Donald Trump’s former labor secretary forced a member of her own security detail to drip banknotes onto a near-naked stripper, according to a damning report detailing her tumultuous tenure. The bombshell dropped on Thursday when the Department of Labor’s inspector general released a 40-page investigation into Lori Chavez-DeRemer, 58, who resigned in April after an internal investigation at the Department of Labor found that she had fostered a toxic work environment and misused official resources.
This isn’t just a wild night out story—it’s the centerpiece of what reads like a workplace corruption manual. Chavez-DeRemer went to a partially nude strip club in Oregon in April 2025—just a month after taking office—where she allegedly “took money from her purse, gave the money to the driver [a member of security detail], and directed him to give it to the performer.” But here’s where it gets darker: the security detail member felt uncomfortable and went to his fellow agent, a man named Brian Sloan, who “instructed him to comply with Chavez-DeRemer’s requests.” In other words, when the guard hesitated, his supervisor—allegedly compromised by his own inappropriate relationship with Chavez-DeRemer—overruled his discomfort and made him comply.
The chaos runs even deeper. Chavez-DeRemer then took additional money from her purse and asked the agent to drop the bills one by one onto the partially nude woman. The agent again hesitated and sought intervention from ASAIC 1, who told him to follow Chavez-DeRemer’s instructions. This wasn’t a one-time lapse in judgment—it’s part of a pattern where a Trump Cabinet official allegedly weaponized her power against people whose job was literally to protect her.
Chavez-DeRemer is a former Republican congresswoman from Oregon who was confirmed as U.S. Secretary of Labor and took over the department in March 2025. She had one job: oversee the agency meant to defend American workers’ rights and dignity. Instead, allegations were that Chavez-DeRemer had an affair with a bodyguard, drank on the job, and took her subordinates to a strip club during a work trip. The report documents how she created what the feds called a “toxic, intimidating and humiliating” workplace where her staffers were terrorized.
What makes this a federal-level scandal is the power dynamic and the breakdown of command. The complaint and subsequent investigation also determined that the ASAIC’s alleged inappropriate relationship with the former labor secretary, who is married, affected his job performance. “ASAIC 1 allegedly focused on his interactions with Chavez-DeRemer, monitored her interactions with other agents, and reduced the presence of other DPO personnel to create opportunities to be alone with her, resulting in reduced protective coverage for the Secretary,” the report read. In plain English: a Cabinet secretary’s alleged paramour was so busy managing her ego and their romance that he actually reduced her security detail. That’s not chaos; that’s a security nightmare.
The timing couldn’t be worse for Trump’s labor agenda. Former Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer violated department policy repeatedly, a report released on Thursday by the department’s internal watchdog said, including tolerating harassment, spending public money on personal travel and conducting an “inappropriate relationship” with a member of her security detail. “The 40-page report revealed new details of the dysfunction and toxicity at the top of the Labor Department under Ms. Chavez-DeRemer, who resigned in April after one year in the job as scandals and investigations closed in.” She was supposed to represent working people. Instead, she allegedly embarrassed federal agents, misused taxpayer resources, and created a workplace so toxic that people felt trapped.
The 16BARS take: From Oregon strip clubs to marital infidelity to security failures, Chavez-DeRemer’s tenure reads like a prestige drama about Cabinet corruption—except it’s real, documented by federal investigators, and it tanked her career in a year. Trump picked her to lead the Labor Department; she left it in ruins.
