https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/06/mitch-mcconnell-elaine-chao-kentucky?fbclid=IwAR3AjN3xk507Ym1PwdpGq5UH_g1x_InGbV-SunWVct2NDPu1mNFCVbc-wCs
"Last month, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stonewalled a plan to fix the nation‘s roads, bridges, mass transit, and other crumbling infrastructure, despite the urgency of the issue and the outline of the deal receiving rare support from both Democrats and the White House. But, as it turns out, McConnell isn’t opposed to all infrastructure spending. In fact, he’s quite open to it when it‘s flowing specifically to towns in his home state, thanks to a special arrangement with the Transportation Department set up by his Cabinet secretary wife. Politico reports that Elaine Chao, spouse of Mitch, “designated a special liaison to help with grant applications and other priorities from her husband Mitch McConnell’s state of Kentucky, paving the way for grants totaling at least $78 million for favored projects as McConnell prepared to campaign for reelection.” That liaison, Chao’s current chief of staff, Todd Inman, wrote in an email to McConnell’s office that Chao had “personally asked him to serve as an intermediary”—a benefit bestowed on no other state—and that he should be contacted if there were any “Ky-specific issue[s]” that should be flagged for the secretary’s attention."
