Five years ago, UPenn President Amy Gutmann made the audacious assertion that Joe Biden’s “unmatched personal relationships” will help “advance the international order” with the opening of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.
Questions were raised about the role of foreign contributors, notably from China, and the revolving door of university workers who found their way into then-President Biden’s cabinet when secret papers were discovered at the Washington, D.C. think tank.
In a recent letter to UPenn’s president M. Elizabeth Magill, James Comer (R-KY), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, expressed concern that unknown individuals may have had access to sensitive files discovered at the Penn Biden Center due to the level of access and opportunity provided by the center. Classified materials were housed at the Penn Biden Center, and it is imperative to determine with absolute clarity who among the Biden family and immediate circle had access to them.
After years of planning, Penn finally unveiled its Beltway campus to the public in February 2018. The organization’s stated goal was to serve as a meeting place for diplomats and professionals from various areas and governments throughout the world. One Penn official told The Daily Wire, “The Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement was formed on the concept that a democratic, open, secure, tolerant, and connected globe benefits all Americans.”
In 2017, then-President Biden accepted a position at the University of Pennsylvania as the Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor. In April 2019, Biden began his campaign for president by taking a leave of absence from his job without pay.
A 2019 investigation by The Philadelphia Inquirer found that the University of Pennsylvania paid President Joe Biden more than $900,000 for a post that did not involve regular teaching but did result in approximately a dozen public appearances on campus. fame gained by association with a president and senator with a global reputation, “Experts in the field of higher education is quoted as stating these things about Biden in the report. Nonetheless, Biden said last year that he had spent four years teaching as a “full professor” at the University of Pennsylvania, a claim that PolitiFact rated as “Half True.”
There has been a noticeable lack of activity on the Penn Biden Center’s website and social media since the spring of 2022. The research group, however, has been at the epicenter of the crisis that has shaken Biden’s administration in recent weeks.
CBS News reported earlier this month that Biden’s attorneys discovered around 10 classified documents while cleaning Biden’s office at the center on November 2, days before the midterm elections. It was never made apparent whether or not any other sensitive materials had been found, despite the news outlet’s allegation that the FBI had looked up the Penn Biden Center in the middle of November.
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed former U.S. Attorney Robert Hur as special counsel to investigate whether “any person or entity violated the law in connection with this matter” after classified documents from Biden’s time as president or U.S. senator were found at his home in Wilmington, Delaware. The President has stated that he will fully cooperate with authorities and that he is “surprised” to learn that federal documents were discovered in his office.
We still don’t know, for example, why it took so long for Biden’s crew to clean up his former think tank office. Moreover, there is rising unease about the predicted tripling of international donations to UPenn in the two years after the opening of the Biden Penn Center. According to data obtained by the Washington Free Beacon from the Department of Education, the majority of the $61 million in gifts and contracts granted between 2017 and 2019 came from China. Using President Biden’s son Hunter’s multimillion-dollar partnerships with China and other nations as an example, Republicans and others have long warned of Biden’s potential for conflicts of interest.
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley released an article in January warning about the perils of influence peddling, calling it the “preferred channel for corruption in Washington” and adding that it typically grants “dangerous amounts of access” to targeted politicians. The public was spared the danger associated with the Chinese-funded office, not through lack of effort on Joe and Jill Biden’s behalf. Nobody should put their faith in the FBI to investigate the Bidens if they didn’t scrutinize the Trump administration with the same zeal they gave to the Bidens.
Comer requested voluminous correspondence and records between Penn and its administration in a letter sent to the school’s president last month. He said that the public had a right to know if the Chinese Communist Party had made “huge, anonymous gifts to UPenn and the Penn Biden Center” to sway the decisions of the Biden administration.
According to a spokeswoman who talked with The Daily Wire, Penn has received Comer’s letter and plans to react. The Penn Biden Center has never aggressively sought money from the Chinese government or any other foreign body, a center official underlined. No donations have ever been sought by the University on behalf of the Center. Since its start that year, there have been three unasked-for donations (from two different people) totaling $1,100. They both call the United States home. The Biden Center receives all of its annual funding from Penn.
Several employees at Penn’s think tank in the nation’s capital have left to join President Joe Biden’s cabinet. This is only one example: Ambassador Gutmann’s name was Gutmann. After serving as the center’s managing director under Obama, foreign policy veteran Antony Blinken quit to run for president and was subsequently appointed Secretary of State by President Joe Biden.
The foundation “began as a parking area for Biden workers until he ran for president and never truly outgrown its beginnings,” Elliot Abrams, a senior foreign policy expert who has worked in numerous administrations, told the Associated Press.
In a promotional film, President Biden addressed the facility, noting one of his lofty goals that had been accomplished. I’m rooting for some of this group’s alumni to go on to serve as secretary of state, presidents, and national security advisers “…he made the following remark.