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Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer has quit amid an ethics probe into her husband’s alleged advances on female staffers, accusations she ordered employees to bring booze on work trips and claims she was having an affair with a bodyguard.
Her resignation was confirmed on Monday by White House Communications Director Steven Cheung who said she had ‘done a phenomenal job.’
Chavez-DeRemer is the third cabinet casualty of Donald Trump’s second term after Kristi Noem was pushed out of the Department of Homeland Security in early March and Pam Bondi was ousted as Attorney General earlier this month.
Chavez-DeRemer, 58, had been the subject of a months-long ethics probe after allegations of misconduct surfaced late last year. Her husband, Dr. Shawn Deremer, is also under review by the Inspector General over texts to young female staffers.
The departure was the latest development for the scandal-plagued department following accusations of boozy work trips to strip clubs, trysts at casinos and a ‘stash’ of liquor in the Washington DC office.
Chavez-DeRemer and her ex-deputy chief of staff sent texts asking staffers to bring them alcohol during work trips. At times, the requests came during the middle of the workday.
She even allegedly drank on the job, with the Labor Department Inspector General’s complaint claiming that she maintains ‘a stash’ of bourbon, Kahlua and champagne at her office in Washington DC.
Chavez-DeRemer also took subordinates to a strip club in Oregon last year, the New York Post reported.
The alleged trip to club Angels PDX on April 18, 2025, came at the end of a five-day visit that officially included a meeting with Democratic Governor Tina Kotek, a truck manufacturer CEO and a tour of an Intel chip facility.
Documents seen by the Post showed $2,890.06 in taxpayer money was spent on the Oregon trip.
The former Labor Secretary was allegedly involved with one of her security guards in an affair.
Brian Sloan stepped down last month after being accused of a romantic relationship with the married secretary, according to two department officials cited by Politico.
He had previously been placed on leave amid the Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General’s probe.
Her husband Dr. Deremer, an anesthesiologist, was barred from the department headquarters earlier this year after multiple women told the inspector general that he had made unwanted advances towards them.
One of the women filed a report with DC’s Metropolitan Police Department.
Video of the interaction caught on security cameras shows Dr. DeRemer ‘giving one of the women an extended embrace’ and has been reviewed by law enforcement.
A woman told police she was sexually assaulted inside the department’s Washington headquarters on December 18, according to a police report obtained by the Daily Mail.
The department and the federal prosecutor’s office later said they would not bring charges over the allegation.
In the original complaint to the inspector general, first reported by the New York Post in January, Chavez-DeRemer was accused of asking a staffer to bring rosé to her hotel room.
‘Do they sell by the bottle,’ she asked. The staffer replied that they did but they were out of rosé.
She responded: ‘How about the josh sauvi B.’
The messages were undated but included a picture of the menu from a hotel bar in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where the secretary went on an official visit last July.
In a text on September 5, Chavez-DeRemer’s then-deputy chief of staff Rebecca Wright told one of the staff to grab ‘a bottle or 2’ of wine or champagne.
‘Lori wants to do a toast when this meeting is over,’ Wright told the staffer.
Chazez-DeRemer’s personal attorney Nick Oberheiden said in a statement: ‘While 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.
‘She is grateful for the opportunity to serve and remains committed to supporting the President’s agenda moving forward.’
