Seamus Bruner says Beijing does not need to put money directly into a politician’s pocket to gain influence in Washington.
It can work the family.
That is the warning the Government Accountability Institute’s Director of Research delivered after former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao continued a high-level China trip while her husband, Sen. Mitch McConnell, was hospitalized in Washington.
“Elite capture is the CCP’s signature strategy against the United States,” Bruner told radio host Lars Larson in a recent interview. “Instead of waging war on us and fighting us head to head, Beijing buys loyalty, or at least the silence, of the people who set American policy.”
Bruner presented Chao’s meetings as a case study in how he believes China cultivates relationships with powerful American families.
“The genius of this elite capture strategy is they rarely hand cash to the politicians directly,” he said. “That would be too obvious. They enrich the family members, either the son, as in the case of Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, or the spouse, in the case of Elaine Chao and Mitch McConnell.”
Chao’s China trip was underway before McConnell’s medical emergency.
She visited Shanghai Jiao Tong University on June 12. McConnell was hospitalized on June 14 after a fall that left him briefly unconscious, according to the senator’s subsequent account.
Chao remained in China and met Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs President Wu Ken on June 16. The following day, she sat down in Beijing with Chinese Vice President Han Zheng, a former member of the Chinese Communist Party’s powerful Politburo Standing Committee.
The meetings were confirmed by the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs and the Chinese Embassy in Washington.
“These were not just, you know, museums and sightseeing visits,” Bruner said. “These were meetings with the most powerful people in the country of our most powerful adversary.”
The Chinese Embassy said Han urged greater economic, trade, and cultural cooperation between the two countries. It said Chao expressed a willingness to continue promoting “practical cooperation and people-to-people exchanges.”
At Shanghai Jiao Tong, Chao met university Communist Party officials and visited its School of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Civil Engineering. The Chao family previously donated $5 million for a university building named after Chao’s late mother, according to the school’s account of the visit.
Bruner characterized the university as linked to the People’s Liberation Army and described CPIFA as part of China’s United Front influence apparatus.
Congressional testimony has identified CPIFA as an organization affiliated with multiple United Front officials that works to establish relationships with foreign politicians, legislatures, think tanks and media organizations. That testimony describes influence-building activity, but does not by itself establish that Chao committed a crime by meeting its leaders.
Bruner also pointed to Chao’s family shipping business, the Foremost Group, alleging that the company has commercial relationships involving Chinese state and military-linked suppliers. No underlying contracts were presented during the interview.
The Chao family’s business and political connections have faced scrutiny before.
A 2021 Transportation Department inspector general’s report found evidence of potential ethics concerns involving Chao’s use of department personnel and resources while she was transportation secretary.
Investigators cited efforts involving Chao family philanthropy, publicity for her father, and a planned official trip to China that included family members and personal events.
The inspector general referred the matter to the Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for possible criminal investigation. Both declined to open a case.
Bruner also invoked a multimillion-dollar gift from Chao’s father, Foremost founder James Chao, to Chao and McConnell. McConnell’s financial disclosure listed the related asset between $5 million and $25 million. A McConnell spokesman previously said the 2008 gift was made in memory of Chao’s mother after her death.
The gift was publicly disclosed. No public evidence has established that it came from the Chinese government.
Bruner nevertheless argued that the combination of family wealth, international business ties, and access to senior Chinese officials demands aggressive scrutiny.
“It’s got to be prosecutions,” he said when Larson asked how Washington should confront alleged elite capture. “Whether it’s under the Foreign Agents Registration Act or the Espionage Act.”
“Someone needs to track her down, get her on the record,” Bruner said. “And frankly, I don’t think she should ever be a public official again.”
Chao’s spokesman said she was on a “long-planned trip” supporting her family’s philanthropic work and met numerous people, including the U.S. ambassador. The spokesman said McConnell’s condition “did not warrant an immediate return to the U.S.”
Since Bruner’s interview, McConnell has disclosed more about his condition.
The 84-year-old Republican said he was hospitalized after a fall, treated for mild pneumonia, and moved to a rehabilitation facility. He said doctors found no heart attack, stroke, fractures, tumors, or hemorrhages. His statement included a photograph of Chao sitting beside him, according to The Associated Press.
That update undercut the darkest speculation about McConnell’s health. It did not answer Bruner’s questions about what Chao discussed behind closed doors in Beijing.
“Republicans tend to protect their own,” Bruner said. “And so that’s why we haven’t seen a lot of movement on this.”
The meetings are documented. Bruner’s “elite capture” theory remains an allegation. What Congress does with the gap between those two facts may determine whether the Beijing trip fades away or becomes the next investigation on Capitol Hill.
Watch the clip above.
