THREAD: DOT officials sent hundreds of emails and spent months planning a trip to China for ELAINE CHAO. They even designed a logo for the luggage Elaine Chao took a particular interest in picking out gifts for officials she would meet in China pic.twitter.com/8krTkNvX4H— Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) June 3, 2019
The agency also put a chunk of work in to prepare special luggage tags for the folks going on this trip, or at least who planned to make the trip pic.twitter.com/vUkLNFW6jv— Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) June 3, 2019
DOT went to great lengths in FOIA response to hide any evidence from THE NYT that Chao's staff was communicating with FOREMOST (the family shipping company that does business in China) while they worked to prepare for this trip. Everything is redacted. Well almost everything.— Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) June 3, 2019
Within a matter of days, the trip was cancelled.— Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) June 3, 2019