by Jordan Boyd at The Federalist
For decades, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his wife Elaine Chao have maintained a glaring conflict of interest, conducting extensive government business despite the Chao family’s deep ties to China through a maritime shipping company. Now, former President Donald Trump is calling attention to the top Republican’s problematic China ties, while most of Washington remains silent.
“Why do Republicans Senators allow a broken down hack politician, Mitch McConnell, to openly disparage hard working Republican candidates for the United States Senate[?]” Trump asked in a Truth Social post on Sunday. “This is such an affront to honor and to leadership. He should spend more time (and money!) helping them get elected, and less time helping his crazy wife and family get rich on China!”
It didn’t take long for the corporate media to mock Trump’s assertion, framing his legitimate criticism of McConnell and Chao as unfair and unjust. Some outlets such as Vanity Fair even hinted that Trump’s comments were revenge against Chao for resigning from the Trump administration following the 2021 Capitol riot and subsequently cooperating with the illegitimate Jan. 6 Committee.
Trump’s criticism of McConnell and Chao, however, is not something to be taken lightly. For years, the McConnell and Chao families have maintained a symbiotic relationship that grants opportunities to the Chaos’ shipping company, Foremost Group, which largely operates in and on behalf of communist China.
This reciprocity is well documented, but unlike with Hunter Biden, there is less scrutiny from observers, including those on the right, for this “corruption by proxy,” as author and Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer calls it.