Report: The OIG Finding on Former Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer Is One for the Books

While former U.S. Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned her cabinet position in April, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) investigation into her alleged misconduct continued. Chavez-DeRemer was accused of travel fraud, abuse of office, creating a hostile work environment, drinking on the job, and having an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate.

On Thursday, the 44-page report on the OIG's findings was made public. The OIG concluded that "a preponderance of the evidence substantiated multiple violations of DOL [Labor Department] policy."

 As RedState reported, Chavez-DeRemer's Chief of Staff Jihun Han and Deputy Chief of Staff Rebecca Wright were first placed on leave, and subsequently fired, due to reports of their involvement in facilitating Chavez-DeRemer's misconduct and fostering the toxic work environment detailed by at least 38 witnesses who "consistently described the OSEC work environment as toxic, intimidating and humiliating."

The report detailed further:

Witnesses stated that Chavez DeRemer, Han, and Wright openly discussed employee performance matters in the presence of other staff, including details of performance-related meetings and whether those employees had cried during the meetings. Twenty-one witnesses consistently described Wright as condescending and hostile toward OSEC personnel and reported that the workplace environment deteriorated following her arrival on February 26, 2025, and continued to worsen through the summer of 2025.

It's one thing to start off on a high note and then devolve. As this report outlines, this toxic work environment started from Day 1 of Chavez-DeRemer's tenure, producing, "widespread fear and job insecurity within the organization."

Han was a longtime aide to Chavez-DeRemer starting in 2016, during her political beginnings in Oregon. Three witnesses reported that Han would threaten employees with termination, and intimidate them by letting them know just how easy it would be for him to do so. According to the witnesses, Han took pleasure in this bullying behavior.

Witnesses also reported that Han cycled through seven assistants during approximately nine months as Chief of Staff because of repeated conflicts with employees serving in the role.

Deputy Chief of Staff Wright was also involved in Oregon politics in 2022, when Chavez-DeRemer was a one-term congresswoman. "Multiple witnesses" reported that Wright's behavior changed when dealing with senior officials and junior staff. 

 

One witness reported that Wright demeaned Chavez-DeRemer’s personal assistant by stating that the employee’s role was to provide Chavez-DeRemer with “lip gloss and make-up”. Witnesses also alleged that Wright selected staff based on physical appearance rather than professional qualifications. Five witnesses described meetings that Han and Wright conducted in Han’s office as “beatdowns,” during which Han and Wright berated employees for perceived performance deficiencies. Witnesses stated that 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.

Han, Wright, and Director of Advance Melissa Robey — who was also fired and referred to in the report as "Director 1" —allegedly cooked the books of Chavez-DeRemer's schedule to enable the travel fraud. Chavez-DeRemer would loop in her personal travel with DOL business travel, in violation of government guidelines.

The initial anonymous complaint included allegations that Chavez-DeRemer and Wright were committing travel fraud. While investigating this allegation, the OIG interviewed witnesses and reviewed other evidence and allegations received that Chavez-DeRemer, Han, Wright, and Director 1 may have inappropriately combined personal and official travel to obtain government-funded transportation and lodging. Witnesses reported that official engagements were added to itineraries involving personal destinations and that Chavez-DeRemer, Han, and Wright unilaterally made travel decisions that were otherwise subject to Office of the Solicitor (SOL) review and approval. Other witnesses alleged Director 1 to have violated travel regulation requirements for use of rental vehicles.

The OIG report concluded that Chavez-DeRemer: "combined personal and official travel in a manner inconsistent with DOL policy and the Federal Travel Regulation, 41 C.F.R. Chapters 300-304."

Then there is the inappropriate alcohol use. According to the report, Han, Wright, and Robey failed to comply with several DOL policies related to consuming alcohol while on the job.

The OIG interviewed witnesses, reviewed documentary and video surveillance evidence, and directly observed bottles of alcohol within the offices and spaces used or controlled by Chavez-DeRemer, Han, and Wright in the course of investigating allegations of alcohol consumption and possession by OSEC leadership during duty hours on DOL premises. Interviewed witnesses attested that Chavez-DeRemer, Han, and Wright, regularly drank alcohol in Chavez-DeRemer's study during official duty hours. Witnesses reported that when other employees attending these meetings declined alcohol, Chavez-DeRemer, Han, and Wright pressured them to participate or ridiculed them for abstaining.

