The document runs 44 pages and rests on 53 interviews. Thirty-eight of those witnesses reached for the same three adjectives.
WASHINGTON—Citing 53 current and former employees and more than 500 documents, the Labor Department’s Office of Inspector General substantiated six categories of misconduct by former Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer in a report released Thursday.
Investigators wrote that a preponderance of the evidence supported multiple violations of department policy. Chavez-DeRemer resigned on April 20 after thirteen months in the job, and the report of investigation became public four and a half months later. The inquiry began with an anonymous complaint filed in January.
She said in a statement that the labor secretary report ended where she had expected it to end, with no finding of legal wrongdoing, and that serving in the administration had been the honor of a lifetime. Neither the White House nor the department answered a request for comment from Axios.
What the Labor Secretary Report Substantiated
The six findings run together in a single sentence of the document. Chavez-DeRemer contributed to a hostile work environment and maintained an inappropriate relationship with a member of her security detail. She failed to comply with travel regulations, kept and consumed alcohol inside department offices and during duty hours, directed subordinates to perform tasks for her personal benefit, and accepted gifts without routing them through ethics channels. At least five of those gifts appear nowhere in department records. Among them are a scarf, a pair of work boots and some cowboy hats.
No direct evidence showed the relationship was romantic or sexual. Investigators concluded the two were close enough to create an appearance of favoritism inside the protective detail. Agents on that detail were sidelined over their age, their physical fitness, or how their politics were read.
The Office of the Secretary sits at the top of the department that enforces federal workplace safety standards, minimum wage and overtime rules, and the law on unlawful terminations. Complaints that arise inside the building go to the inspector general instead.
A former department official who has read the report and requested anonymity to discuss a personnel matter said the substantiated categories track the department’s own enforcement work. “Hostile work environment, off-the-clock errands, gifts nobody wrote down,” the official said. “There are offices for all three of those. They are down the hall.”
Thirty-Eight Descriptions of One Office
Of the 53 people interviewed, 38 described the Office of the Secretary in terms the investigators recorded as consistent. The environment was “toxic, intimidating and humiliating.” The report also documents demeaning treatment, threats of termination, and a failure to report or stop harassing conduct.
Nick Oberheiden, an attorney for Chavez-DeRemer, characterized that group differently. Some individuals, yet to be disclosed, “may not have identified with Secretary Chavez-DeRemer’s managerial style,” he said in a statement. He added that the investigation concluded exactly as predicted, with no laws found to have been violated and a great deal of hearsay.
Three people around her lost their jobs. Chief of Staff Jihun Han and Deputy Chief of Staff Rebecca Wright were placed on leave in January and terminated in March. So was the director of advance, whom the report numbers rather than names, and who witnesses said helped build the schedules.
Official Engagements Added to Personal Itineraries
The travel finding describes a scheduling practice rather than a single trip. Witnesses told investigators that official engagements were added to itineraries built around personal destinations, and that Chavez-DeRemer and her two top aides made those decisions on their own. The effect was government-funded transportation and lodging on personal travel.
Volume was part of the job as she ran it. She reached at least 36 states in her first year and had set a goal of all 50, a target she said the government shutdown pushed out of reach. Newswax reported last week on a market strategist who read a separate watchdog finding on $110 billion in unsupported federal savings as a methodology dispute.
Where the Labor Secretary Report Leaves the Department
Anthony D’Esposito runs the inspector general’s office that produced the document. He is a former Republican congressman from New York who served in the House alongside Chavez-DeRemer. Keith Sonderling, the deputy secretary who took over in an acting capacity in April, has been named for the permanent job pending Senate confirmation. Chavez-DeRemer was confirmed 67 to 32 in March 2025 with 17 Democrats voting yes, on the recommendation of Teamsters president Sean O’Brien, and she is the daughter of a Teamster.
In January the government paid close to $100,000 to settle an employment discrimination claim arising from her former congressional office. That payment predates the labor secretary report and appears nowhere in it.
On the day she left, Chavez-DeRemer wrote that the allegations against her, her family and her team had been “peddled by high-ranked deep state actors” working with the news media. The office that substantiated six of them sits inside the department she ran.
White House communications director Steven Cheung announced the departure that afternoon and credited her with “protecting American workers, enacting fair labor practices” and helping Americans build skills. Nobody has said whether that assessment stands.
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