The investigation into the death of Angela Chao, sister-in-law of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), remains ongoing, officials confirmed on March 4.
The 50-year-old CEO of Foremost Group, a New York-based dry bulk shipping company, died in a private ranch in central Texas on Feb. 11 after her Tesla fell into a pond.
While officials from Blanco County determined that Ms. Chao had “succumbed from being under the water” and that there was no foul play, a letter from the county office to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton stated the incident was “not a typical accident.”
“Although the preliminary investigation indicated that this was an unfortunate accident, the Sheriff’s Office is still investigating this accident as a criminal matter until they have sufficient evidence to rule out criminal activity,” the county’s public information officer, Kimberly Ashby, wrote in a Feb. 29 letter, which was first obtained by CNBC.
It states that the sheriff’s office is withholding key details such as the exact location of the accident and 911 logs, arguing that early release of records “could hinder their investigation.”
However, officials appear to have backtracked from the statement since it gained national attention.
When approached by The Epoch Times, Blanco County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Robert Woodring maintained that there was no shift in the investigation.
“Nothing has changed,” he said in a statement. “Our preliminary investigation has determined this to be an unfortunate accident. It’s still an investigation until all the information required to close it has been gathered and documented.”
He didn’t respond to further requests for clarification over the case.
Ms. Ashby told a local media outlet that the national news coverage came from a “misinterpretation of a sentence.”
The attorney general’s office didn’t respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.
Foremost Group, which made public the death of Ms. Chao in a Feb. 12 statement, had characterized the incident as a “tragic car accident.”
A first responder report dated Feb. 11 identified the location of their rescue attempt as JW Ranch.
Public records show that the property is under an entity that registers under the same Chicago address as Breyer Capital, a venture capital firm founded by Ms. Chao’s husband, Jim Breyer.
Ms. Chao’s family has forged deep political and business ties at China’s top levels.
Both Ms. Chao and her father made their way to the boards of top Chinese state firms as few other foreigners did. She was, at one point, a board member of the Bank of China, known as the country’s central bank, as well as of the China State Shipbuilding Corporation, one of China’s primary state-owned conglomerates that supplies ships to the Chinese military.
She also once chaired the U.S. risk and management committee of New York-headquartered Bank of China USA and served on the board of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, an organization long associated with Chinese influence peddling operations overseas under the control of the country’s Ministry of Commerce.
The Chao family’s business connection with China became a focal point while Ms. Chao’s elder sister, Elaine Chao, served as the transportation secretary in the Trump administration.
Mr. Breyer had served as co-chair of IDG Capital, a Beijing-based investment management firm that the Department of Defense in January listed as a “Chinese military” company. He also presided over the advisory board of the business school of China’s state-funded Tsinghua University.
In mid-January, weeks before Angela Chao’s death, Mr. Breyer said he had paused investing in China for 18 months and had no plans to invest more money there “for the foreseeable future.”
“Perhaps it is God’s way of reminding you of your own life’s journey to reprioritize the impact on the world that we will all inevitably leave behind,” he said in a floor speech.
