A Daily Caller News Foundation investigation alleges former cabinet secretary Elaine Chao held three positions tied to Chinese Communist Party operations, and never disclosed them when she joined the Trump administration.
DCNF reporter Dylan Kresak laid out the findings on Newsmax's "America Right Now" Saturday, describing a years-long relationship between Chao and organizations affiliated with the United Front Work Department, the CCP's overseas influence arm. Chao served as Secretary of Labor under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009 and as Secretary of Transportation under President Donald Trump from 2017 to 2021. She is married to Republican Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell.
The core allegation: when Chao was asked to disclose prior organizational affiliations for her 2017 Transportation Department appointment, she left out positions she had held with at least two UFWD-affiliated groups, some of which overlapped with her time in government. Her spokesperson denied the claims and called them racist, but offered no counter-evidence, Kresak told Newsmax.
Kresak credited his colleague Phil Lenczycki with uncovering the original evidence, published in a DCNF investigative report on September 8. Lenczycki found that Chao received three titles tied to organizations affiliated with the UFWD, the CCP unit that the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party has described as running:
"a unique blend of engagement, influence activities, and intelligence operations that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses to shape its political environment, including to influence other countries' policy toward the PRC [People's Republic of China] and to gain access to advanced foreign technology."
That is not a vague think-tank. The UFWD is, by Congress's own description, a foreign-influence and intelligence operation run directly by the CCP.
Archived records cited in the investigation trace the relationship back more than two decades. Around 2005, Jiading-based branches of the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese and the Chinese Overseas Friendship Association, both described as UFWD affiliates, sent Christmas letters with photographs to Chao. She responded in February 2005 with a handwritten reply and an autographed photo.
Kresak emphasized the personal nature of the contact during his Newsmax appearance:
"Some of these positions were given to her in the early 2000s. Around 2005 she had... received letters written to her by organizations affiliated with the United Front Work Department, Christmas letters, in fact, with pictures attached. So, this relationship was a personal one as much as a business one."
The relationship did not end with letters. In December 2008, COFA's Jiading branch reportedly appointed Chao and her father as honorary chairmen of its third council. By September 2012, Chao held positions on two additional councils: ACFROC's Jiading branch named her an adviser and member of its fifth council, and she and her father served on COFA Jiading's fourth council. Both terms ran through 2017, the same year Chao entered the Trump cabinet.
That timeline matters. Chao's ACFROC and COFA council terms did not expire until 2017. When she filled out disclosure paperwork for her Transportation Department appointment that year, she was required to list prior organizational positions. Kresak described what happened next:
"When she was asked to disclose these titles in 2017 for her appointment to the Department of Transportation, she did not disclose any of these positions that she had held in the past two years during her time serving in the U.S. Cabinet."
Whether the omission violated a specific federal statute or regulation is not addressed in the DCNF's reporting. No formal investigation has been announced. But the gap between what Chao was asked to provide and what she actually provided is now documented.
Newsmax host Tom Basile pressed on the broader context, noting that in China, the government's reach extends into every sphere. "It's a communist country, so the government touches everything that's associated with anything, whether it's business or private," Basile said.
Kresak acknowledged he could not speak to every detail of the original report on air but confirmed that Chao's ties to Chinese officials stretch back to her years at the Department of Labor, meaning the relationship predates her Transportation Department tenure by more than a decade.
When DCNF reporters presented photo evidence of Chao's positions to her spokesperson, the response was not a point-by-point rebuttal. It was a blanket denial paired with an accusation of racism.
Kresak described the exchange bluntly:
"When given photo evidence of these positions to her spokesperson, they had not just denied these allegations, but called them racist. But they did not provide any sort of counterclaims or evidence to the contrary."
No counter-evidence. No alternative explanation for the archived records. No accounting for the undisclosed council memberships. Just the word "racist", deployed as a shield against documented organizational ties to a foreign adversary's influence apparatus.
The Chao family's financial entanglements with China are not new territory. Peter Schweizer's reporting in "Secret Empires" documented how Chao's father and sister sat on the board of CSSC Holdings, the financial arm of China's state military shipbuilder, beginning in 2007. After Chao became Transportation Secretary, CSSC struck a deal with the family's Foremost Group to purchase ten ships, increasing the company's fleet by nearly fifty percent.
The couple's personal finances reflected those ties. Schweizer also documented that McConnell and Chao's net worth grew from $3.1 million in 2004 to as much as $36.5 million by 2014. A gift from Chao's father, between $5 million and $25 million in 2008, accounted for much of the jump. His fortune was built through a shipping empire deeply intertwined with the Chinese government's military-industrial sector.
Chao's father, James Chao, has been a central figure in the family's China connections. His youngest daughter, Angela Chao, who also served on the board of the family shipping business, died in February 2024 after driving her car into a pond in Texas. James Chao described his daughter's loss as leaving "a void not only in our hearts, but in the Asian-American community."
The DCNF's reporting raises a question that goes beyond one disclosure form. Elaine Chao held senior positions in two presidential administrations across twenty years. During that same stretch, she maintained organizational ties, however formal or informal, to groups run by the CCP's overseas influence operation. Her family built a shipping fortune in partnership with Chinese state enterprises. Her husband, one of the most powerful Republicans in Washington, softened his stance on China over the course of their marriage.
None of this produced a congressional investigation. None of it triggered a formal ethics review, at least not one that has been made public. And when reporters brought the evidence to Chao's own representative, the response was to accuse them of bigotry rather than answer the question.
McConnell, who has faced serious health challenges in recent years, including a cardiac emergency at his Washington home, has not publicly addressed the allegations against his wife. Whether he was aware of her UFWD-linked council memberships remains unknown.
The open questions are significant. What exactly did the 2017 disclosure form require? Did Chao's omission violate federal law or only federal norms? And why did organizations tied to the CCP's influence arm keep appointing a sitting or former U.S. cabinet secretary to their councils for more than a decade?
Washington has spent years warning the public about the CCP's United Front operations, the covert cultivation of foreign officials, the slow-building personal relationships designed to create leverage and access. Congress itself published the memo describing exactly how those operations work. Now the evidence suggests a two-time cabinet secretary was on the receiving end of that playbook, and no one in power asked a single hard question until a pair of reporters started digging.
If the standard for accountability depends on who is married to whom, it is not a standard at all.