The New York Post, which originally broke the OIG investigation, obtained images of Chavez-DeRemer "sipping drinks poolside at the Las Vegas Red Rocks Casino Resort and Spa during an October 2025 trip with her bodyguard to celebrate her niece’s 40th birthday party."

Here's what's wrong with this picture: the trip took place during the 43-day government shutdown between October 1 through November 12, 2025, when non-essential travel for cabinet and government staff was supposed to be suspended. And it was for a niece's 40th birthday? Incredibly tacky and incredibly stupid.

Eight pages of the report detailed the "inappropriate relationship" Chavez-DeRemer maintained with her Department of Protective Operations (DPO) Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAIC). That security guard, Brian Sloan,

 

described as "ASAIC 1" in the report, resigned. 

Along with eyewitness accounts, the OIG culled text messages, elevator video footage, travel schedules, and keycard information from the Chavez-DeRemer's DC residence and the hotels in which they stayed during travel. The conclusion: "Chavez-DeRemer and ASAIC 1 developed and maintained an inappropriately close and unprofessional relationship while ASAIC 1 actively served on Chavez-DeRemer's protective detail, which appeared to continue even after he was placed on administrative leave and was suspended from his official duties."

The report first detailed how this inappropriate relationship caused tension among the DPO protective detail.

ASAIC 1’s personal relationship with Chavez-DeRemer contributed to a tense and hostile work environment within DPO. Witnesses stated that ASAIC 1 routinely complied with Chavez-DeRemer’s requests, even when those requests deviated from established protective practices. For example, during Chavez-DeRemer’s April 15–20, 2025 personal travel to Oregon, she requested an off-the-record stop at an establishment that was determined upon entry to feature partially nude dancers. ASAIC 1, who served as Detail Leader and ASAIC, complied with Chavez-DeRemer’s request to reassign the limousine driver so he could enter with her. Chavez-DeRemer subsequently took money from her purse, gave the money to the driver, and directed him to give it to the performer. When the agent resisted and sought guidance from ASAIC 1, ASAIC 1 instructed him to comply with Chavez-DeRemer’s requests. Chavez-DeRemer then took additional money from her purse and asked the agent to drop the bills one by one onto the partially nude woman. The agent again hesitated and sought intervention from ASAIC 1, who told him to follow Chavez-DeRemer's instructions. The agent complied against his wishes.

Beyond a lack of professionalism, this is also incredibly stupid behavior.

The report further established:

Multiple witnesses described frequent private and non-operational communications, unusually informal verbal exchanges, and physical familiarity they did not observe between Chavez-DeRemer and other DPO agents. OIG surveillance as well as electronic hotel and residential access records further corroborated the unusually close nature of the relationship. The OIG did not, however, obtain sufficient direct evidence to establish that the relationship was romantic or sexual.

One witness reported they "observed Chavez-DeRemer massaging Sloan’s shoulders while seated behind him in a vehicle during a trip to Michigan, and hearing the bodyman make a comment interpreted as 'sexual innuendo.' She asked whether he was tired, and [Sloan] responded that he was ‘solid as a rock,’ after which both laughed.”

Multiple witnesses also reported that Chavez-DeRemer would coordinate with Wright to exclude agents from her security detail based on certain perceptions. Whether they were “too old, physically unfit, overly rule-bound, or ‘too MAGA.’” This only served to complicate DPO's role to keep her protected. This goes beyond bucking protocol. It represents a stunning lack of judgment which could have cost Chavez-DeRemer's safety, and in this charged political environment, her life.

Here is the problem with this OIG report: because Chavez-DeRemer has already resigned and moved on to her next position where she will no doubt fail forward, the American citizen simply distances him- or herself from this information, discarding it on the trash heap of scandal which defines much of D.C. However, the entirety of Chavez-DeRemer's tortured tenure, from her nomination to her ignominious ending, should be amplified so it can serve as a cautionary tale.  

There are people who should be nowhere near power. There are also people who should NEVER be responsible for dictating policy which affects the lives and livelihoods of others. Dismissing clear failure and elevating incompetence only results in this type of train wreck. The Trump administration dodged a bullet on this one, but should they maintain this precedent, they may pay dearly for it.