The Daily Caller wonders why the wife of former Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell was working for CCP organizations “While Serving in Cabinet.” And before and after serving in cabinets (September 8, 2026).
Chinese Communist Party officials appointed Sen. Mitch McConnell’s wife to multiple government positions, many of which partially overlapped with her two U.S. Cabinet posts, according to Chinese government and state media reports unearthed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Elaine Chao, who married the Kentucky Republican in 1993, has held numerous U.S. government positions since the 1980s, including serving as Department of Labor secretary throughout President George W. Bush’s tenure and as Department of Transportation secretary during President Donald Trump’s first term….
Chao—whose Chinese name is Zhao Xiaolan—has also received at least four Chinese government positions since 2008, including within arms of a CCP influence and intelligence agency called the United Front Work Department, according to DCNF translations of Chinese government and state media reports. Beijing uses the UFWD to steer foreign policy and “gain access to advanced foreign technology,” according to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
Chao did not disclose any of the reported Chinese government positions during her January 2017 DOT secretary Senate confirmation hearing, which required her to list all positions held within the last ten years.
Patrick O’Connor, a spokesman for Chao and the Chao family’s shipping company, says that even investigating this matter is racist.
“She has never held a position with a foreign government or acted on behalf of one. We are not aware she has met with representatives from UFWD entities,” O’Connor said after being sent Chinese government and state media photos published between 2010 and 2026 showing Chao meeting with officials from the CCP and/or UFWD. “Such a suggestion disregards her nearly five decades of faithful service to the United States and is both unfounded and deeply insulting, hurtful and racist….
“The secretary is a proud American who has devoted most of her professional life to serving the American people. To question her patriotism is a double standard, at best—racist, at worst.”…
Chao’s United Front connections “should be disqualifying for dogcatcher, much less a Cabinet position,” said Jacqueline Deal, an advisory board member of State Armor, after reviewing the DCNF’s findings. State Armor is a nonprofit focused on countering “the threat of Communist China.”
“As Transportation Secretary, [Chao] did nothing to fix U.S. policy failures that have decimated our maritime industrial base while her family business profited from the CCP’s aggressive moves to exploit those failures,” Deal added.
Wouldn’t a history of accepting positions from CCP organizations be the sort of thing some hint of which might turn up in background checks on Chao, conducted either before or while she was serving?
Perhaps Chao is guilty only of a flabbergasting degree of naïveté. But whatever the reasons for her conduct, it is not wrong to investigate it—clumsy and fallacious deflections to the contrary notwithstanding.
Also see:
Daily Caller News Foundation: “EXCLUSIVE: Mitch McConnell’s Wife Elaine Chao Held Appointments From Chinese Communist Party Organizations While Serving In Cabinet” (September 8, 2026)
Daily Caller News Foundation: “ ‘That’s RACIST!’ Elaine Chao’s Defenders Turn To Leftist Tactics After Bombshell Report On CCP Ties” (September 10, 2026)
