Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) billionaire sister-in-law reportedly made a panicked phone call to her loved ones moments before her car was submerged in a pond in Texas on February 10.
Fifty-year-old Angela Chao died after making a three-point turn and “accidentally” backing the vehicle into the water, the New York Post reported Saturday, citing a Wall Street Journal article that detailed the incident.
Mitch McConnell’s billionaire sister-in-law Angela Chao made panicked last call before dying in ‘completely submerged’ Tesla on Texas ranch: report https://t.co/qqtHayOBc3 pic.twitter.com/qyYauGkIo1
— New York Post (@nypost) March 9, 2024
She was spending the weekend at the ranch with friends from Harvard Business School, the Post article continued:
After eating dinner together and celebrating the Chinese New Year on Friday night, Chao left the guesthouse around 11:30 p.m. to head back to the main house, where her son was sleeping. It was cold out, so she decided to take her Tesla Model X SUV for the four-minute drive rather than walk.
But within minutes, she called one of her friends in a panic. While making a K-turn, she put the car in reverse instead of drive, she told them. While going backwards, the car went over an embankment and into a pond — and was sinking fast.
When her friends rushed to the scene, one of them jumped into the water to try to rescue Chao as the ranch manager and his wife also ran to the area.
After someone called 911 for help, Blanco County emergency crews arrived approximately 24 minutes after the call was received.
“Due to the rugged terrain, a number of responders got out of their cars and walked to the scene,” the Post article said.
The Tesla was reportedly completely submerged. Deputies tried to break open a window to rescue Chao. A tow truck eventually arrived at the scene to drag the vehicle back onto land but its cable was not long enough to reach the car, so officials had to get a longer one.
According to law enforcement, two rescue crew members later pulled the woman out of the car just before 1:00 a.m. Water rushed out of the car once the doors were opened.
“Chao was unresponsive, and EMS responders attempted to resuscitate her for 43 minutes to no avail, police said,” the Post article reported.
Chao’s death has since been placed under “criminal investigation,” Breitbart News reported March 2. The outlet noted Chao had been the CEO of New York-based dry bulk shipping company Foremost Group.
The family of Elaine Chao, former transportation secretary and McConnell’s wife, has extensive financial ties to the Chinese government, according to Peter Schweizer, author of Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends.
He stated during a 2021 interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow when speaking about the Foremost Group:
“[Elaine Cho’s] father, James Chao, runs a shipping company along with [her] sister, Angela Chao. That business has very close ties to the Chinese government, meaning that the Chinese government finances the construction of the ships that they use, provides the crews, they build the ships, [and] they provide the contracts. So there’s a very serious concern there about possible Chinese influence on the McConnell-Chao family.”
In 2019, Schweizer, who is also president of the Government Accountability Institute and senior contributor at Breitbart News, warned about McConnell’s financial ties to China.
He said, “Business in China is done with a political purpose. The China State Shipbuilding Corporation is controlled by the government, by the Communist Party, and they do business deals with people in the West with the expectation that they will get things in return.”
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