BOUNDARY ISSUES

Inspector General Says Elaine Chao Asked Transportation Department Staff to Do Chores for Her Father

The Justice Department refused to investigate Chao when she was Transportation Secretary, despite numerous instances of “misuse of office,” a new report says.

The Justice Department declined to investigate then-Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao amid mounting controversy over her use of her position to promote her family's business, despite a criminal referral from the Transportation Department’s inspector general, which on Wednesday released a report detailing numerous instances of “misuse of office.” A 44-page report sent to House lawmakers revealed that Chao sparked ethics concerns among officials by using her staff to perform tasks for her family’s shipbuilding company, Foremost Group, despite said tasks having nothing to do with official business of the Transportation Department. In one instance, Chao is said to have instructed staffers to organize events for a later-canceled trip to China in 2017 that included a series of promotional stops for her family’s business. Chao also allegedly asked staffers to perform tasks for her father, including working on his Wikipedia page, flogging his biography, and pitching his book to a “well-known C.E.O. of a major U.S. corporation” in the hopes of that C.E.O penning the foreword. Chao has yet to comment on the watchdog’s findings, but a September 2020 memo released in response to controversy over her activities promoting her family’s business said: “Asian audiences welcome and respond positively to actions by the Secretary that include her father in activities when appropriate.”