Sex abuse claims against Oregon politician’s husband dismissed by D.C. police

Washington, D.C., police have closed an investigation into the husband of U.S. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a former member of Oregon’s congressional delegation who represented the 5th Congressional District from 2023 to 2025.

Police began investigating Dr. Shawn DeRemer, an anesthesiologist in Portland, for sexual abuse on Jan. 24, according to a police report. The report said the alleged abuse happened Dec. 18 at the labor department’s building on Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C.

A woman, whose identity was redacted, reported “sexual contact against her will,” according to the police report.

A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police Department said Tuesday that detectives reviewed the case with the U.S. Attorney’s Office which “determined that there was no evidence of a crime.”

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The New York Times reported last week that DeRemer has been barred from the labor department headquarters after at least two female staff members reported he had sexually assaulted them. The police report mentioned only one woman.

The women flagged concerns about DeRemer’s conduct during an investigation by the department’s inspector general into alleged misconduct by Chavez-DeRemer and her staff, the Times reported.

Chavez-DeRemer is under investigation over allegations she had an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate, spent taxpayer money on personal travel and kept champagne, bourbon and Kahlua in her office, where she drank during the workday.

The labor secretary, a longtime Republican who vocally supported President Donald Trump’s attempted troop deployment in Portland, was mayor of Happy Valley from 2011 to 2019.

Trump appointed her to his cabinet in 2025 after she lost a reelection campaign for her U.S. House seat to Democrat Janelle Bynum.

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