Modern day Pork - but even more corrupt, as it is out of the public view, no votes for which a ‘small govt’ guy could be held accountable, and only possible through nepotism via a cabinet secretary.
Go Home Mitch (and Sec. Chao), Kentucky beckons you, and hopefully the Kentucky electorate will call you home (or at least out of office) at the ballot box.
And this is separate from the issues reported last week, where friends and business associates of Chao’s family got multiple meetings with McConnell, arranged natch by Chao, for special favors allowing them to do business in KY.
I think the House Democrats need to add this to their Oversight Investigations and some Senate Democrats need to start raising hell about this. Perhaps the Insipid Senators from NY.
Agreed.
Because Trump needs McConnell, she is the one cabinet secretary who is safe from his whim/firing if/when s/he gets to much bad publicity and he thinks it makes him (Trump) and his administration look bad.
Moreover, transparency via the giant spotlight majority in the House has per their oversight/hearings power.
When miscreants do their evil they usually keep it up unless stopped. This isn’t rocket science…it isn’t even high school shop.
.By her efforts to get her Chinese relatives a seat at the trough as well, Elaine Chao grows the taxonomy of rats who board sinking ships. We have arrogant rats who think they’re single handedly saving the captain from himself, and greedy rats who’re pocketing away as many gold coins as she can swim with.
She joins hundreds of other problems who’re unaddressed by impeachment and can only be solved by throwing Rumppublicans the heck out of office,
There’s a reason why Chao has remained under the radar as an government agency head and appointee and not been fired as most all others have. Perry in the Energy Dept., with those sales to the Saudis of our nuclear technology is yet another one. Behind those appointees you can bet are a lot of bad deals, and evil doings have been happening behind closed doors. I’m sure this is just the tip of the iceberg. Survival in this administration usually means that they’re up to no good and some serious ethical challenges on behalf of their Dear Leader.
Lock them up! Lock them up! Lock them up! Lock them up! Lock them up! Lock them up! Lock them up!
Lock them up! Lock them up! Lock them up! Lock them up! Lock them up! Lock them up! Lock them up!
Lock them up! Lock them up! Lock them up! Lock them up! Lock them up! Lock them up! Lock them up!
Lock them up! Lock them up! Lock them up! Lock them up! Lock them up! Lock them up! Lock them up!
…
I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find that Chao and/or Turtle have their hands in some secret pocket that’s profiting them directly from this double-dealing. He loves the power (boy does he love the power) but having a nice nest egg when he leaves office is going to be the final touch.
I need to get in shape, because this is yet another grave I’d be happy to dig myself.
Is this another loophole they made use of or is it a misconduct that will be investigated and punished?
Is there a family of more obvious crooks than McConnell and Chao? Anyone? Well, okay, there is the Trump family, but anyone else? If we need any additional explanation why McConnell is slavishly devoted to Trump?
There are all these incidents of individualized corruption at the cabinet level: Pruitt (now gone), DeVos, Mnuchin, Ross, DHS, Chao, Carson that could really be exposed and politically exploited by the Dem House, say at the subcommittee level but so far we haven’t made that kind of impact yet. The Kushner story today is another one.
It’s bad but…$78 million? Is that a useful amount of construction money?
I thought the Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility, who got rid of earmarks to ensure that there wasn’t payoff to individual politicians…
Frankly, the Deripaska deal to build a Russian aluminum plant in KY is the worst betrayal, and an insult to American intelligience. Not only did this maladministration (Mnuchin at Treasury) and Republicans like McTurtle vote against maintaining sanctions against Deripaska, they ignored National Security concerns by rewarding one of the Russian oligarchs, that helped fund efforts to put tRump in office and interfere in our elections with Putin’s blessings. Its a blatant conflict of interest writ large.
They deserve each other. But we don’t deserve either of them.
~cough~ Harken Energy. Haliburton. ~cough~
My thought exactly. This is sleaze on the cheap. Now the aluminum plant that Deripaska’s got his fingers in, that, at around $200 million IIRC, seems more like it.
ETA: Oops. @srfromgr got there before me.
It’s what these mfers do best!
…or his maker, I’d be OK with that.