Former Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer fostered a “toxic, intimidating and humiliating” workplace during her tenure leading the department, a new watchdog report has found.
The Labor Department’s Office of Inspector General released its scathing findings Thursday, covering allegations that had swirled around Chavez-DeRemer since before her April resignation.
Investigators interviewed at least 38 witnesses who consistently described the secretary’s office as “toxic,” painting a damning picture of her leadership.
The OIG report alleged that Chavez-DeRemer regularly drank alcohol during the workday, failed to properly report expensive gifts she received, and maintained an “inappropriately close and unprofessional relationship” with a member of her security detail.
Senior staff under Chavez-DeRemer were described as “routinely engaged in threatening, demeaning, and abusive verbal and written communication” that she appeared aware of but did not stop.
Witnesses described employees being berated in front of colleagues, having their performance discussed openly in front of other staff, and receiving frequent threats of termination from senior leadership.
The investigation began after the OIG, led by former Republican Congressman Anthony D’Esposito of New York, received an anonymous complaint lodged in January alleging a range of misconduct.
That complaint alleged Chavez-DeRemer conducted an inappropriate relationship with a security detail member, consumed alcohol during work hours on federal property, used federal funds for personal travel, and accepted gifts without reporting them through proper ethics channels.
After interviewing 53 former and current Labor Department employees, investigators found merit in all of the original complaints and uncovered additional concerns beyond what was initially alleged.
Chavez-DeRemer resigned in April, notably one day before investigators were scheduled to formally interview her, according to the report, with the White House praising her work upon her departure.
The former secretary was therefore not interviewed as part of the investigation, leaving her account of events absent from the official findings.
A February New York Times report had previously indicated the Labor Department was probing Chavez-DeRemer and some of her top staff, amid a separate criminal investigation into her husband, Shawn DeRemer, then accused of sexual assault against two staffers at the agency’s headquarters.
Her attorney Nick Oberheiden pushed back on the report’s framing, noting that investigators did not find Chavez-DeRemer had broken any laws.
“While some — with or without their own agenda — may not have liked the way she managed the Department, Secretary Chavez-DeRemer looks back with the same pride of having served President Trump’s Administration and the American workers,” Oberheiden wrote in a statement.
Chavez-DeRemer was the third member of President Trump’s Cabinet to step down, having left the administration nearly five months before this report’s release.
