WASHINGTON — Another Labor Department official has been placed on administrative leave for allegedly misusing taxpayer dollars on official travel — as an extensive watchdog probe of Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer rolls on, The Post can confirm.
Director of advance Melissa Robey was sidelined just days after the White House pressured Chavez-DeRemer’s chief of staff Jihun Han and deputy Rebecca Wright to resign, sources said.
The New York Times first reported Wednesday on Robey being placed on leave.
A person familiar with the probe, which is being conducted by the DOL Office of Inspector General, said Robey had expensed a multi-thousand-dollar limousine ride during a departmental excursion to North Dakota and turned in vouchers for excessive travel-related expenditures on other vehicles as well as hotel stays.
Robey joined DOL last year but had been working directly for Chavez-DeRemer after Han and Wright were put on leave Jan. 12.
Dozens of interviews conducted as part of IG Anthony D’Esposito’s inquiry into the Labor secretary and her top aides had uncovered evidence of Han and Wright creating a “hostile” workplace at department headquarters and squandering public money while on official trips, sources noted.
After Chavez-DeRemer left Congress to become labor secretary, her office had to pay out nearly $100,000 last year to settle an employment discrimination claim — the highest sum recorded that year.
On Jan. 16, a member of Chavez-DeRemer’s security detail was also placed on administrative leave after The Post first reported on a whistleblower complaint, filed with D’Esposito’s office, that alleged the bodyguard was in an “inappropriate” relationship with the secretary.
Additional complaints were submitted against Han and Wright during the investigation for exerting improper influence over junior staff, sources added.
The initial IG complaint also accused the secretary of having Han and Wright “make up” official trips to destinations she visited for personal reasons — including the ex-Oregon congresswoman’s home state; Arizona, where she has a second home with her anesthesiologist husband; and Las Vegas.
Chavez-DeRemer engaged in unprofessional interactions with her alleged paramour during trips to Sin City last year, the complaint further alleged.
IG investigators have since heard that the secretary took subordinates to an Oregon strip club during an official departmental visit in April 2025.
Chavez-DeRemer, 57, and Wright spent five days in Palm Beach, Fla., during an America First Policy Institute event this past December and flouted ethics rules by not paying their own way for a dinner they shared at the junket, according to the IG complaint.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who chairs the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, has been independently probing the secretary and her senior aides’ alleged misconduct.
The White House has defended Chavez-DeRemer, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying Jan. 15 that President Trump “thinks that she’s doing a tremendous job at the Department of Labor on behalf of American workers.”
Chavez-DeRemer’s personal attorney has said she “firmly denies any allegations of wrongdoing.”
Neither Robey nor reps for DOL, D’Esposito’s office and the White House responded to requests for comment.
