Elaine Chao, wife of former U.S. Transportation Secretary and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). (Photo credit: Wikipedia/Hudson Institute/CC BY2.0)
The Family of Elaine Chao, wife of former Transportation Secretary and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), has extensive economic ties to the Chinese Communist government. The above is from the book Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends. Peter Schweizer, author of “Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends,” told host Alex Marlow on the March 5 edition of SiriusXM Satellite Radio’s Breitbart Daily News.
Breitbart News 6 reported that on March 2, the Department of Transportation’s inspector general sent a letter outlining an investigation into allegations that Zhao Xiaolan used her office and staff to help benefit her family’s international shipping business.
The Foremost Group is a shipping business founded by Chao’s father, James Chao. The family business revolves around China, which entails ties between the Chao family and China’s political elite. A subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), mainland China’s largest defense contractor, builds ships for the Formosa Group.
Schweitzer said of the Formosa Group, “[Zhao Xiaolan’s] father, Zhao Xicheng, runs a shipping company with [her] sister, Angela Chao. The company has very close ties to the mainland Chinese government, meaning that the mainland Chinese government finances the ships they use, provides the crews, builds the ships, [and] provides [shipping] contracts for them. So there is a very serious concern that the Chinese [Communist] state may have influence over the McConnell-Zhao family.”
Schweitzer described a conflict of interest between Chao’s former role as transportation secretary and her family’s shipbuilding and shipping business, and therefore allegedly.
Schweitzer said, “The allegation in the inspector general’s report is that [she] organized an official trip to mainland China as transportation secretary in November 2017. Her original plan, until it was disrupted by the DOT, was to take her father and sister with her on this official trip, and they were to visit, among other places, institutions with which the family had business.”
Cho is also accused of using her former position as transportation minister to help promote a memoir written by her father.
Schweitzer commented, “[Zhao Xiaolan] is using the Ministry of Transportation – that is, the people who are paid by taxpayers – to promote his [Zhao Xiaolan’s father’s] book. It’s a book that was distributed in mainland China, where people are the main audience.”
Schweitzer explained, “Her father had a book that was released in mainland China that was sort of his Life story. Zhao Xicheng is often identified as being from Taiwan. He’s actually from mainland China, and he went to school with Jiang Zemin, who eventually became the leader of mainland China more than 20 years ago, and that’s really why he’s so gung-ho about [the Chinese Communist government].”
Schweitzer said, “The family is closely integrated with the Chinese Communist government. In fact, her sister Angie Zhao is one of the few foreign nationals sitting on the board of directors of the Bank of China (BOC), which is the largest bank in China and the most important as far as China’s economic state policy is concerned.”
Angie Zhao, sister of Zhao Xiaolan and wife and sister of McConnell, was appointed to the Board of Directors of Bank of China ten days after the 2016 presidential election. Bank of China’s major shareholder is the Communist Party’s sovereign fund, a state-run bank among state-run banks.
Schweitzer previously positioned McConnell’s political stance toward the Communist Party as “increasingly weak” because of his familial and financial ties to the Communist state.
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