BREAKING: ANOTHER Corrupt Leader About To Get The BOOT – He Hid It ALL ALONG!
In a New York Post piece titled "How McConnell and Chao used political power to make their
family rich" Larry Getlen outlines exactly how this powerful family made an incredible
amount of money off of the political favors, they claimed while serving in office.
According to Getlen, the information came from a book that was written by Peter Schweizer.
Schweizer's book "delved into the Clinton Foundation's dealings in 2016's 'Clinton
Cash.'"
He has now turned his sights to the money-making machinations of DC's political elite.
That book is titled "Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption
and Enriches Family and Friends."
It's due out Tuesday from Harper Collins and according to Getlen, it exposes how politicians
engage in "corruption by proxy" by exploiting family and business ties to enrich themselves
and their relatives.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, ex-Commerce
Secretary Penny Pritzker are just a few of the politicians that Schweizer exposes in
his book.
According to the details shared there, McConnell and his wife had a net worth of around $3.1
million in 2004.
Somehow, ten years later, that number was somewhere between $9.2 million and $36.5 million.
Here's why:
"One source of the windfall, according to a new book from Peter Schweizer, was a 2008
gift from Chao's father, James Chao, for somewhere between $5 million and $25 million.
But this gift could be seen as more than just a gift.
It may have been acquired, according to Schweizer, thanks to the couple's loyalty to China,
the source of the Chao family fortune.
And that loyalty may have occurred at the expense of the nation they had pledged to
serve.Image may contain: 2 people, people smiling, people standing and suit
Secret Empires, the new book from the 'Clinton Cash' and 'Throw Them All Out' author,
details myriad examples of corruption from members of both major political parties.
Rather than focusing on direct forms of corruption, such as bribes, Schweizer hones in on the
more indirect graft of the modern era.
While politicians and their spouses are often subject to rigid regulations on what gifts
they can accept and what sort of business they can conduct, others around them — like
their friends or children have no such obstacles.
So while a politician could theoretically wind up in prison for accepting $10,000 for
doling out favors, establishing overseas connections that could land your children multi-million-dollar
deals is harder to detect, and often legal.
As Schweizer tells it, the Chao family fortune derives from the Foremost Group, a shipping
company that Chinese native James Chao, a classmate of former Chinese president Jiang
Zemin at Jiao Tong University, founded in New York in 1964.
Chao remains Foremost's chairman today, and his daughters Angela and Christine are
the company's deputy chairwoman and general counsel, respectively.
Elaine Chao worked there in the 1970s, and has been quoted as saying, "Shipping is
our family tradition."No automatic alt text available.
The success of Foremost is largely due to its close ties to the Chinese government,
in particular, the China State Shipbuilding Corp.
(CSSC), a corporation with which Foremost has done "large volumes of business."
The CSSC, Schweizer writes, is 'a state-owned defense conglomerate … at the heart of the
Chinese government's military-industrial complex.'
The main goal of the CSSC is to strengthen the Chinese military.
James and Angela Chao have both sat on the board of a CSSC offshoot.
While Foremost is an American company, 'their ships have been constructed by Chinese government
shipyards, and some of their construction financed by the Chinese government."
In addition, writes Schweizer, "their crews are largely Chinese,' despite US Transportation
Secretary and company founder's daughter Elaine Chao having once said that 'ships
crewed by Americans are 'a vital part of our national security.''
Given all this, it's worth noting how both McConnell and Chao, in their roles as high-ranking
US officials, have personally interacted with, and then gone considerably soft on, China
since their 1993 wedding.
When Senator McConnell — who took hardline positions against China prior to his marriage
— met with high-ranking Chinese officials in 1994, it was not in his capacity as a senator,
but via a personal invitation from the CSSC arranged by James Chao.
McConnell met with Zemin, then the country's president, and vice-premier Li Lanqing.
After this meeting, McConnell 'would increasingly avoid public criticism of China.'
More meetings like it would follow in the years to come.Image may contain: 1 person,
glasses and suit
'As the Chaos and the Chinese government went into business together, the Chaos-McConnells
tied their economic fate to the good fortunes of Beijing,' Schweizer writes.
'Were McConnell to critique Beijing aggressively or support policies damaging to Chinese interests,
Beijing could severely damage the family's economic fortunes.'
In the ensuing years, McConnell has loudly defended China in its actions against Hong
Kong and Taiwan, even claiming that 'the United States needed to be 'ambiguous'
as to whether we would come to the defense of Taiwan if attacked by China.'
When Sen. Jesse Helms introduced the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act, pledging support
for Taiwanese independence, in 1999, it had 'twenty-one co-sponsors and heavy Republican
support.
But McConnell was not on the list.'
When Congress required China to document annual progress on human rights in order to maintain
its trade status in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre, ditching the requirement
became a priority for the country.
In 2000, "McConnell cosponsored S.2277, which would do just that."
McConnell also fought attempts to punish China for vigorously undervaluing its currency,
a tactic that led Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to invoke the nuclear option, changing
Senate rules on voting.
The bill passed, 63-35, with McConnell voting against.
Chao has also done her part to support her ancestral home.No automatic alt text available.
When she served as Secretary of Labor under George W. Bush, her department resisted efforts
to 'call out the Chinese government over its workers rights practices.'
When a petition was filed against China on the subject of worker's rights based on
the US Trade Act of 1974, Chao opposed it.
After a bipartisan congressional report citing Chinese espionage against the US circulated
in 2000, Chao 'was critical of the report,' making clear she 'in no way' agreed with
its findings, and, Schweizer writes, 'dismiss[ing] the idea that China could pose any threat
to the United States.'"
Republicans whose interests are somewhere other than their conservative constituency
have been given the name RINOs (Republican In Name Only).
This is what is being referred to; someone whose policies are Republican because it's
beneficial to them, their business or their family.
They don't believe in a conservative cause because of its intrinsic truth, just because
it's the best for them at the moment.
The McConnell's are far from the only family to have family members who had a big influence
on public policy.
Congressional children becoming lobbyists is a growing, disturbing tradition.
Former Senator Trent Lott's son Chet, who was "managing Domino's Pizza franchises
in Lexington, KY, when he decided to spin policy instead of pizza."
Senator Orrin Hatch, who, along with his son Scott — a lobbyist for the likes of Schering-Plough,
Bayer, Colgate-Palmolive, GlaxoSmithKline and more — have been the best friends the
diet supplement industry ever had, helping them avoid government oversight.No automatic
alt text available.
"And Hunter Biden and Chris Heinz — son and stepson, respectively, of Joe Biden and
John Kerry — created an international private equity firm that formed deals with foreign
governments, including an investment fund in a joint venture with the Bank of China,
at the same time their fathers were working with those governments on highly sensitive
political matters."
The President's job of draining the swamp might not end up being only on the left side
of the aisle.
Do you think Congress needs new leadership?
Let us know
in
the comments.
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