Overview
- The White House disclosed Monday that Lori Chavez-DeRemer will leave for a private-sector job as Deputy Secretary Keith Sonderling becomes acting labor secretary.
- The Labor Department’s inspector general is continuing an administrative probe into claims she used agency resources for personal travel, asked staff to invent official trips, drank during work hours, and had a relationship with a security staffer.
- The investigation has already driven staff turmoil as her chief of staff, deputy chief of staff, and other aides left, and as her husband was barred from headquarters after complaints that police and prosecutors closed without charges.
- Chavez-DeRemer and her attorney reject the allegations, and she issued a farewell statement praising her tenure and pledging support for the president’s agenda.
- Her exit is the third recent Cabinet departure and outlets report investigators plan to interview her next, while congressional oversight of the department continues.