United States Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned from her position last night, becoming the third secretary to leave President Donald Trump’s cabinet in the last two months.
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung confirmed in a post on X the departure of the secretary, who was being investigated by the Department of Labor’s Office of the Inspector General for possible misconduct.
Cheung said Chavez-DeRemer had done “a phenomenal job” in her role protecting American workers and implementing fair labor practices. Now he will go to work in the private sector, the same excuse that the acting director of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Todd Lyons, gave last week to leave.
However, the secretary faced accusations of alleged misconduct and abuse of power, which would include personal trips made during taxpayer-funded air travel.
The investigation sought to establish whether Chavez-Remer’s chief of staff, Jihun Han, and his deputy, Rebecca Wright, engaged in travel fraud by organizing professional events for the secretary as an excuse for personal trips, NBC previously reported. At least two senior officials were suspended amid the investigation.
Furthermore, a subsequent investigation of New York Times revealed that the secretary’s husband, Shawn DeRemer, allegedly inappropriately touched two women in the Department of Labor building, leading to him being prevented from entering federal facilities in the US capital. One of the incidents occurred last December and was apparently captured by the security cameras of the federal building, adds EFE.
The resigned secretary, in a statement posted on social media this evening, briefly addressed the allegations, stating that they “have been spread by high-ranking agents of the deep state” whom she accused of working to undermine Trump’s agenda.
The investigations
For months, the Labor Department’s Office of Inspector General has been investigating a complaint that Chavez-DeRemer also had a sexual relationship with a member of his security team, as well as other allegations of inappropriate behavior, such as sending staff to buy alcoholic beverages and attempting to use business trips as an excuse for personal trips, according to a Labor Department source with knowledge of the situation cited by CNN.
For example, Chavez-DeRemer had expressed a desire to attend events such as a UFC fight in Chicago, a Morgan Wallen concert and visiting friends and family in several states, and asked staff to design work trips that would provide him with opportunities to attend those events, according to the source.
As part of the investigation, personal text messages exchanged between Chavez-DeRemer, her close family members and department staff members were provided to the inspector general, according to the source. The messages included conversations between the Republican’s husband and at least one young employee, in which he requested to be kept informed of her whereabouts.
Chavez-DeRemer’s attorney, Nick Oberheiden, told CNN before her new position was announced: “Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer has built a reputation as a staunch advocate for American workers. Focused on her mission and committed to President Trump with the utmost loyalty, Secretary Chavez-DeRemer will not comment on biased and absurd allegations against her.”
A controversial management
Chavez-DeRemer was sworn in as Secretary of Labor in March 2025, a time when the Trump administration, through the Department of Government Efficiency, sought to cut federal funding, eliminate programs, and dramatically reduce the federal workforce by cutting hundreds of thousands of jobs.
According to data from the United States Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Labor’s workforce in February was almost 25% smaller than in September 2024.
The reduction in staff at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in particular, generated concern among legislators, economists, academics, researchers and others, who warned that existing funding and staff were not sufficient to modernize and consolidate the data considered reference. Additionally, the agency faced a serious crisis when Trump fired Commissioner Erika McEntarfer following a jobs report that contained major revisions.
In the days after McEntarfer was fired, Chavez-DeRemer told Fox Business that her job was to support the president on the matter.
During his tenure, the Chávez-DeRemer Department of Labor announced a sweeping deregulation aimed at rewriting or repealing more than 60 labor regulations it considered obsolete. They included proposals to eliminate the minimum wage requirement for home health care workers, eliminate a rule requiring lighting in active construction areas, and reduce health and safety regulations in the mining industry.
Before becoming Secretary of Labor, Chavez-DeRemer was a House representative for a district in Oregon, but the Republican lost the seat in the 2024 elections.
Cheung stated that Deputy Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling would take over as acting director of the agency.
Add and continue
The departure of Chavez-DeRemer – the only Hispanic who was part of the US cabinet along with the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio – comes just over two weeks after President Trump announced the departure of Attorney General Pam Bondi, a faithful follower of his policies whom he called “a great patriot.”
A month earlier, Kristy Noem, the then secretary of Homeland Security, had been the first member of the cabinet to leave, after putting her face in the campaign of mass deportations that left two Americans dead in raids in Minnesota last January.
The aforementioned head of ICE has also left and the Chief of Staff, Randy George, has been forced to leave.
