Labor Secretary Chavez-DeRemer out amid scandals
Chavez-DeRemer will be taking a position in the private sector
What happened
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is leaving the Trump administration “to take a position in the private sector,” the White House announced Monday. She had been under scrutiny for months over a series of workplace misconduct allegations. Unlike the recent ousters of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi, Chavez-DeRemer’s exit “was announced by a White House aide,” not President Donald Trump, The Associated Press said.
Who said what
The Labor Department inspector general opened an investigation in January into allegations that Chavez-DeRemer was having an affair with a security staffer, often “drank on the job” and “concocted official events to facilitate her personal travel plans,” Politico said. The White House and Labor Department initially called the claims baseless, but the “official denials got less full-throated as more allegations emerged,” the AP said.
Among the “embarrassing details” likely to emerge in a pending inspector general’s report, The New York Times said, were text messages sent to “younger female staffers” with “inappropriate requests” from Chavez-DeRemer, her husband and her father. “The text messages were the final straw,” a Republican close to the White House told Politico. “I think the secretary demonstrated a lot of wisdom in resigning,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told reporters.
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What next?
Deputy Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling will take over as acting secretary. Sonderling, a “longtime ally of business leaders,” had “already been directing policy and personnel-related decision-making in Washington” as Chavez-Remer spent much of her tenure “on the road,” The Washington Post said.
