WASHINGTON – Ms Lori Chavez-DeRemer, President Donald Trump’s embattled labour secretary, stepped down on April 20 as multiple scandals and investigations closed in on her.
“Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer will be leaving the administration to take a position in the private sector,” Mr Steven Cheung, a White House spokesperson, posted on the social platform X.
He said that deputy secretary of labour Keith Sonderling would serve as acting secretary.
Mr Cheung said Ms Chavez-DeRemer had “done a phenomenal job in her role by protecting American workers, enacting fair labour practices and helping Americans gain additional skills to improve their lives”.
But pressure on her mounted in recent weeks, as investigators and Congressional leaders homed in on questions about her conduct in office, and that of her aides and family members.
The Labor Department’s inspector-general’s office is nearing the end of a months-long investigation into a whistleblower’s allegations of professional misconduct by Ms Chavez-DeRemer and her closest aides, including claims that she was having an affair with a member of her security team and that she used department resources for personal trips.
Ms Chavez-DeRemer was expected to be interviewed in the matter in the coming days.
Investigators spoke with several dozen witnesses, and uncovered evidence that Ms Chavez-DeRemer and her staff abused federal spending limits on personal trips, several people familiar with the investigation said, including on fancy hotels, SUV rentals and meals.
Four people have already left or been forced out of their jobs in connection with the investigation.
Investigators had also reviewed personal text messages sent to young female staff members by Ms Chavez-DeRemer, her former deputy chief of staff, her husband and her father.
The messages, reported last week by The New York Times, suggested that the secretary was drinking during the workday and raised questions about professionalism with her staff.
The likelihood of embarrassing details coming out through the inspector-general inquiry was compounded by a parallel inquiry on Capitol Hill: Senator Chuck Grassley, chair of the Judiciary Committee, demanded internal records and statements from the department in connection with the allegations.
Ms Chavez-DeRemer’s husband has been barred from the department’s headquarters, after female staff members accused him of making unwanted sexual advances, including filing a police report.
Although police and prosecutors have said they would not bring criminal charges against him, the situation has continued to reverberate in the secretary’s office: In recent weeks, three claims of a hostile work environment were filed against Ms Chavez-DeRemer with the department’s civil rights office.
Mr Sonderling, a labour lawyer with a decade of government experience, has been effectively leading the Labor Department during Ms Chavez-DeRemer’s tenure, multiple employees told the Times.
Ms Chavez-DeRemer, 58, a one-term former Republican member of Congress from Oregon, was nominated to the secretary position with backing from the Teamsters union, whose president Sean O’Brien had supported Mr Trump’s 2024 run.
But her leadership of the department left many employees frustrated and demoralised, including career staff and political appointees. Dozens described, in interviews with the Times, a toxic workplace characterised by an absentee secretary and hostile aides. NYTIMES