elaine chao father

Ten years later, that number had increased to somewhere between $9.2 million and $36.5 million.”. CONFIRMED: Since becoming U.S. Transportation Secretary, Elaine Chao and her father, James Chao, have appeared in at least a dozen Chinese media interviews, including foreign interviews that featured the Department of Transportation symbol and her father’s book. Blankenship is competing in the May 8 primary for the Republican Senate nomination in West Virginia, where Sen. Joe Manchin III (D) is running for reelection in November. The street price of a pure gram is roughly $150 (i.e., the equivalent of $150,000 per kilo), though again it will vary a lot.”, He added: “In practice, what you buy will probably be cheaper than that because it won’t be anything like 100 percent pure. By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, “One of my goals as U.S. senator will be to ditch ‘Cocaine Mitch.’”, https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/c/embed/5ae274ee-4d82-11e8-85c1-9326c4511033, Interpretation of the news based on evidence, including data, as well as anticipating how events might unfold based on past events, Share your feedback by emailing the author. Senator Mitch McConnell. “One of my goals as U.S. senator will be to ditch ‘Cocaine Mitch.’ ” Set aside the four or five degrees of separation between McConnell and his wife’s family’s shipping company and the fact that Elaine Chao collected the inheritance at issue years before 2014. Second, there is no evidence that McConnell’s father-in-law has “given Mitch and his wife millions of dollars over the years.” Elaine Chao received an inheritance valued at between $5 million and $25 million after her mother’s death in 2007. (The Ping May is a bulk carrier, though, so there were no containers.). ‘The president spent several minutes with me,’ he said. Claim: U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao's father got \"caught\" operating a coal-carrying cargo ship that was captured by the Columbian Coast Guard with 90 pounds of cocaine aboard “One could say it is unprecedented in American political history. 1. According to Politico: “One interview with New China Press published on April 12, 2017, features the pair sitting in what appears to be the Department of Transportation, with DOT flags in view behind the interviewer. The New York Post, Politico, the Wall Street Journal, New York magazine, The Hill, and others have all confirmed that James Chao, Elaine Chao’s father and Mitch McConnell’s father-in-law, gave the Washington power couple a “gift” (that’s the way it was recorded on McConnell’s financial disclosure forms) of between $5 to $25 million in 2008. Claim: “One of my goals as U.S. senator will be to ditch ‘Cocaine Mitch.’” Relying on an interview with a coast guard official in Colombia, the Nation reported that authorities in that country had found 40 packages of cocaine, or about 90 pounds, aboard the Ping May, a bulk carrier owned by Foremost Group. Indeed, Politico confirmed that Foremost Group “now appears to be engaging in a brisk period of expansion. James and Angela Chao have both sat on the board of a CSSC offshoot.”. The company was founded as Foremost Maritime Corp. by McConnell’s father-in-law, James S.C. Chao. This fact check explores whether “Cocaine Mitch” is an accurate nickname for the Senate majority leader. CSSC Holdings also added Elaine Chao’s sister Angela Chao to its board as well. There’s no tie-in to any of the other things Blankenship says in the ad. We understand that “Cornstarch Mitch” is not as catchy as “Cocaine Mitch.” But the bottom line is that Blankenship has no evidence to support his crude and incendiary attack. Diane Wei Liang, bestselling author and expert on Chinese culture, business, and politics, told Politico: “Doing business in China requires a lot of connections. Beginning in 2007, “just as the U.S. Senate was taking up sensitive legislation concerning China,” Schweizer reports that the Chinese government’s CSSC Holdings, Ltd.—the financial arm of the Chinese government’s military contractor CSSC—named James Chao to its board. For comparison, the 40 packages of cocaine, about 90 pounds total, would weigh the same as nine cats. A 2010 explosion at a coal mine owned by Massey Energy, where Blankenship was chief executive, killed 29 workers at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia. “McConnell himself 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 told Breitbart. As The Fact Checker previously reported, McConnell’s net worth appeared to surge in 2008, when he and his wife disclosed a tax-exempt money-market fund valued at between $5 million and $25 million. In at least a dozen interviews with Chinese and Chinese-American media outlets since her nomination, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao has appeared beside her shipping magnate father, whose company carries goods between the United States and Asia, and who has given Chao and her husband at least $5 million in the past 10 years. Elaine L. Chao and her husband, U.S. The Fact Checker found an August 2014 news release from the Colombian navy that corroborated much of the Nation’s reporting. A photo of Elaine's father's native village in China in 1981. A state investigation found that Massey Energy’s negligence was the main reason for “the faulty ventilation system, the inadequate application of rock dust and the equipment failures” that caused the blast. Send us facts to check by filling out this form, Keep tabs on Trump’s promises with our Trump Promise Tracker, Sign up for The Fact Checker weekly newsletter. Hidden aboard a company ship carrying foreign coal was $7 million dollars of cocaine and that is why we’ve deemed him ‘Cocaine Mitch.’”