As questions continue to swirl about the health of Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), many reporters have asked why his wife, former Transportation secretary Elaine Chao, went ahead with a trip to China three days after her husband was rushed to the hospital on June 14.
Author Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute, joined guest host Jason Chaffetz on the Sean Hannity Radio recently to discuss Elaine Chao’s reported June trip to China, the Chao family shipping empire, and Sen. Mitch McConnell’s health and Senate role.
“What in the world is going on with Mitch McConnell? And, equally important, what’s going on with his wife?” Chaffetz asked Schweizer.
“As we’ve talked about before, Elaine Chao and Mitch McConnell have a long financial association with the Chinese Communist Party,” Schweizer said. “Elaine Chao’s family has a shipping business called the Foremost Group, a company that does considerable business with the Chinese government.”
Schweizer researched and previously documented these relationships in his 2018 bestseller, Secret Empires.
He traced the Chao family’s shipping wealth through Foremost Group, started by her father, and its extensive business ties to Chinese state-linked shipbuilding interests. Chao also has ties to Shanghai Jiao Tong University, which dedicated a new building named after her mother.
“The problem is that that building, which is the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Memorial Hall, houses the Naval Architecture School, which does major contracts for the Chinese military,” Schweizer told Chaffetz, noting Elaine Chao has visited the school about 12 times in recent years. “And when you look further at this university, it is deeply tied with the People’s Liberation Army. In fact, freshmen at this university undergo mandatory military training with physical drills and ideological education.”
While her husband was laid up in the hospital, Chao was meeting in Beijing with Chinese government leaders. “She meets with Wu Ken, who is the head of the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, which is widely recognized as a united front group. In fact, the US Congress has designated it as such. The purpose of that group is to help the Chinese Communist Party cultivate good relations and advance the interests of the CCP in the Western world,” Schweizer explained.
The next day, he continued, “Elaine Chao meets with the vice president of China, Han Zheng. What’s interesting about this guy is that he sat until recently on the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, which is pretty small and is the most powerful committee in the Chinese Communist Party.”
“So, a lot of big questions to ask here,” Schweizer said.
Chaffetz, a former congressman who served as chairman of the House Oversight Committee and now Distinguished Fellow of GAI, stressed the transparency problem around incapacitated lawmakers. McConnell has not been seen since he went into the hospital and rumors have spread that his condition is dire. Nevertheless, several Republican senators claimed to have had substantive conversations with him by phone and are offering assurances that McConnell is convalescing and eager to return to the Senate.
“There’s no way that he’s having an in-depth policy discussion about Iran,” Chaffetz said. “I mean, I’d be shocked. And if that’s the case, then why is he in the hospital?”
“It raises questions about what the Senate leadership should be doing — should this individual still be occupying a seat in the US Senate?” Schweizer replied. He explained further from his research on Secret Empires about the history with China. “The Chinese cultivated their relationship with the Chao family, the McConnell-Chao family, once Mitch McConnell became a US senator,” Schweizer said. “Once he was elected, that’s when the coziness began. And there’s a long history that I’ve documented of Mitch McConnell, who used to be very hawkish on China, becoming increasingly soft on China.”
“So, you have to ask the question: Was there something to be done with China before Mitch McConnell actually relinquishes his Senate seat? If that is what really matters to the Chinese, the fact that he is a leader in the Senate and can influence the direction of the Senate, was there value in trying to meet with them before Mitch McConnell resigns his seat or passes away?”
“The Chinese don’t mess around. They’re very aggressive about it. We (GAI) were the first to expose the Biden family and their China ties. The same thing applies to the McConnells,” Schweizer said.
Chaffetz notes the importance of maintaining control of the Senate during some important deliberations. “These votes are coming down to one vote here, one vote there. The SAVE Act. On the Senate side, Mitch McConnell has been one of those naysayers about passing what is, I think, one of the most important pieces of legislation out there. So, at what point do you think there is a duty… a rule about disclosure of what’s really going on?”
“It’s a great question, Jason. You did, I think, the most important and earliest work on the whole ‘autopen’ issue involving President Biden. What was he actually signing? What did he know he was signing? It’s slightly different, obviously, in the Senate, but not that different,” Schweizer answered.
“If we are going to have representative government, with which we were endowed by our founders, it should mean the people that were voted into office are aware of what is going on. Let’s hope that somebody on Mitch McConnell’s staff will step up in a way that nobody in the Biden White House seemed to be willing to do and say, ‘Look, this is not serving the residents of our state. This is not representative government.’” Schweizer concluded.
(Listen to the full interview above)
