The chair of the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday demanded that the University of Pennsylvania - home to the infamous Penn-Biden center where classified documents were found in November - answer questions over anonymous donations from China, based on concerns that the CCP may have bought influence with the Biden administration.
"The Committee has learned UPenn received millions of dollars from anonymous Chinese sources, with a marked uptick in donations when then-former Vice President Biden was announced as leading the Penn Biden Center initiative," said the GOP-led committee in a statement that followed a report from Just the News regarding the donations.
"Following the formation of the Penn Biden Center, donations originating from China tripled and continued while Joe Biden explored a potential run for President," the statement continues.
The committee is already investigating now-President Biden's possible mishandling of classified documents from his time as vice president. While some of the documents were discovered in November in Biden's former Washington, D.C., office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, news about the records did not surface until this month. -JTN
"The Committee is concerned about who had access to these documents given the Biden family’s financial connections to foreign actors and companies," wrote committee Chairman Rep. James Comer to university President M. Elizabeth Magill.
Last April, a government watchdog asked the US attorney investigating Hunter Biden to investigate $54.6 million in Chinese donations to the University of Pennsylvania - most of which happened after the university's February 2017 announcement that it would create the Biden Center - and $23.1 million of which were anonymous and started in 2016, according to public records.
According to the NY Post, the vast majority of donations from China to UPenn occurred after the announcement that the university would create the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement shortly after Biden's term as vice president had just ended.
The center, which is located in Washington, DC., opened its doors in February 2018. Antony Blinken, whom Biden named as Secretary of State, briefly served as its managing director.
The Ivy League university received $15.8 million in anonymous Chinese gifts that year, including one eye-popping $14.5 million donation in May 2018, records show.
The flurry of donations may be related to Hunter Biden’s business interests in China, the National Legal and Policy Center, a Virginia-based watchdog, alleged in complaints sent in May and October 2020 to the Departments of Education and Justice. -NY Post
The classified documents found at the Penn Center included materials related to Iran and Ukraine, while more classified documents were found at Biden's home in Wilmington, Delaware.
"The American people deserve to know whether the Chinese Communist Party, through Chinese companies, influenced potential Biden Administration policies with large, anonymous donations to UPenn and the Penn Biden Center," wrote Comer.
According to Just the News, Secretary of State Antony Blinken - the Penn-Biden Center's former managing director, is one of 10 people who took the revolving door from Penn to senior positions in the Biden White House.
Blinken claimed on Tuesday that he "had no knowledge" of the classified documents.
According to UPenn spokesman Stephen MacCarthy last April, "The Penn Biden Center has never solicited or received any gifts from any Chinese or other foreign entity. In fact, the University has never solicited any gifts for the Center."
