When I tested the program, during the connection attempt I receive a message telling me it is unable to get radio model.

This may be that the T70E has a different model reported than the T70A. If you want to send me your debug.log file after you tried and failed to do a download, I can add your model to the T70 driver and you can give it a try.

I assume the radio is put into Clone mode to connect to the PC.

No, just power it on normally. If CHIRP is able to talk to it, it will initiate the clone operation from the PC side.

Thanks!