With the chaos enveloping this country and the world, those old, traditional stories of government corruption, personal malfeasance, coverups and torrid affairs seem positively quaint. But when these quaint acts come from a top Trump official — in this case, THE top Labor Department official — we Confined Space readers must still sit up and take notice. And demand better. Especially from Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer who is supposed to be working for workers, not Lori Chavez-DeRemer.
We wrote a couple of weeks ago about some, uh, ethical lapses committed by Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer that led to the suspension of her Chief of Staff, Deputy Chief of Staff and a security officer. The New York Post reported that Chavez-DeRemer was allegedly carrying out an extramarital affair, drinking alcohol on the job, scheduling official travel to subsidize the secretary’s personal plans and accusations that her aides tried to steer grants to favored political operatives. Labor Department staff have accused her of being a “boss from hell,” forcing aides to run personal errands or perform other menial tasks while on the clock.
Sounds serious, but according to a person close to the White House a few weeks ago, “I don’t get the sense from anybody that anybody gives a shit.”
Well, even in the fog of war, someone in the White House suddenly seems to have found a few shits to give. The two aides that were suspended were fired yesterday, according to the New York Post. Well technically, Chavez-DeRemer’s chief of staff, Jihun Han, and deputy chief of staff, Rebecca Wright, were given 24 hours to resign. Or else they would be fired. They resigned.
A case filed with the Department of Labor’s Inspector General “accused Chavez-DeRemer, 57, of having Han and Wright ‘make up’ official trips, seeking out conferences or speaking engagements at destinations where the secretary could also visit family members or travel for pleasure.”
People familiar with the probe indicated that investigators had gathered sufficient evidence of a “toxic” work environment created by the pair, including verbal abuse of staffers and waste of departmental resources on personal travel.
Wright had also enraged the White House by taking a swipe at President Trump last year, the sources added, telling staff in a meeting: “We don’t care what the White House tells us to do. We only care that the secretary looks good.”
Chavez-DeRemer must have been reading some bad political novel where the protagonist escapes from a major scandal by pushing the blame onto her underlings. She, of course, knew nothing about the transgressions of her top aides, nor that she was being sent on trips that just, by chance, happened to be where “she could also visit family members or travel for pleasure.”
A New York Times story the day before her aides were terminated noted that many of those trips involved two short events with the rest of the day free.
It is not unusual for labor secretaries to spend a lot of time on the road, but their days are usually packed. Ms. Chavez-DeRemer was traveling for enjoyment, some department employees said. Some of her aides, however, thought her travel was booked with an eye to increasing her political profile and building her brand, people familiar with her staff’s discussions said.
Ms. Chavez-DeRemer has visited 48 states as part of the tour. She was scarcely in the Perkins Building, and had little to do with the daily operations or policy imperatives of the department. When at headquarters, she was generally secluded in her second-floor office suite, with security stationed at her door.
(I will attest to the fact that whenever I traveled for OSHA, staff managed to find ways to usefully fill every hour of the day — on agency business — before and after the main speech or event.)
Undaunted, Chavez-DeRemer is continuing to travel the country in an attempt to live up to her aspiration to being a figurehead as Secretary of Labor, as reported by the New York Times: “Since she took office last March, that has meant traveling the country meeting with workers and employers, while back in Washington the Labor Department has descended into crisis.”
Labor Department employees are not amused. More than two dozen current and former department employees, speaking with the New York Times described the current Department of Labor as “a toxic workplace characterized by an absentee secretary, hostile aides and a deeply demoralized staff.”
Labor Department employees are not amused. More than two dozen current and former department employees, speaking with the New York Times described the current Department of Labor as “a toxic workplace characterized by an absentee secretary, hostile aides and a deeply demoralized staff.”
“The crisis at the Department of Labor is a crisis of leadership,” said Helen Luryi, who until April worked in the department’s Women’s Bureau. “Over the past few weeks we’ve learned that not only is she not doing her job, she’s embroiling the department in scandal and possible criminal activity. It’s frankly embarrassing.”
The Department is not leaderless, however. In Secretary Chavez-deRemer’s absence, Deputy Secretary Keith Sonderling is running the Department.
Like Husband, Like Wife
But wait! It gets better worse.
Chavez-DeRemer’s husband, Shawn DeRemer, has been banned from setting foot in the Department of Labor after three female political appointees accused him of sexually assaulting them.
The women said Ms. Chavez-DeRemer’s husband, Dr. Shawn DeRemer, had touched them inappropriately at the Labor Department’s building on Constitution Avenue. One of the incidents, during working hours on the morning of Dec. 18, was recorded on office security cameras, the people said. The video showed Dr. DeRemer giving one of the women an extended embrace, and was reviewed as part of a criminal investigation, one of the people said.
