Flashback: McConnell sister-in-law named to CCP bank board

FPI / December 17, 2020

[Editors’ note: Alert WorldTribune readers remembered this story from April 24, 2018 and have made it go viral.]

"In a panic" following the election victory of Donald Trump, China appointed the sister-in-law of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to the Bank of China's board of directors, the author of a new book on the monetizing of political influence said.

Angela Chao was named to the Bank of China’s board of directors just 10 days after Trump's victory, said Peter Schweizer, author of “Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends”.

Chao and McConnell's father-in-law, James Chao, also sit on the board of the China State Shipbuilding Corporation which is the largest defense contractor in China.

“So when [Donald Trump] gets elected in 2016, China is in a panic. So one of the things that happens is, they appoint, really, the first American, or only the second foreigner to the Bank of China,” Schweizer said on the April 23 edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight.

“Now, the Bank of China is government-run, government-controlled, is sort of the backbone of the Chinese government’s economic diplomacy around the world. Ten days after Donald Trump is elected, they put Elaine Chao’s sister – Mitch McConnell’s sister-in-law – on the board of directors of the fourth largest bank in the world, which is run by the Chinese communist government. It’s a shocking development, and, again, unprecedented in American history that you would have senior political leaders have immediate family members that are sitting on the board of foreign government-owned businesses.”

Schweizer noted: “So Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, his wife Elaine Chao, who’s the transportation secretary in the Trump administration, her family has deep economic and financial ties to the Chinese government itself. They are in the shipping business, and they own something called the Foremost Group, and really, in 1993, Mitch McConnell, as a senator, travels to China with his father-in-law, James Chao, as guests of the China State Shipbuilding Corporation.”

He continued, “The China State Shipbuilding Corporation is the largest defense contractor in China, and the projections are that by 2030, if current trends continue, they are going to surpass the U.S. Navy as far as naval capability. Basically, what happens is, the China State Shipbuilding Corporation says to the Chao family, ‘Look, we will build your ships. We will finance the purchase of some of your ships. We will provide crews for your ships. We will provide contracts for you to ship state-owned goods from state-owned companies around the Pacific. In other words, we are going to set you up in the shipping business,’ which is exactly what they do, and, in fact, James Chao — this would be Elaine Chao’s father, Mitch McConnell’s father-in-law — and Elaine’s sister, Angela Chao, actually joined the board, in 2007 and 2008, of something called China State Shipbuilding Corporation, CSSC Holdings, which is a subsidiary of the largest defense contractor in China. So you have this powerful American political family that is making U.S. policy related to China, related to trade, and other critical issues that is highly dependent upon the good graces of the Chinese government.”

McConnell, Kentucky Republican, “has benefited because a few years ago, James Chao gave Mitch McConnell a gift between five and twenty-five million dollars that more than quadrupled his net worth overnight,” Schweizer said. “So this is not just about Elaine Chao’s family getting wealthy. That wealth has now trickled into Mitch McConnell’s pocket, as well, and it’s a huge problem because if you chart the positions that Sen. McConnell has taken on China over the last 20 years, guess what? Shock of all shocks, he has become increasingly soft as it relates to China, and I think it is directly related to the fact that he knows his family’s financial future is tied to the good graces and good faith of the Chinese communist government.”

Schweizer described the Chinese government as “freaked out” over the election of Trump.

“So the election of Donald Trump, there’s no other way to say it, it completely freaked out the Chinese government because Trump has really been focused – whether one agrees with him on trade policy or not – he has focused since the 1980s on what he regards as a rising threat of China; whether it relates to trade, economics, or military power.”

Free Press International