Trump's Labor Secretary Fostered Frat-Like Atmosphere Inside Agency, Investigation Finds
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The Labor Department was run more like a fraternity house than a federal agency under President Donald Trump's former labor secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, judging from an investigation released Thursday night by its inspector general.
The office's report , based on interviews with 53 current and former agency employees, was full of shocking allegations: that Chavez-DeRemer drank on the job and pressured underlings to join in; that she had an "inappropriate" relationship with a member of her security detail; that she dragged subordinates to a strip club and ordered one to engage with a partially **** dancer; and that her inner circle tried to hunt down leakers as news of her "toxic" atmosphere became public.
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Chavez-DeRemer resigned in April as the investigation into her alleged misconduct was underway.
The inspector general report spans more than 40 pages, so HuffPost has rounded up the most outrageous allegations that emerged from the investigators' interviews:
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In April 2025, while traveling on government business in Oregon, Chavez-DeRemer arranged an "off the record" stop at an establishment that featured "partially **** dancers." The then-secretary handed cash to a driver on her security team and told him to give it to one of the performers. "Chavez-DeRemer then took additional money from her purse and asked the agent to drop the bills one by one onto the partially **** woman," according to the report. The agent "hesitated," but his supervisor told him to obey the secretary. So the agent "complied against his wishes."
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Chavez-DeRemer, who is married, maintained what was characterized as an "inappropriately close and unprofessional" relationship with that supervisor on the security team. The report does not explicitly allege an affair, but notes that the supervisor often removed or "respositioned" agents so that he could be alone with Chavez-DeRemer. The man, who is unnamed in the report, was put on leave after the inspector general investigation started. Investigators surveilled Chavez-DeRemer's apartment building and recorded him visiting her at night.
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While traveling in Michigan, one witness watched Chavez-DeRemer give the security supervisor a massage after he'd finished his shift. She asked him if he was tired; he responded that he was "solid as a rock." They both laughed. Another time, after she left a meeting at the agriculture secretary's home, witnesses saw Chavez-DeRemer and the man walking "arm in arm." At other times, the two played golf and gambled together while on official business. They sometimes got hotel rooms on the same floor.
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Drinking on the job was common inside Chavez-DeRemer's circle. "Witnesses reported that when other employees attending these meetings declined alcohol, Chavez-DeRemer [and two deputies] pressured them to participate or ridiculed them for abstaining," according to the inspector general.
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While on a trip to an ice museum in Alaska last September, Chavez-DeRemer instructed agents in her security detail to "ride down a two-story slide carved from ice." The only one who complied was the man she's alleged to have an inappropriate relationship with. The report says: "The other agent declined to participate believing it would jeopardize operational security."
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Chavez-DeRemer regularly treated official travel as a personal vacation, improperly using rental vehicles and racking up high hotel tabs. Her favorite destination appeared to be Las Vegas: "Witnesses identified at least thirteen trips to destinations where Chavez-DeRemer visited family or her other personal residences and five trips to Las Vegas, Nevada." The lodging costs for her and two of her deputies while attending an America First Policy Institute gala in Florida "all exceeded the federal actual expense reimbursement rate by approximately 300%."
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The secretary treated underlings like fraternity house pledges, deploying them on personal errands like buying gifts and booze and organizing her clothes; one employee said they didn't always receive reimbursement for these purchases. On one occasion, Chavez-DeRemer had a federal employee serve as the interpreter for the Spanish-speaking moving crew at her home. On another, her personal aide and executive assistant had to go to her home to hang her dry cleaning and sort her shoes and purses. Once they were done, they sent her a video "documenting their work."
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Chavez-DeRemer failed to prevent a culture of harassment and intimidation fostered by her top aides. Two of her deputies, Rebecca Wright and Jihun Han, conducted meetings with underlings that witnesses described as "beatdowns": "Han and Wright sometimes required employees to wait in the lobby for extended periods before these meetings, which employees perceived as an additional form of intimidation."
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As the New York Post began breaking stories on the atmosphere inside the agency, Wright and Han went on a hunt for leakers. Witnesses said Han eventually narrowed it down to three or four suspects, including Chavez-DeRemer's husband.
An attorney for Chavez-DeRemer could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.
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Read the full inspector general report here .
