Labor Secretary’s Aide Claims She Was Wrongfully Fired, Defamed

Another aide to Labor Secretary Lori Chavez DeRemer has been ousted from the department during an ongoing investigation into travel fraud by the secretary.

Melissa Robey, former director of advance at Department of Labor, said in a statement she was wrongfully terminated Tuesday after being questioned about her travels with Chavez-DeRemer.

Robey is the third aide to Chavez-DeRemer to be driven out of the department since the DOL’s Inspector General opened an investigation into allegations that the secretary and her staff booked government trips so Chavez-DeRemer could spend time with family and friends. The secretary was also accused of having an inappropriate relationship with her security guard, bringing staffers to a strip club in Oregon, and drinking in the office.

Robey was placed on administrative leave and Chavez-DeRemer’s chief of staff Jihun Han and deputy chief of staff Rebecca Wright resigned earlier this month.

In her statement Robey said she was wrongfully fired with no explanation after an internal campaign to “embarrass and defame” her in a “failed effort to force me to resign.”

“The pettiness has included questioning me why the Secretary traveled in a Ford Expedition and not a foreign made sub compact car on a 470-mile winter drive through North Dakota,” Robey said. “I believe any cabinet official of the United States of America should travel in a safe American made car.”

She also accused the department of leaking her firing to the media. The New York Post first reported the news Wednesday evening.

“I did nothing wrong and have nothing to hide,” Robey said.

Her spokesperson, Anne Kavanaugh, declined to comment on whether Robey would sue the DOL over her firing.

DOL Spokesperson Courtney Parella said in a statement that it’s the department’s policy not to comment on personnel matters.