Yet Another Report Raises Questions About McConnell Ties To Special Interests

Ethics Expert: “…the secretary ought not to be on both sides of the deal. Why didn’t she just cash out?”

A second report in two weeks raises serious questions about Senator Mitch McConnell’s self-serving interests.

The New York Times reveals that McConnell’s wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, violated her federal ethics agreement when she “failed to sever ties” to a major highway construction company, holding onto as much as half a million dollars in stock from a corporation that directly benefits from her agency’s actions.

This revelation comes on the heels of another New York Times report about how a Russian company invested $200 million in a Kentucky aluminum plant after McConnell personally intervened to help lift U.S. sanctions on the company. McConnell took millions in campaign contributions from company owners in the 2016 election cycle. Then, last year, a lobbyist for that same company – former Senator David Vitter – cut McConnell a check for $3,750 before the Republican leader forced his spineless majority to vote against transparency and national security. Later, when asked about the subsequent $200 million deal, a McConnell spokesman dodged the question.

New York Times: Transportation Secretary Failed to Sever Financial Ties to Construction Company

By Eric Lipton

Key Points:

• Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao failed last year to cash out her stock options in one of the nation’s largest suppliers of highway construction materials, despite a promise she had made to do so in a signed ethics agreement when she joined the Trump administration.

• …a financial disclosure report released this month by her husband, Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who is the Senate majority leader, showed that Ms. Chao had somewhere between $250,000 and $500,000 worth of Vulcan stock. She owned this stock because in April 2018 Vulcan paid her for her stock options in the company’s stock instead of cash, the company said in a statement.

• Robert Weissman, the president of Public Citizen, a nonprofit ethics group, said policy decisions Ms. Chao makes — even if they do not directly affect any contracts the company might hold with the agency — could still benefit the company in a significant way, especially any infrastructure program that increased road and highway construction. Vulcan makes crushed stone, sand and gravel as well as construction materials, including asphalt and ready-mixed concrete.

• “The Department of Transportation has a lot to do with the building of roads in America, and the secretary ought not to be on both sides of the deal,” Mr. Weissman said. “Why didn’t she just cash out?”

Read the full report here.

More here on McConnell’s alarming ties to special interests:

WATCH:

New York Times: Democrats Seek Review of Russian Investment in Kentucky

Key Points:

• Democratic lawmakers called on the Trump administration on Thursday to review an investment in Kentucky by a Russian aluminum company that they say has raised concerns about Russian influence on the economy and national security of the United States.

• Mr. McConnell, the Senate majority leader, helped defeat a bipartisan effort in January to block the sanctions relief deal for Rusal. His spokesman said Mr. McConnell’s support for lifting the sanctions was unrelated to the potential investment in Kentucky, which was not publicly announced until last month — months after the vote.

• Lobbying filings suggest that, just before the April announcement, David Vitter, a former Republican senator who is being paid to lobby for EN+, reached out to give Mr. McConnell “a heads-up” about the announcement.

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