U.S. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is leaving Trump’s Cabinet after abuse of power allegations

U.S. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer listens as President Donald Trump speaks with reporters while signing executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, April 23, 2025, in Washington.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is out of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet, the White House said Monday, after multiple allegations of abusing her position’s power, including having an affair with a subordinate and drinking alcohol on the job.

Chavez-DeRemer is the third Trump Cabinet member to leave her post after Trump fired his embattled Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in March and ousted Attorney General Pam Bondi earlier this month.

Unlike other recent Cabinet departures, Chavez-DeRemer’s exit was announced by a White House aide, not by the president on his social media account.

“Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer will be leaving the Administration to take a position in the private sector,” White House communications director Steven Cheung said on the social media site X. “She has done a phenomenal job in her role by protecting American workers, enacting fair labour practices, and helping Americans gain additional skills to improve their lives.”

He said Keith Sonderling, the current deputy labour secretary, would become acting labour secretary in her place. The news outlet NOTUS was the first to report Chavez-DeRemer’s resignation.

Labour chief, family members faced multiple allegations

Chavez-DeRamer’s departure follows reports that began surfacing in January that she was under a series of investigations.

A New York Times report last Wednesday revealed that the Labor Department’s inspector general was reviewing material showing Chavez-DeRemer and her top aides and family members routinely sent personal messages and requests to young staff members.

Chavez-DeRemer’s husband and father exchanged text messages with young female staff members, according to the newspaper. Some of the staffers were instructed by the secretary and her former deputy chief of staff to “pay attention” to her family, people familiar with the investigation told the Times.

Those messages were uncovered as part of a broader investigation of Chavez-DeRamer’s leadership that began after the New York Post reported in January that a complaint filed with the Labor Department’s inspector general accused Chavez-DeRemer of a relationship with the subordinate.

She also faced allegations that she drank alcohol on the job, and that she tasked aides to plan official trips for primarily personal reasons.

Both the White House and the Labor Department initially said the reports of wrongdoing were baseless. But the official denials got less full-throated as more allegations emerged — and when Chavez-DeRemer might be out of a job became something of an open question in Washington.

At least four Labor Department officials have already been forced from their jobs as the investigation progressed, including Chavez-DeRemer’s former chief of staff and deputy chief of staff, as well as a member of her security detail, with whom she was accused of having the affair, the New York Times reported.

“I think the secretary demonstrated a lot of wisdom in resigning,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said Monday after her departure was made public.

She enjoyed union support — rare for a Republican

Confirmed to Trump’s Cabinet on a 67-32 vote in March 2025, Chavez-DeRemer is a former House GOP lawmaker who had represented a swing district in Oregon. She enjoyed unusual support from unions as a Republican but lost reelection in November 2024.

In her single term in Congress, Chavez-DeRemer backed legislation that would make it easier to unionize on a federal level, as well as a separate bill aimed at protecting Social Security benefits for public-sector employees.

Some prominent labour unions, including the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, backed Chavez-DeRemer, who is a daughter of a Teamster, for Labor Secretary. Trump’s decision to pick her was viewed by some political observers as a way to appeal to voters who are members of or affiliated with labour organizations.

But other powerful labour leaders were skeptical when she was tapped for the job, unconvinced that Chavez-DeRemer would pursue a union-friendly agenda as a part of the incoming GOP administration. In her Senate confirmation hearing, some senators questioned whether she would be able to uphold that reputation in an administration that fired thousands of federal employees.

She was a key figure in Trump’s deregulatory push

Aside from reports of wrongdoing in recent months, Chavez-DeRemer had been one of Trump’s more lower-profile Cabinet picks, but took key steps to advance the administration’s deregulatory agenda during her tenure.

For instance, the Labor Department last year moved to rewrite or repeal more than 60 workplace regulations it saw as obsolete. The rollbacks included minimum wage requirements for home health care workers and people with disabilities, and rules governing exposure to harmful substances and safety procedures at mines. The effort drew condemnation from union leaders and workplace safety experts.

The proposed changes also included eliminating a requirement that employers provide adequate lighting for construction sites and seat belts for agriculture workers in most employer-provided transportation.

During Chavez-DeRemer’s tenure, the Trump administration canceled millions of dollars in international grants that a Labor Department division administered to combat child labour and slave labour around the world, ending their work that had helped reduce the number of child labourers worldwide by 78 million over the last two decades.

In her statement Monday, Chavez-DeRemer said, “While my time serving in the Administration comes to a conclusion, it doesn’t mean I will stop fighting for American workers.”

The Labor Department has a broad mandate as it relates to the U.S. workforce, including reporting the U.S. unemployment rate, regulating workplace health and safety standards, investigating minimum wage, child labour and overtime pay disputes, and applying laws on union organizing and unlawful terminations.

Associated Press writers Steven Sloan and Will Weissert in Washington, and Cathy Bussewitz in New York, contributed to this report.

Seung Min Kim, The Associated Press