You are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–] 26829502? 0 points 9 points (+9|-0) ago 

When the NYT thought McConnell was on Trump's side they attacked his wife for China dealings.

The New York Times reports that in October 2017, an alarmed official at the American Embassy in Beijing wrote an urgent email seeking advice concerning “a series of unorthodox requests” made by Chao‘s office related to her first visit to China as a Trump cabinet member. According to the Times, Chao—who is married to Senate leader Mitch McConnell—wanted federal officials to “coordinate travel arrangements for at least one family member and include relatives in meetings with government officials.” Such requests would be wildly inappropriate for any secretary’s relatives, but were even more so given the Chao family’s business: her father, James Chao, founded Foremost Group, a shipping, trading, and finance company now run by Elaine’s sister Angela Chao. While the company is based in New York, its fleet is, per the Times, “overwhelmingly focused on China,” with roughly 72% of the raw materials it has shipped since early 2018 going to China, cargo that “helps feed” Beijing’s “industrial machine, which manufactures steel products that are a point of dispute in the deepening trade war between” China and the U.S. The company reportedly constructs almost all its vessels in state-owned shipyards in China, some with loans from the Chinese government.

Though Chao has not worked for the company since the 1970s, it is the (ongoing) source of her wealth and the political wealth of her husband. In 2008 her father gave the couple a gift of as much as $25 million, while 13 members of the Chao family, including Foremost CEO Angela Chao, have given more than $1 million to McConnell’s campaigns and to PACs tied to him. “She had these relatives who were fairly wealthy and connected to the shipping industry,” a State Department official who was involved in deliberations over the visit told the Times. “Their business interests were potentially affected by meetings.” Per the Times, the email from the official at the American Embassy in Beijing wasn’t a case of an overly skittish bureaucrat. “They would not have raised a question like this about a cabinet secretary unless it was something really serious,” said David Rank, a former State Department deputy chief of mission in Beijing, adding that the requests were “alarmingly inappropriate.“ After the matter was raised to officials in the State and Transportation Departments—and after the paper of record started asking questions—the trip was abruptly canceled.

[–] 26830847? 0 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago 

McConnell took down the Tea Party. McConnell passed amendments to keep the army operating in Afghanistan and Syria. U.S. Senator Jim DeMint, the founder of the Senate Conservative Fund, quit the Senate specifically because of the schemes and internal Machiavellian power moves of Mitch McConnell. McConnell is strongly aligned with the Chamber of Commerce. McConnell negotiated for less border security.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/12/15/senate-leader-mitch-mcconnell-warns-republican-senators-not-to-challenge-2020-election-results/