Former Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer violated department policy repeatedly, a report released on Thursday by the department’s internal watchdog said, including tolerating harassment, spending public money on personal travel and conducting an “inappropriate relationship” with a member of her security detail.
The 40-page report revealed new details of the dysfunction and toxicity at the top of the Labor Department under Ms. Chavez-DeRemer, who resigned in April after one year in the job as scandals and investigations closed in.
More than three dozen witnesses described working in the secretary’s office as “toxic, intimidating and humiliating,” the department’s inspector general, Anthony D’Esposito, wrote.
The report followed a monthslong investigation into a whistle-blower’s allegations of misconduct by Ms. Chavez-DeRemer and her aides. The claims included that she was having an affair with a member of her security team, that she and her aides abused younger women on the staff and that they flouted federal spending limits on trips that mixed business and pleasure, including on fancy hotels, S.U.V. rentals and strip clubs.
Ms. Chavez-DeRemer did not respond to a message seeking comment. She recently started a national political action committee aimed at electing Republicans who support organized labor.
The report closes an embarrassing chapter for the department. Its acting leader, Keith Sonderling, is awaiting Senate confirmation to become the next secretary.
Ms. Chavez-DeRemer, 58, served in local government in Happy Valley, Ore., before being elected to the U.S. House in 2022. Her father was a Teamster, and she had support from organized labor.
Ms. Chavez-DeRemer lost her re-election bid in November 2024. Sean O’Brien, president of the Teamsters union, who had spoken at the 2024 Republican National Convention, urged President Trump to choose her as labor secretary. She took office in March 2025.
She set the tone for her tenure early, hosting a “swearing-in party” at the department’s Perkins Building on her birthday, at which members of the political staff mingled and drank wine; she blew out the candles on a cake. She and her top aides often drank during office hours, the report said, and when other staff members declined, the officials “pressured them to participate or ridiculed them for abstaining.”
Ms. Chavez-DeRemer was rarely in the office, more than two dozen department employees told The New York Times this year, and she had little to do with the department’s operations.
She embarked on a cross-country campaign she called “America at Work.” The tour included many locations where Ms. Chavez-DeRemer had friends or family, and she frequently billed personal travel to the government, the investigation found.
Her calendar often showed one or two meetings when traveling, and the rest of the day was free, an unusually light day for cabinet members. Aides limited Ms. Chavez-DeRemer’s presence at events to between 60 and 90 minutes.
“As a result of this requirement, some trips consisted of one or two official engagements totaling less than two hours over two days,” the report said.
Ms. Chavez-DeRemer mixed personal and professional duties in directing her staff to perform domestic tasks, such as organizing her closet, translating interactions with Spanish-speaking workers at her home and buying picture frames, holiday ornaments and wine.
The report also said Ms. Chavez-DeRemer had accepted gifts without reporting them through required ethics channels, including an alligator-hide wallet in Louisiana and tickets to a rodeo.
Mr. D’Esposito, a former detective, served as a Republican in the House at the same time as Ms. Chavez-DeRemer. He took office as the inspector general on Jan. 5, and was immediately confronted with the complaints against the secretary, her chief of staff and her deputy chief of staff.
The New York Post reported the investigation on Jan. 9, and the chief of staff and deputy chief of staff were placed on leave. Two months later, they were forced out as the investigation expanded, amid a steady drip of revelations about the dysfunction in the executive office.
Witnesses told the inspector general’s office that Ms. Chavez-DeRemer’s personal relationship with a senior member of her security detail — an agent who resigned in March and was not named in the report — had contributed to the “tense and hostile” work environment and violated security protocol.
During a personal trip to Oregon, the report said, Ms. Chavez-DeRemer asked her driver to take her and the agent to a strip club. She also had the driver go inside with them and asked him to drop money from her purse onto a partially naked performer. When the driver hesitated, the senior agent told him to follow the secretary’s instructions; later, he told the driver not to tell anybody about the incident.
The report said Mr. D’Esposito’s team had checked hotel room key records from official travel and conducted surveillance on Ms. Chavez-DeRemer’s department, finding activity indicating that she and the agent were spending the evening together.
