Tag: Elaine Chao

Inspector General Finds Misuse of Office by Elaine Chao at Transportation Dept

WASHINGTON – The Transportation Department’s watchdog asked the Justice Department to criminally investigate Elaine Chao late last year after it determined she had misused her office when she was transportation secretary under President Donald Trump but was rebuffed, according to a report released Wednesday.

The report said the Justice Department’s criminal and public integrity divisions declined in December to take up the case for criminal prosecution following the inspector general’s findings that Chao inappropriately used her staff and office for personal tasks and to promote a shipping business owned by Chao’s father and sisters. That company does extensive business with China.

“A formal investigation into potential misuses of position was warranted,” deputy inspector general Mitch Behm wrote in a letter to lawmakers. Continue reading.

How Elaine Chao used her Trump cabinet post to help her family make millions

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In January 2017, upon her confirmation as secretary of the Department of Transportation, Elaine Chao committed to separating herself from her family’s shipping interests. Looking back on the last four years, it’s clear she didn’t.

In an administration awash with emoluments and ethics concerns, it has mostly flown under the radar just how much Chao, who is married to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, stood to gain financially from her position as secretary of transportation and how government watchdogs failed to challenge her repeated wrongdoings.

The Chao family business is deeply entangled with Beijing. The Chao family dry bulk ship company has borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars from Chinese banks, all of which are partly or fully owned by the communist regime. Continue reading.

Cabinet members Betsy DeVos, Elaine Chao, other Trump officials resign over Capitol violence

The officials included those in prominent positions in the White House, and staff members who have been working in the Trump administration since the beginning of the president’s term in 2017.

Several Trump administration officials have announced that they are resigning after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Wednesday, temporarily disrupting Congress as it was certifying Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.

The officials included those in prominent positions in the White House, and staff members who have been working in the Trump administration since the beginning of the president’s term in 2017. Some of the resignations came hours after President Donald Trump openly encouraged his supporters to go to the Capitol to protest what he has falsely claimed was a stolen election. The moves are being made with less than two weeks remaining in Trump’s term.

Here is a list of the administration officials who have resigned. Continue reading.

Democrats raise ruckus over demoted Transportation watchdog

Mitch Behm will continue in his previous role as deputy inspector general, according to the department

Three high-ranking House Democrats on Tuesday demanded to know why an acting inspector general at the Department of Transportation was abruptly removed in favor of a political appointee.

House Oversight and Reform Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney, D-N.Y., House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Peter A. DeFazio, D-Ore., and Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Government Operations Chairman Gerald E. Connolly, D-Va., demanded in a letter to Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao that acting Inspector General Mitch Behm, who was stripped of his duties May 15, be reinstated immediately.

Behm will continue in his previous role as deputy inspector general, according to the department. Continue reading.

Secretary Chao Under Scrutiny For Grants To Husband McConnell’s Home State

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) examination has raised serious concerns about the process by which Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao determined project grant recipients, finding that it did not treat all applicants with “the assurance of fairness.”

One of the beneficiaries of that process was Boone County, Kentucky — a jurisdiction represented by Chao’s husband, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Politico reported on Tuesday that a $67.4 million grant application for Boone was “initially flagged by professional staff as incomplete.” After the Department of Transportation gave Boone and a minority of the other incomplete applicants a second chance to fix their submission, Chao selected it as among the 26 grant winners from an initial pool of 258 applicants. Continue reading

House committee launches investigation into Transportation Secretary Chao

The Hill logoThe House Oversight and Reform Committee on Monday launched an investigation into Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao over whether she is using her office to benefit herself and her family.

The investigation follows a series of reports alleging that Chao used her role in the Trump administration to boost Foremost Group, a shipping company founded by her father, and initially didn’t divest from stock in a major construction company.

“The Committee is examining your misstatements of fact, your actions that may have benefitted the company in which you continued to hold shares, and your compliance with ethics and financial disclosure requirements,” Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), chairman of the Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, wrote in a letter to Chao requesting documents.

View the complete September 16 article by Chris Mills Rodrigo and Cristina Marcos on The Hill website here.

Pence’s deputy press secretary makes mind-boggling argument that Elaine Chao is a better immigrant than Ilhan Omar

AlterNet logoDuring a “Make America Great Again” rally in North Carolina on Wednesday night, President Donald Trump doubled down on his racist assertion that four congresswomen of color should leave the United States and reiterated his disdain for Somali-born Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota while the crowd chanted, “Send her back, send her back.” Trump’s critics have been pointing out that prominent Republicans such as First Lady Melania Trump and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao are immigrants — and Vice President Mike Pence’s deputy press secretary, Darin Miller, is responding with a mind-boggling claim that Chao is a good immigrant while Omar is not.

Mother Jones’ Matt Cohen is reporting that he received an e-mail from Miller stating that while Chao (who is originally from Mainland China and is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell) “worked hard and assimilated” after coming to the United States, Omar “seems content to criticize America at every turn.”

Miller, according to Cohen, wrote to the Mother Jones reporter to explain that he believed he misconstrued comments that Marc Short, Pence’s chief of staff, made during a Fox News appearance on Monday. Short, defending Trump, insisted that the president can’t have “racist motives” because he appointed a Chinese immigrant to an important position in his administration.

View the complete July 18 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

Former White House counsel: I’m ‘not aware of any situation like’ Transportation Secretary Chao’s conflicts of interest

AlterNet logoIn recent weeks, the term “conflict of interest” has been used a lot in connection with Elaine Chao, secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation under the Trump Administration. Chao is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and a June 10 report in Politico found that she used her position to help create a pathway for transportation projects in her husband’s state, Kentucky. Discussing Chao’s activities with Yahoo Finance, ethics lawyer Virginia Canter asserted that the conflict of interest is enormous.

Previously, Canter served as a White House associate counsel under two previous presidents: Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Presently, Canter is chief ethics counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington — and she said of Chao, “I am not aware of any situation like this.”

The Wall Street Journal, on May 28, reported that Chao still owns shares in a company that provides construction materials, Vulcan Materials Co., more than a year after promising to give them up. Further, Chao’s family owns an American shipping company with deep business and political ties in China.

View the complete June 25 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

Records: Chao government flights cost $94K

The newly released records do not indicate that anyone has raised red flags over Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao’s use of the FAA aircraft. Credit: Susan Walsh, AP Photo

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao flew on Federal Aviation Administration planes rather than commercial flights on seven occasions between January and August 2017, newly released records show — including one flight to and around Europe that cost taxpayers an estimated $68,892 for her and five staffers.

All told, Chao’s flights on the FAA planes cost an estimated $93,977.84, the records show.

She appears to have halted the practice just as one of her fellow Cabinet members, then-Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, was facing increasing scrutiny over his use of private and military flights. Price resigned in September 2017 after POLITICO raised questions about the flight expenses, which totaled about $1.2 million.

View the complete September 18 article by Tanya Snyder on the Politico website here.