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The Times' investigation revealed the links between Chao and the Foremost group, his family's transportation company. The report notes that although Chao "has no official affiliation," she and her husband, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, received millions of gifts from Chao's father, who ran the company. Business, as well as political donations from his family.
According to the report, Chao would have beefed up the company in China, whose government runs a bank that has loan commitments from the shipping company on the order of "hundreds of millions of dollars".
According to the same source, Chao's family has other ties with China's official, including board positions in state-owned companies and close relations between Chao's father and former Chinese President and Secretary General of the Chinese Communist Party Jiang Zemin.
The Times said Chao had refused an interview and the transport department had provided a statement of his defense and that of his family.
"My family is composed of patriotic Americans who have led a determined life and have contributed much to the life of this country," said Chao in his written statement. "They embody the American dream and my parents have inspired all their daughters to give back to this country we love."
Similarly, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation said the report was "a web of countless baseless inferences".
McConnell said in a statement that he was "proud to have been able to count on the support of my family over the years".
Chao's sister, Angela, who heads Foremost, told the Times that the company was not "China-centric" and said, "We are an international transportation company and I am an American."
"I do not think that if I did not have a Chinese face, I would focus on China," Angela Chao told The Times.
The Times newspaper said Foremost's fleet "was mainly focused on China".
Chao was previously Labor Secretary under the Bush administration and, since the beginning of the Trump administration, she was at the head of the Department of Transportation, which, as the Times has mentioned, made Chao the main responsible for the shipping industry in the United States.
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