WASHINGTON — One other Labor Division official has been positioned on administrative depart for allegedly misusing taxpayer {dollars} on official journey — as an in depth watchdog probe of Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer rolls on, The Submit can verify.
Director of advance Melissa Robey was sidelined simply days after the White Home pressured Chavez-DeRemer’s chief of employees Jihun Han and deputy Rebecca Wright to resign, sources mentioned.
The New York Occasions first reported Wednesday on Robey being positioned on depart.
An individual conversant in the probe, which is being performed by the DOL Workplace of Inspector Basic, mentioned Robey had expensed a multi-thousand-dollar limousine journey throughout a departmental tour to North Dakota and turned in vouchers for extreme travel-related expenditures on different automobiles in addition to resort stays.
Robey joined DOL final yr however had been working immediately for Chavez-DeRemer after Han and Wright had been placed on depart Jan. 12.
Dozens of interviews performed as a part of IG Anthony D’Esposito’s inquiry into the Labor secretary and her prime aides had uncovered proof of Han and Wright making a “hostile” office at division headquarters and squandering public cash whereas on official journeys, sources famous.
After Chavez-DeRemer left Congress to turn out to be labor secretary, her workplace needed to pay out practically $100,000 final yr to settle an employment discrimination declare — the very best sum recorded that yr.
On Jan. 16, a member of Chavez-DeRemer’s safety element was additionally positioned on administrative depart after The Submit first reported on a whistleblower grievance, filed with D’Esposito’s workplace, that alleged the bodyguard was in an “inappropriate” relationship with the secretary.
Further complaints had been submitted in opposition to Han and Wright throughout the investigation for exerting improper affect over junior employees, sources added.
The preliminary IG grievance additionally accused the secretary of getting Han and Wright “make up” official journeys to locations she visited for private causes — together with the ex-Oregon congresswoman’s house state; Arizona, the place she has a second house together with her anesthesiologist husband; and Las Vegas.
Chavez-DeRemer engaged in unprofessional interactions together with her alleged paramour throughout journeys to Sin Metropolis final yr, the grievance additional alleged.
IG investigators have since heard that the secretary took subordinates to an Oregon strip membership throughout an official departmental go to in April 2025.
Chavez-DeRemer, 57, and Wright spent 5 days in Palm Seaside, Fla., throughout an America First Coverage Institute occasion this previous December and flouted ethics guidelines by not paying their very own method for a dinner they shared on the junket, based on the IG grievance.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who chairs the highly effective Senate Judiciary Committee, has been independently probing the secretary and her senior aides’ alleged misconduct.
The White Home has defended Chavez-DeRemer, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying Jan. 15 that President Trump “thinks that she’s doing an amazing job on the Division of Labor on behalf of American employees.”
Chavez-DeRemer’s private lawyer has mentioned she “firmly denies any allegations of wrongdoing.”
Neither Robey nor reps for DOL, D’Esposito’s workplace and the White Home responded to requests for remark.
