The Department of Transportation’s oversight body asked the Justice Department to criminally investigate Elaine Chao at the end of last year because of concerns that she would misuse her office when she was President Donald Trump’s transportation secretary, but was rejected, according to a report released on Wednesday.
The report said the Justice Department’s criminal and public integrity divisions in December refused to accept the case for criminal prosecution following the inspector general’s findings that Chao used his staff and office for personal tasks and to promote a transportation business. owned by Chao’s father and sisters. in an apparent violation of federal ethical rules. This company has a lot of business with China.
“A formal investigation into possible abuses of position was warranted,” Deputy Inspector General Mitch Behm wrote in a letter to lawmakers.
Chao, wife of Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, stepped down earlier this year in the last weeks of the Trump administration, citing his disapproval of the January 6 Capitol insurrection by Trump supporters.
Chao denied any wrongdoing. In the report released on Wednesday, she did not specifically respond to the allegations, instead providing a September 2020 memo that argued that promoting her family was an appropriate part of her official duties in the department.
“The Asian public welcomes and responds positively to the secretary’s actions that include her father in activities when appropriate,” said the memo.
The watchdog report cited several cases that raised ethical issues. In one, Chao instructed political appointees in the department to contact the Department of Homeland Security to personally verify the status of an application for a work permit for a student who was a beneficiary of her family’s philanthropic foundation.
Chao also made extensive plans for an official trip to China in November 2017 – before canceling it – which would include stops at places that were supported by his family’s New York-based company Foremost Group. According to the department’s emails, Chao instructed his team to include their relatives in official events and high-level meetings during the trip.
“Above all, let’s keep (the secretary) happy,” wrote one of the department’s employees to another employee about Chao’s father. “If Dr. Chao is happy, then we should be flying with a feather in his hat.”
The report found that Chao also coached the department’s public relations team to assist his father in marketing his personal biography and to edit his Wikipedia page, and used the team to verify repairs to an item at a store for his father.
The IG report said that Justice Department officials ended up refusing to conduct a criminal review, saying that “there may be ethical and / or administrative issues”, but no evidence to support possible criminal charges.
As a result, the inspector general’s office said in the report that it is now ending its investigation “based on the Justice Department’s lack of interest” in the Department of Justice.
Representative Peter DeFazio, D-Oregon, chairman of the House’s transportation committee, who requested the investigation, expressed disappointment that the review was not completed and released while Chao was still in office.
“Civil servants, especially those responsible for leading tens of thousands of other civil servants, must know that they serve the public and not their family’s private business interests,” he said.