Dylan Kresak, a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation, provided details concerning a former cabinet secretary’s previously unreported connection to the Chinese government while appearing on “America Right Now,” on Newsmax. Kresak sat down for an interview with Newsmax host Tom Basile concerning an investigative piece the DCNF broke recently which found that Elaine Chao, who served twice as a White House cabinet secretary and is now married to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), held roles with groups linked to the Chinese Communist Party.
“What exactly are these reported or alleged connections between Elaine Chao and organizations that are tied to the CCP?” Basile asked the reporter. “Originally, my colleague, Phil Lenczycki, found that three titles were given to Elaine Chao that were tied to organizations affiliated with the United Front Work Department, which is an arm of the Chinese Communist Party,” Kresak replied.
“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,” he added. The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party had described the United Front Work Department (UFWD)’s work in a lengthy summary.
The work is 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.” Basile then asked Kresak about the origins of Chao’s appointments and whether she was connected to China through a family or business relationship.
“Some of these positions were given to her in the early 2000s,” Kresak explained, according to the Daily Caller. “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.”
Chao sent a handwritten note, along with an autographed photo, to those Jiading-based arms of China’s UFWD in February 2005. The groups behind the Christmas letters were the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese (ACFROC) and the Chinese Overseas Friendship Association (COFA). ACFROC’s Jiading branch appointed Chao as an adviser and then gave her a place on its fifth council. She served on it from September 2012 to 2017.
She also served as labor secretary between January 2001 and January 2009, then as President Donald Trump’s transportation secretary between January 2017 and January 2021. Basile then pointed out that a spokesperson for Chao has pushed back against the allegations that have now been made against her in the investigative piece.
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“But, of course, it’s a communist country, so the government touches everything that’s associated with anything, whether it’s business or private,” he went on to say before asking Kresak if this kind of relationship, meaning the member of a president’s cabinet and a strategic adversary had existed previously. Kresak said he was unsure.
“I would have to refer you to the original reporting on that because I’m unsure on that front; however, I can tell you that her relationship with these Chinese officials is long-standing, as far back as her time with the Department of Labor,” Kresak said. “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.”
Featured Image: screenshot from embedded video