Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is stepping down from her Cabinet post amid a series of misconduct allegations against her and her top staffers.
White House communications director Steven Cheung said Monday that Chavez-DeRemer is leaving “to take a position in the private sector.”
“She has done a phenomenal job in her role by protecting American workers, enacting fair labor practices, and helping Americans gain additional skills to improve their lives,” he said in a statement posted to social media.
Chavez-DeRemer has been under scrutiny since January, when DOL Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito opened an investigation into allegations that she was involved in an extramarital affair with a member of her security detail, that she drank on the job and that top aides concocted official events to facilitate her personal travel plans.
In a statement, Chavez-DeRemer said that during her tenure DOL “made significant progress in advancing President Trump’s mission to bridge the gap between business and labor and always put the American worker first. We created new pathways to mortgage-paying jobs, prepared workers to excel in the age of AI, took steps to lower prescription drug costs, promoted retirement security, and so much more.”
The White House initially stood by her, calling the allegations false and saying that the Labor secretary was considering legal action against the person who filed the claims of wrongdoing. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Jan. 15 that President Donald Trump thought Chavez-DeRemer was “doing a tremendous job,” and the White House had repeatedly signaled support for her until recently.
Since then, four people who had been placed on leave during the investigation have left the Labor Department.
Chavez-DeRemer’s chief of staff Jihun Han and deputy chief of staff Rebecca Wright, both of whom had worked on her congressional staff during her single term in the House, quit under pressure from the White House.
Brian Sloan, the security staffer accused of engaging in the extramarital affair with the Labor secretary, resigned in March rather than cooperating with the probe. And the head of Chavez-DeRemer’s advance team, Melissa Robey, was fired shortly after sitting for an interview with investigators. Chavez-DeRemer had been scheduled to meet with the IG’s office.
“Secretary Chavez-DeRemer has decided to step down in the best interest of the American people, to ensure the administration’s work continues without distraction, and to focus on her family in light of the strain caused by biased allegations,” her personal attorney, Nick Oberheiden said in a statement. “She is proud to have served under President Trump and remains committed to advancing his agenda for American workers.”
The IG’s office obtained copies of text messages that appeared to show the Labor secretary asking for aides to fetch her wine — as well as personal exchanges involving a young female staffer, her husband Shawn DeRemer, and the Labor secretary’s father — according to a DOL official familiar with the probe. The New York Times first reported on the messages Thursday.
“The text messages were the final straw,” said one Republican close to the Trump administration, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the situation. “There’s no escaping text messages.”
Chavez-DeRemer is the third Cabinet member to leave in Trump’s second term, surviving little more than a year after being sworn in March 2025.
She was not close to Trump before being selected to serve as Labor secretary and did not have much of a footprint in Washington, having spent just one term in Congress before losing to now-Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-Ore.).
Teamsters leader Sean O’Brien helped push Chavez-DeRemer’s name to the Trump transition team. The president has quipped on multiple occasions that Chavez-DeRemer, who positioned herself as a moderate when fighting for her blue-leaning congressional seat, was practically a member of the other party.
“You’re doing a very good job, Lori,” Trump said at a White House event in May 2025. “You know, considering she’s a Democrat.”
O’Brien met with Trump at the White House last week, along with other labor leaders. The Teamsters general president did not discuss the Labor secretary’s fate with Trump, he told reporters Monday.
Chavez-DeRemer sought to ingratiate herself to the White House and the MAGA movement, setting up an immigration-centric office that reported directly to her, increasing scrutiny on employers’ use of H-1B visas and defending Trump’s decision to fire the Biden-appointed head of DOL’s Bureau of Labor Statistics last August on grounds that she was manipulating economic numbers to damage Republicans.
Deputy Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, a veteran of the first Trump administration, will lead the department as acting secretary following Chavez-DeRemer’s departure, Cheung said.
“Under your reign, the Department of Labor reversed years of bad policy from the previous administration – cutting regulatory burdens, exposing fraud, boosting apprenticeships, and making life more affordable for hardworking Americans,” Sonderling wrote in a statement on social media that thanked Chavez-DeRemer for her leadership.
