U.S. Capitol Police in Washington D.C. are attempting to track down an unnamed former aide to ex-Republican congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Donald Trump’s nominee for Labor Secretary, in connection with an alleged break-in at a congressional office building on Tuesday.
The staffer concerned is wanted for questioning after a bearded man in a hoodie was spotted on CCTV breaking into a locked door of the Cannon House Office Building around 4pm on Tuesday, reports Fox News.
The person in question is believed to have worked for Chavez-DeRemer, 56, during her single term representing Oregon’s 5th congressional district in the House of Representatives between January 2023 and last month, which came to an end when she was defeated by Democrat Janelle Bynum.
The suspect is also understood to still have a parking permit for the building and officers were seen presenting a picture of him to other congressional staff as they came and went inquiring if they knew of his whereabouts.
Secretary-designate Chavez-DeRemer has yet to have her confirmation hearing with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), which was postponed on Tuesday and rescheduled for February 19 because of the bitter winter storm currently blasting D.C.
She is the daughter of a Teamsters member and was the first Republican woman and one of only two Hispanic women to have represented the Pacific Northwestern state in Congress.
“Lori has worked tirelessly with both Business and Labor to build America’s workforce, and support the hardworking men and women of America,” Trump said in his Truth Social post announcing her nomination to lead the Department of Labor.
“I look forward to working with her to create tremendous opportunity for American Workers, to expand Training and Apprenticeships, to grow wages and improve working conditions, to bring back our Manufacturing jobs.”
Because of her Teamsters background, Chavez-DeRemer is strongly pro-union and established a clear record on workers’ rights and organized labor issues during her brief time in D.C. that belies the Republican Party’s – and Trump’s – customary alliances with business interests.
She enthusiastically backed the Joe Biden administration’s Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, legislation that would make it easier to unionize at a federal level and which cleared the House before stalling in the GOP-dominated Senate.
Chavez-DeRemer also co-sponsored another piece of legislation that would have protected public-sector workers from having their Social Security benefits docked had it not likewise crashed and burned in the Senate.
Teamsters President Sean O’Brien applauded her nomination when it was first announced by Trump in November and AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler praised her “pro-labor record in Congress” but added more cautiously: “It remains to be seen what she will be permitted to do as Secretary of Labor in an administration with a dramatically anti-worker agenda.”