Those accusations were followed by a report filed by Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department about forced sexual contact at the Labor Department. The police later searched Chavez-deRemer’s office. Politico reported that “It is unclear what the police were searching for or how long they stayed, but it is unusual for a local police force to seek access to federal property, and especially rare for them search the office of a Cabinet official. In addition to the secretary’s own office, the suite also includes the work stations of a number of aides and advisers who report to her.”
Chavez-DeRemer is supposed to be working for the American worker. But the only workers she seems to be working for is the one working in the Secretary’s office at the Department of Labor.
Happily for DeRemer (Shawn), U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia (and former Fox News host) Jeanine Pirro said Friday night that “based upon the evidence presented to this office in relation to the video, there is no indication of a crime.”
Well that’s a relief. Although he’s still apparently banned from entering the Department of Labor.
DeRemer claims he’s innocent and has no knowledge of being banned.
DeRemer has denied all sexual misconduct allegations. James Bell, an attorney representing him, said in an email to The Washington Post that he was not aware of a ban. “There is no ban no bar no prohibition — to my knowledge,” Bell said. “Wouldn’t someone be entitled to a hearing or some kind of notice ? Who unilaterally made the decision to ban the good doctor from the DOL?”
Nevertheless, a building restriction notice viewed by the New York Times reads that “If Mr. DeRemer attempts to enter, he is to be asked to leave.”
DeRemer’s lawyer says there’s no there there: This is all just about certain unnamed DOL employees who are trying to force Ms. Chavez-DeRemer out of office.
Chavez-DeRemer’s 50 state “America at Work” tour is sadly drawing to an end with trips to Hawaii and Oklahoma. Ironically, she is set to meet with Teamster President Shaun O’Brien in Oklahoma. It was O’Brien who convinced Trump that the (supposedly) moderate former Congresswoman would make a smashing Secretary of Labor.
But despite her foibles (and those of there husband), the Teamsters still seem to have full faith in her.
“Lori Chavez-DeRemer is the most engaged labor secretary we’ve had under a Republican administration, consistently visiting workplaces and meeting with workers across the country,” said Kara Deniz, a spokeswoman for the Teamsters. “We look forward to continuing to work with her.”
Conclusion
Now, in normal times, e.g. if our President wasn’t a maniac occupying American cities, attacking elections, threatening to destroy our democracy and unleashing a major war in the Middle East, this scandal would be front-page headlines in newspapers and nightly news across the country. And Chavez-DeRemer would have been shown the door (along with her top aides.)
Chavez-DeRemer is supposed to be working for the American worker. But the only workers she seems to be working for is the one working in the Secretary’s office at the Department of Labor.
It’s one of those stories crazy enough that would have been laughed out of the script room if someone had proposed it for an episode of Veep.
Or it would be if this this couple’s shenanigans weren’t more the rule than the exception in this administration. In addition to the Epstein cover-up and Trump’s airplane and never-ending grift, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has been accused of carrying on a torrid affair with top aide Corey Lewandowski in the bedroom of a luxury DHS airplane. And speaking of Epstein, there’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick who “forgot” he had taken his family to Epstein Island. (I’m sure the kids would have preferred Disney World.) And then there’s the renomination of Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) whose staff member killed herself after evidence emerged about an affair between the congressman and his staffer.
I wrote earlier about how the fish rots from the head down. And for decades, this administration will be a textbook case of the truth of that old aphorism. When your leader shows no respect for ethics — or the law — that signals everyone below him (or her) that the coast is clear. Your agency’s budget is yours for the taking. Chavez-DeRemer is not the only one who has let power go to her head.
But these are Trump times, so what once would have been a major scandal barely makes the news outside of Washington or New York.
This is what you get when you have a president and White House staff who don’t give a rat’s ass about who they appoint to positions of power except for their loyalty to Trump and how they look on television. Along with Republicans in Congress who don’t oversee these departments because they couldn’t care less. — Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich
I’ll end with a statement from former Labor Secretary Robert Reich knows something about the Department of Labor and how government official are desecrating what were once proud and effective government agencies that actually worked for people, not their political heads:
Almost every department and agency of the federal government has become a back-stabbing rat’s nest. Total pandemonium. Career staff against political appointees and vice versa, political appointees against other political appointees. Blatant misuses of taxpayer dollars, self-dealing, conflicts of interest, sexual predation, abuses of lower-level employees.
This is what you get when you have a president and White House staff who don’t give a rat’s ass about who they appoint to positions of power except for their loyalty to Trump and how they look on television. Along with Republicans in Congress who don’t oversee these departments because they couldn’t care less.
The only reason the White House booted Chavez-DeRemer’s deputy and chief of staff yesterday was to protect her ass, in order to protect Trump.
Trump and his White House assistants are fine with his appointees wrecking our government because they don’t care about government. Hell, they came to government to wreck it. If the public loses confidence in, say, the Department of Labor, that’s perfectly fine. If Congress slashes its funding, so much the better.