Elaine Chao, the wife of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who resigned from the administration after the events of January 6, has now reportedly met with the January 6 committee.
Chao is described as having “recently interviewed” with the January 6 committee in an exclusive CNN article that cites “multiple sources” apparently close to the partisan anti-Trump committee.
The left wing network also reports that Chao will soon be joined in her cooperation by former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and former National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien.
Chao was the Secretary of Transportation under the Trump administration, and watchdogs have queried whether her family’s Chinese-tied shipping company should have precluded her from the sensitive government position.
Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao / U.S. Senate photo
In 2019, the New York Times reported that Chao’s family “has high-level political connections not only in the United States but also in China,” and thus she and McConnell’s family boast “unusual status in the world’s two largest economies.”
While fact checkers routinely point out that Chao’s family descends from Taiwan, and not mainland China, the newspaper reports that her family’s connections to the Communist Chinese government “go back decades,” with her father once attending school with former Chinese president Jiang Zemin.
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Though the Chao family’s shipping company, Foremost Group, is technically based in the United States, it flies in international waters using foreign flags. The Times reports that the company is “centered on China.”
While Chao’s family ties to China may raise eyebrows, her husband has also become one of the most public Republican enemies of 45th President Donald Trump in the nearly two years since civil unrest gripped the U.S. Capitol in January of 2021.
Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell in 2019 / Trump White House
Most recently, McConnell publicly dodged questions related to the recent FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and residence before ultimately releasing a document urging transparency from the FBI and Department of Justice.
Republican critics have noted that McConnell’s leadership has resulted in serious losses for the party since the Democrats took power in 2021.
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Author and conservative pundit Kurt Schlicter recently wrote in Town Hall that Republicans ought to be upset with McConnell’s “awful gun ‘compromise'”, his failure to prevent the CHIPS Act and PACT Act from passing, and general failure to thwart Democrats’ agenda.
“No one actually likes Mitch McConnell, but once Mitch was useful and feared and that was more than enough,” wrote Schlicter.
