Former Trump transportation official faulted by a federal inspector general
A former Trump Transportation Department official was faulted using her position to boost her father’s shipping business and advance her personal career goals.
By Michael McGrady, Maritime Direct Americas & Pacific Correspondent
WASHINGTON — Elaine Chao, the former Secretary of transportation under ousted President Donald Trump, was said to have used her position to boost her father’s shipping business and promote her personal goals.
In a letter to Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Oregon, the inspector general for the US Department of Transportation, faulted Chao for at least four different kinds of ethics violations and that she “misused her office.”
This includes Chao’s attempts to bring relatives on an official trip to China, and she asked the public affairs staff for the department to help market a book written by her father.
Even more trivial, the inspector general found that Chao had employees handle personal errands such as shipping Christmas ornaments to family members.
Other findings, notes the inspector general’s letter, came from a series of claims that Chao used her position to boost her family’s privately-held shipping business, the Foremost Group.
Chao’s father founded Foremost Group, of which her sister still serves as the company’s chair and chief executive officer. Foremost Group is headquartered in New York, with divisions around the world.
“Our preliminary review revealed other potential misuses of position that warranted additional review,” writes Mitch Behm, a deputy inspector general at the department’s independent audit agency. “OIG’s formal investigation involved review of more departmental emails, interviews, and other investigative techniques. The department cooperated with this investigation in all respects.”
Behm added that the inspector general referred the case to federal prosecutors for potential indictment. However, the Department of Justice declined to follow through with an official criminal investigation.
DeFazio sent a letter in October of 2019 after the New York Times reported on potential ethics violations. He, in turn, said that Chao acted unethically, and she was engaged in self-serving activities.
“Public servants, especially those responsible for leading tens of thousands of other public servants, must know that they serve the public and not their family’s private commercial interests,” DeFazio said at the time.
However, the report nearly found no evidence to back up other allegations made against Chao.
This includes suggestions that the Department of Transportation steered disproportionate amounts of grant monies to Kentucky. A spokesperson for Chao focused only on that aspect of the inspector general’s findings.
“This report exonerates the Secretary from baseless accusations and closes the book on an election-year effort to impugn her history-making career as the first Asian American woman appointed to a President’s Cabinet and her outstanding record as the longest-tenured Cabinet member since World War II,” a Chao spokesperson said, via POLITICO.
Chao previously served as Secretary of Labor throughout the eight-year tenure of former President George W. Bush.
She is also married to Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader in the Senate.
As Maritime Direct reported, Chao resigned on Jan. 7 after pro-Trump rioters and extremists invaded the US Capitol Building amid Congress voting to confirm President Joe Biden as the Nov. 3, 2020, presidential race winner.
