Mitch McConnell's wife ran two US Cabinet departments while secretly holding appointments inside the Chinese Communist Party's primary espionage operation.
She never told the Senate a word of it.
Now the Daily Caller has the photographs – and Elaine Chao’s spokesman's excuse for why she didn't disclose is one of the most insulting things you'll ever read.
Four CCP Appointments Nobody Disclosed
Elaine Chao – Labor Secretary under Bush, Transportation Secretary under Trump – received at least four Chinese government positions since 2008, according to Daily Caller News Foundation translations of Chinese state media reports.
At least two of those roles were inside the United Front Work Department – the CCP's dedicated influence and espionage arm.
The House Select Committee on the CCP describes United Front as "a unique blend of engagement, influence activities, and intelligence operations that the Chinese Communist Party uses to shape its political environment, including to influence other countries' policy toward the PRC and to gain access to advanced foreign technology."
That's not a civic organization.
One of Chao's titles was advisor and fifth council committee member of the UFWD's All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese – overlapping directly with her time as Trump's Transportation Secretary.
A second role, as advisor to the UFWD's China Overseas Friendship Association, ran from 2012 to 2017 – while she was preparing to re-enter the American Cabinet.
Her father held posts in the same organizations alongside her.
By 2019, her sister Angela became director of COFA's national organization.
This is not one person with complicated loyalties.
This is a family operation inside a CCP influence organ.
Her Excuse for Not Disclosing It
When Chao went through Senate confirmation for Transportation Secretary in January 2017, she was required to disclose "any advisory, consultative, honorary, or other part-time service or positions with Federal, State, or local governments" from the previous ten years.
She disclosed none of her UFWD-affiliated positions.
Not one.
The Daily Caller supplied her spokesman Patrick O'Connor with Chinese government and state media photos – published between 2010 and 2026 – showing Chao meeting with CCP and UFWD officials.
O'Connor called the reporting "hurtful and racist."
https://twitter.com/FmrRepMTG/status/2097734858613063911?s=20
He then claimed Chao had "never held a position with a foreign government or acted on behalf of one."
That was his answer to photographs.
When pressed on Chao's 2009 role as Wuhan municipal government international advisor – a post Chinese state media praised for bringing "more favorable conditions for Wuhan in matters of foreign affairs" – O'Connor explained that Chao sometimes wasn't aware of "titles bestowed to her, in part, because she is not fluent in Chinese."
She didn't know she held Chinese government appointments.
Because she doesn't speak Chinese.
That's the official defense of a two-time US Cabinet secretary.
What the UFWD Actually Does to Countries Like Ours
Mao Zedong called it China's "magic weapon." Xi Jinping has dramatically expanded it since 2012.
Congress's own select committee says the UFWD "damages U.S. interests through legal and illegal technology transfer, surveillance of Chinese diaspora communities, promotion of favorable narratives about the PRC through ostensibly independent voices, and the neutralization or harassment of critics of the CCP."
Former NSC China director Dennis Wilder echoed O'Connor, calling it "another racist attack on one of America's finest public servants."
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission had already warned that smearing scrutiny of CCP influence as "prejudice" is a standard UFWD tactic – that "it is precisely the nature of United Front work" to make those who expose it "vulnerable to accusations of prejudice."
The defense being used to protect Elaine Chao was written in Beijing.
The Man Who Went Silent on China After Marrying Her
Peter Schweizer documented in Secret Empires what happened to McConnell after marrying into the Chao family.
Before the marriage, McConnell had a strong record pushing back on China.
https://twitter.com/MichaelARothman/status/2098405638103814337?s=20
After a 1994 trip arranged by James Chao and sponsored by China State Shipbuilding Corp. – one of the CCP's largest military contractors – McConnell began "increasingly avoiding public criticism of China."
Gordon Chang said it directly: "The CCP has ties with those at the top of America's political system. It's time to make our politicians choose: America or China."
Grant Newsham of the Center for Security Policy: "The PRC got its money's worth out of both Elaine Chao and Mitch McConnell."
Chao's ties to China were not a secret when Bush nominated her in 2001 – they were known, and nobody pushed.
McConnell has worked to block the SAVE America Act – after Trump's July 2026 speech stating the CIA and FBI suppressed evidence China hacked 220 million voter-registration files from over a dozen states before the 2020 election.
The man blocking election integrity legislation is married to a woman with undisclosed CCP posts across two Republican administrations.
Now photographic proof lands on the front page, and the answer is to call the reporters racist.
America's political class covered for these two for thirty years.
The question is who pays for that.
Sources:
- Jordan Boyd, "Report: Elaine Chao Held Roles At CCP Agency While In Bush, Trump Cabinets," The Federalist, September 10, 2026.
- Dylan Kresak, "Internet Demands Probe After Mitch McConnell's Wife Reportedly Revealed to Have CCP Ties," Western Journal, September 9, 2026.
- Jordan Boyd, "Trump Is Right: Mitch McConnell And Elaine Chao Spent Decades Getting Rich On China," The Federalist, August 24, 2022.
- Peter Schweizer, Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends, Harper, 2018.
- House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Memorandum on United Front Work Department operations.
- U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Research Document on UFWD Influence Operations, 2018.
