of taxpayer-funded travel were also corroborated, as investigators heard staff were instructed to conceal items on the secretary\u2019s official schedule that ethics lawyers might not approve.<\/p>\n The initial reports\u00a0prompted a parallel probe<\/a>\u00a0by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).<\/p>\n Chavez-DeRemer seen with President Trump in the Oval Office on April 23, 2025. Getty Images<\/p>\n Her husband, Dr. Shawn DeRemer, was also accused by female staffers of sexual assault, but prosecutors\u00a0declined to bring charges<\/a>\u00a0in late February for the alleged incidents inside DOL headquarters in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n According to the DC Metropolitan Police Department report filed in late January, a female DOL staffer cited \u201csexual contact against her will.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n DeRemer\u2019s attorney James Bell said his client\u00a0\u201ccategorically, unequivocally, and emphatically denies each and every one of the allegations.\u201d\u00a0He was still barred from entering department headquarters at the time of his wife\u2019s resignation.<\/p>\n Those allegations were later re-filed at the\u00a0Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, along with other complaints about the hostile work environment.<\/p>\n Sources previously accused the secretary of being a \u201cboss from hell,\u201d by forcing aides to run personal errands or perform other menial tasks while on the clock.<\/p>\n Text messages submitted to IG investigators also showed Chavez-DeRemer and Wright bothering staffers into purchasing them bottles of wine during official visits last year,\u00a0The New York Times reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n Other texts showed the secretary\u2019s father, Richard Chavez, asking a young female staffer to keep a conversation \u201cprivate\u201d after saying he\u00a0\u201ccould made some excuses to get out an show u around.\u201d<\/p>\n Han and Wright\u00a0resigned under pressure from the White House<\/a>\u00a0on March 3. The bodyguard, Brian Sloan, resigned on March 19. A fourth aide, Melissa Robey,\u00a0left the department<\/a>\u00a0on March 25.<\/p>\n Chavez-DeRemer had welcomed the member of her security detail into her DC apartment last year and took him on a personal trip in October to the Red Rocks Casino Resort and Spa in Las Vegas to celebrate her niece\u2019s 40th birthday during the federal government shutdown, according to sources and the IG complaint.<\/p>\n All four were placed on leave for a period of the probe, with\u00a0Han and Wright being accused of exerting improper influence over junior staff and verbally abusing some \u2014 as well as providing\u00a0\u201ccover\u201d for the secretary\u2019s alleged misconduct, sources said.<\/p>\n Han allegedly leaned on staffers to shut down internal questions about Chavez-DeRemer\u2019s rumored affair with her bodyguard in late 2025, instructing them to \u201cleave it alone,\u201d according to sources and the initial IG complaint.<\/p>\n Chavez-DeRemer with her husband Shawn Michael DeRemer and their two daughters. Lori Chavez-DeRemer\/Facebook<\/p>\n Wright infuriated the White House by also disparaging Trump in private, the sources added, telling staff in a meeting last year: \u201cWe don\u2019t care what the White House tells us to do. We only care that the secretary looks good.\u201d<\/p>\n But publicly Trump and the White House stood by the labor secretary during the course of the more than three-month investigation, inviting her to events at the executive mansion and issuing statements of support.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the Department of Labor, I am proud that we made significant progress in advancing President Trump\u2019s mission to bridge the gap between business and labor and always put the American worker first,\u201d Chavez-DeRemer added in her statement. \u201cWe created new pathways to mortgage-paying jobs, prepared workers to excel in the age of AI, took steps to lower prescription drug costs, promoted retirement security, and so much more.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThinking back to my first job packing peaches in rural California, it taught me the value of hard work \u2013 a value that I have carried with me every single day in this job and throughout my time in public service,\u201d she also said. \u201cWe live in the best country in the world, and I am incredibly grateful that I had this opportunity to meet workers across the nation, listen to their stories, and deliver wins for them and their families.\u201d<\/p>\n Reps for the IG\u2019s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned from her position on Monday amid an internal misconduct probe, making…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[38343,44558,19085,4393,9,11,10,87,23690,58],"class_list":["post-204208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-department-of-labor","tag-inspector-general","tag-investigations","tag-misconduct","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-politics","tag-scandals","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}