. The only way Blankenship’s campaign could have landed on that number is by making extra-generous assumptions. 3. The Ping May is a huge vessel with 91,385 tons of cargo capacity, which is about the same as 20 million cats, assuming each cat weighs the average 10 pounds. In many of the videos, James Chao is introduced as founder and chairman of the Foremost Group shipping company, and, in discussing a 2016 biography about his life, speaks proudly of his daughter’s role as secretary of transportation, as she sits beaming by his side. Third, neither the Nation nor the Colombian navy reported that the cocaine was worth $7 million. Lawmakers are required to disclose their assets and liabilities in broad ranges, not specific figures, which makes it tough to nail down exactly how wealthy they are. — U.S. Senate primary candidate Don Blankenship (R-W.Va.), in an ad attacking Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), “Having cocaine on a family-owned ship certainly should be of interest because cocaine deaths in this country keep going up, and even though that ship, I think, headed to Europe, we still need to be aware that there are cocaine and other drugs moving on the high seas on commercial ships. The Wall Street Journal verified the Secret Empires revelation that Elaine Chao’s sister–who is Mitch McConnell’s sister-in-law–currently sits on the board of directors of the state-owned Bank of China. In its news release, the Blankenship campaign pointed to an article in the Nation magazine from October 2014. The specific attack line about “Cocaine Mitch” has nothing to do with drug use. McConnell is married to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, whose family owns a New York shipping company named Foremost Group. Long portions of the interview are in Chinese, with James Chao talking about his life story, with a copy of his biography on the screen, and Elaine Chao extolling her father’s success story as “lifting the status of Asian-Americans in America.”, Experts say Chinese business is all about projecting hierarchical power relationships (“guanxi”) to telegraph and leverage connections and status. Schweizer also points to the appointment of Ms. Chao’s sister, Angela Chao, to the board of state-owned Bank of China, 10 days after the 2016 election,” reported the Journal. CONFIRMED: Since Elaine Chao became Transportation Secretary, her family’s company Foremost Group has ordered 10 massive cargo ships from the Communist Chinese government’s China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC). And if nothing else, it should make us aware that we need to be careful when these commercial ships are docking, when your country needs to see what’s on them. CONFIRMED: Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao received $5 million to $25 million from her father, James Chao, whose shipping company Foremost Group does massive deals with the Chinese government. National SecurityPoliticsElaine ChaoJames ChaoMitch McConnellPeter SchweizerSecret EmpiresSecret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends. 2. The Bank of China’s own website lists Angela Chao as a board member. The Fact Checker reached out to the Colombian Embassy in Washington. As of 2015, McConnell’s net worth was somewhere between $11 million and $43 million, according to Open Secrets. Secret Empires is Peter Schweizer’s fifth consecutive New York Times bestselling investigative book. As our colleague Amber Phillips of The Fix pointed out, some Republican primary candidates choose to run as foils to the GOP establishment. Subsequently, her parents separately relocated to Taiwan. Blankenship’s news release cites a book about McConnell and other politicians called “Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends,” by Peter Schweizer. Notice how he describes Elaine Chao’s inheritance as a “gift” from her father to McConnell. CONFIRMED: James Chao and his daughter Angela Chao sat on the board of one of the Communist Chinese government’s largest military contractors. Spokespeople for McConnell and Foremost Group would not comment, and the Blankenship campaign did not respond to our questions. “But short of that, I don’t know how you can charge anything.”. Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting. 5. Long portions of the interview are in Chinese, with James Chao talking about his life story, with a copy of his biography on the screen, and Elaine Chao extolling her father’s success story as “lifting the status of Asian-Americans in America.”, The Hill also noted that “In at least one other interview appearance, the Transportation Department flag and the state flag of Kentucky, the state Chao’s husband, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) represents, both appear in the background.”.

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