Former labor secretary drank at the office and misused resources, probe finds

By Kaanita Iyer, CNN

(CNN) — Former Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer violated department policy by drinking alcohol at the office and telling her staff to perform personal tasks for her, an independent Labor Department investigation found.

The scathing report published Thursday by the department’s Office of Inspector General also found that Chavez-DeRemer accepted expensive gifts without proper notification, combined personal and official travel and had an “inappropriately close” relationship with a supervisor in her security detail.

Some of her staffers, including her chief of staff, were also found to have behaved improperly.

CNN has reached out to Chavez-DeRemer’s lawyer for comment. A spokesperson for the Department of Labor said the agency “respects the integrity of the Inspector General’s investigation.”

Chavez-DeRemer departed the Labor Department earlier this year for a job in the private sector. The report sheds light on the former secretary’s brief tenure, which was marked by turmoil.

Under her leadership, the department saw a major reduction in staff as part of the administration’s reshaping of the federal workforce. Her husband, Shawn DeRemer, also faced sexual assault allegations and was reportedly banned from the agency’s headquarters, according to the New York times. A criminal investigation into Shawn DeRemer’s matter has been closed.

In one instance, according to the report, Chavez-DeRemer instructed an aide to use a department vehicle to go to her house to “to hang her laundry and dry cleaning and organize her clothing, shoes, and purses.” She also directed staff to buy alcohol and other personal items for her, including asking an aide during a work trip “to purchase wine for her at her hotel,” the inspector general report found.

The gifts Chavez-DeRemer did not properly disclose include tickets to a rodeo from a lobbyist, an alligator-hide wallet gifted during a trip to Springfield, Louisiana and two cowboy hats gifted during an America First Policy Institute event in Palm Beach, Florida, the inspector general said, based on a review of testimony from witnesses and department records.

Investigators scrutinized the November 2025 trip to Palm Beach, which was for a conservative gala held at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, with the report revealing that she “stayed three nights at a luxury hotel and spa with a nightly rate of $529, excluding taxes.” She was reimbursed over $2,000 for the trip, which greatly exceeded the federal reimbursement rate, according to the report.

The OIG found a “repeated pattern” of Chavez-DeRemer combining personal and business travel, like adding an official visit to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland to her schedule, despite planning to go to the city, where she has a house, for personal reasons.

The investigation “established that official travel authorities were used on multiple occasions to support travel that also served personal interests,” the report says. Overall, it “concluded that Chavez-DeRemer’s conduct was inconsistent with applicable standards.”

Before serving as Labor secretary, Chavez-DeRemer was elected in 2022 to represent Oregon’s 5th Congressional District in Congress. She only served for one term as she lost her reelection bid in 2024.

During her short tenure in the House, Chavez-DeRemer established herself as one of the most labor-friendly Republicans in Washington. She was one of the few GOP co-sponsors of a bill that would make it easier for workers to unionize.

After Chavez-DeRemer’s departure from the Labor Department, Keith Sonderling was appointed as acting secretary.

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