McConnell on China: “You Wake Up One Day And Look Around And You Can’t Find A Communist With A Flashlight”

The Cincinnati Enquirer is the dominant newspaper for northern Kentucky and publishes a Kentucky edition every day. This morning’s Mitch McConnell exposé by Curtis Ellis and Harry Wu isn’t only going to be read by folks in Ohio. And the basic premise that Ellis and Wu are making— that McConnell has enriched himself while in the U.S. Senate through his dealings with Communist China— aren’t new to Kentuckians. Even here at DWT we’ve been covering McConnell’s funny business with China regularly since 2007.

China has funneled immense sums of money into McConnell’s career through the Chamber of Commerce and through his crooked father-in-law, an agent for the Chinese Communists. McConnell and his “wife,” Bush’s vehemently anti-worker Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, have powerful and very profitable ties to the highest echelons of the Chinese Communist Party— and those ties have brought them considerable benefits, both politically and financially. With the Chinese Communists poised to crack down hard on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, McConnell still doesn’t understand— or doesn’t want to understand the nature of the tyrannical regime in Beijing he owns his fortune— and his power— to. As Wu and Ellis assert, love is blind when it comes to McConnell and the Chinese communists.

Sen. Mitch McConnell is one of the strongest supporters of free trade and closer ties with China. Some say his attitude is a result of his marriage to Elaine Chao. After all, Jiang Zemin, China's former Communist Party boss and dictator, is a close family friend of the senator's wife, and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao praised her father for building up China's industry. Jiang Zemin, the hard-liner who took power following the Tienanmen Square massacre, is notorious for his repression of religious minorities and Tibet.

It would be easy to blame McConnell's wife for his pro-China stance.

But it would be wrong.

It would be wrong because President Bill Clinton wasn't married to Elaine Chao when he asked Congress to treat Communist China as a "Most Favored Nation" and make it safe for corporations to move American factories there. Conservatives warned of China's threat to our national security, but McConnell ignored these concerns and voted to open the door to more investment in the communist country, as Clinton asked.

It would be wrong because Al Gore was not married to Chao when he took illegal campaign contributions from foreign nationals in the Chinagate scandal. The man convicted of laundering campaign money for Gore also directed dollars to McConnell. (He eventually returned the money.)

It would be wrong because the CEO of Loral Space and Communications wasn't married to Chao when his company told China how to improve its missile guidance systems. Loral could save money by using Chinese rockets to launch communications satellites into orbit, and they wanted to make sure the rockets didn't crash on takeoff. The Pentagon said the information Loral provided placed America at greater risk.

It would be wrong because the CEO of AIG insurance wasn't married to Chao when he wanted to set up shop in China and sought Washington's help. AIG lobbied hard to get Congress to ignore China's record on human rights and national security issues. They shoveled contributions into congressional campaign coffers – McConnell received tens of thousands of dollars from AIG and the top contributors to the US-China Business Council. AIG became the first Western insurance company to do business in China, and then went on to collect $182 billion in the Wall Street bailout.

And George W. Bush wasn't married to Chao, either, when he nominated her to be labor secretary despite concerns about her "business relationship with communist China." Besides her family friendship with Beijing's communist bosses, Chao had ties to the company at the center of the Chinagate money laundering scandal, another firm in partnership with an intelligence-gathering front for the People's Liberation Army, and an Internet company, Multacom, subsequently linked to a notorious Chinese cyberespionage ring. Bush remained faithful even after Chao told an interviewer U.S. companies aren't moving offshore for cheap foreign labor, but because American workers are sloppy, lack "good personal hygiene" and have "anger-management" issues.

No, McConnell's problem isn't that he's married to Elaine Chao. It's that he's married to the Washington-Wall Street establishment that will do anything to stay in power and sees China as a "strategic partner" and money-making opportunity.

Love is blind, and it's love of money, not a woman, that makes McConnell and his friends in Washington unable to see the threat communist China poses to our people and our nation.

Maybe McConnell doesn’t share attitudes like these with Chao but the former Labor Secretary wasn’t an advocate for American workers when she was in Bush’s cabinet. She always defended Big Business moving jobs off shore— and not only for the slave wages. Chao lectured American workers that “U.S. employers say that many workers abroad simply have a better attitude toward work. American employees must be punctual, dress appropriately and have good personal hygiene. They need anger-management and conflict-resolution skills, and they have to be able to accept direction. Too many young people bristle when a supervisor asks them to do something."

McConnell never did an honest day’s work in his entire miserable life but since becoming a senator in 1984 he’s managed to amass $11.97 million, making him the 32nd richest Member of Congress.

The Senate minority leader has now been among the 50 wealthiest lawmakers for six consecutive years, since he won re-election to a fifth term. And in 2013, he saw his minimum net worth jump almost 30 percent, to a hair less than $12 million.

The Kentucky Republican’s reportable assets nearly tripled in 2008 thanks to a $5 million gift that he and his wife, former Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao, received from her father, James, soon after the death of her mother. (After emigrating in the 1960s, the senator’s father-in-law founded a successful international trading business, now called the Foremost Group, specializing in importing Chinese-made goods to the United States.) The money has been invested ever since in a tax-exempt money market fund that remains the McConnells’ most significant asset by far.

The fact that McConnell has become so much better-off during his three decades in Congress has recently become an issue in his highly competitive re-election campaign. His Democratic challenger, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, aired a television ad in August alleging the incumbent had overstayed his welcome in the Senate by becoming “a multimillionaire in public office” while opposing minimum wage increases, fighting unemployment insurance extensions and supporting “tax breaks that send Kentucky jobs overseas.”

McConnell has not listed any liabilities for several years, and the bulk of the most recent increase in the value of his assets is attributable to investment gains by Chao. One of her mixed investment funds increased in value by at least $500,000, while the disclosure forms for the first time mentioned a pension investment fund in which she’s invested at least $500,000. Chao also received deferred compensation of at least $250,000 from Protective Life Corp., a life insurance business where she was on the board of directors.