Stay up to date with our Up First newsletter sent every weekday morning. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who served as President Trump's Labor Secretary until she resigned in April, violated her own department's policy prohibiting harassment in the workplace, according to a new report by the Labor Department's Office of Inspector General (OIG), released Thursday. The findings follow a months-long investigation that began after OIG, led by former Republican Congressman Anthony D'Esposito of New York, received an anonymous complaint.
It alleged that Chavez-DeRemer contributed to a hostile work environment, was engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a member of her security detail, failed to comply with travel regulations, and directed subordinates to perform tasks for her personal benefit. The salacious allegations gave rise to quips about "The Real Housewives of the Frances Perkins Building," referring to the Labor Department's headquarters in Washington, D.C. After interviewing 53 former and current Labor Department employees, investigators found merit in all of the original complaints and more.
Chavez-DeRemer herself was not interviewed as part of the investigation. She resigned her position a day before she was to be interviewed, the report revealed. In a statement shared with NPR, her attorney Nick Oberheiden pointed out that the report did not find that Chavez-DeRemer broke 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. Given the Labor Department's stated mission to improve working conditions and assure work-related rights, here are four notable findings of the investigation: People interviewed as part of the investigation described a "toxic, humiliating and intimidating" environment in the Office of the Secretary. Witnesses described seeing Chavez-DeRemer's chief of staff Jihun Han and deputy chief of staff Rebecca Wright engaging in "threatening, demeaning, and abusive verbal and written communication" with staffers, including making comments about staffers' appearance and hygiene and repeatedly threatening to fire people, including those they suspected had leaked information to the media.
Witnesses alleged Wright was hiring staff based on their physical appearance versus professional qualifications. Several recalled an instance in which Wright advised an employee not to cut her hair above her shoulders to avoid "turning into a lesbian." In another, Wright reportedly relocated an employee's desk because she didn't want a "fat person" visible in the front office. The investigation found that "Chavez-DeRemer was seemingly aware of this behavior and failed to take action to stop this behavior or take appropriate disciplinary action." By doing so, the OIG concluded that Chavez-DeRemer failed to follow department policy on several fronts, but stopped short of saying she or her staffers violated federal law.
Investigators looking into Chavez-DeRemer's alleged affair with a member of her security detail went as far as to get electronic hotel door lock records from several trips and surveillance footage from entrances to her residence. While the report states that the evidence collected did not prove a romantic or sexual relationship, it did establish that Chavez-DeRemer "developed and maintained an inappropriately close and unprofessional relationship" with someone assigned to protect her, who also supervised other members of her security detail. According to the report, in one instance, the secretary asked her driver to enter a strip club with her and the member of her detail she was allegedly seeing, identified in the report as ASAIC 1 (Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge 1).
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