A University of Pennsylvania think tank tied to President Joe Biden is facing one of the first inquiries from congressional Republicans as GOP lawmakers aim to use their new-found power in the U.S. House to investigate the Democratic president.
While providing few details, the head of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee wrote to Penn President Liz Magill Wednesday demanding information about an increase in Chinese donations to the university after the formation of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in 2017. The letter comes after classified documents were recently found at the center’s offices in Washington, D.C., an issue that is now the focus of GOP critics.
Penn firmly denied any connection between Chinese donations and the Biden Center.
“It is important to reiterate that the Penn Biden Center has never solicited or received any gifts from any Chinese or other foreign entity,” a Penn spokesperson said in a statement.
The House Republicans are seeking documents, visitor logs, and other information associated with alleged donations from China. They say they are concerned about foreign influence at Penn and the Biden Center, given the discovery of the classified documents.
The letter from Oversight Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., says that Penn received “tens of millions of dollars from anonymous Chinese sources,” and that those donations tripled after the university announced the creation of the Penn Biden Center, though it does not provide details of those donations, or any evidence of linkage between the center and the uptick.
“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,” Comer wrote.
The letter adds that at least 10 people who would later join the Biden administration were employed at the center, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl.
A Penn spokesperson said the university would provide the information in a “timely manner” and denied the allegations of foreign influence.
“One hundred percent of the budget for the Penn Biden Center comes from university funds. Any foreign gifts received by the university are all properly reported to the U.S. Department of Education as required” by law, the spokesperson said. “Penn is fully compliant with federal law regarding the reporting of foreign gifts and contracts.”
Public records do show a sharp uptick in gifts from Chinese sources to Penn in 2017, 2018, and 2019, while Biden was at the school: $39 million compared to $15.4 million in the previous three years, according to public disclosures. An additional $33 million originated in Hong Kong. Combined with China, that giving accounted for more than half of Penn’s foreign gifts in 2017, 2018, and 2019.
But the donations were to Penn broadly, not the Biden Center specifically. And the increase coincided with a broader jump in foreign donations to Penn, which more than doubled in that same time frame, to $135 million over the three years when Biden was there, according to disclosures filed with the Department of Education.
At least some other Ivy League schools, including Harvard and Yale, also saw similar spikes in gifts originating from China in that time period. In each case, the donations originating in China also fell sharply in more recent years.
During a Senate confirmation hearing in 2021, U.S. ambassador to Germany and former Penn president Amy Gutmann said a “very small fraction” of the $10 billion raised during her tenure originated from China, according to CBS News.
“A very small fraction of that comes from China, considerably less than 1%,” Gutmann told senators, according to CBS News. “What I do know, and what I make sure of, is that no gifts, no contracts of the University of Pennsylvania are allowed to threaten academic freedom, are allowed to threaten national security. We do no classified research. We get about one gift per three minutes.”
Penn’s increase in gifts reported from China came as the Trump administration pressured schools to provide a more thorough accounting of their foreign support. Penn’s Wharton business school had also opened a Beijing branch in 2015.
The school’s endowment was worth nearly $21 billion as of June 30.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Republican inquiry is one of the earliest examples of how the GOP plans to use its new control of the U.S. House to investigate Biden and elevate criticism of him ahead of his potential reelection campaign.
Republicans, long silent or defensive of former President Donald Trump, who kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home in defiance of subpoenas, are now pressing Biden for answers about why classified material was found at his Penn office and private residence in Wilmington, Delaware. (Biden, according to his lawyers and the White House, returned those materials as soon as they were discovered, but didn’t inform the public about it until well after the November elections).
The Oversight Committee is the main arm of the House’s investigative power, and has long been used to pursue politically charged investigations. After the recent battle over the House speakership, the committee has become stocked with some of the GOP’s most far-right figures, including several conspiracy theorists and election deniers.
Among them is U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., who was a driving force in trying to overturn the 2020 election results and was a prominent holdout against Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. Perry eventually supported McCarthy for speaker, and, after himself being subject to investigation by the Jan. 6 committee, is now part of the team aiming to dig into Biden.
The Penn Biden Center was created as part of the school’s global outreach initiatives, hosting political science courses, employing interns, and holding events on foreign policy. According to the center’s website, it is “completely independent” of the Biden administration.
It was formed shortly after Biden’s time as vice president ended, and employed him and a number of his aides in between his time in office and his 2020 run for president.
Penn paid Biden more than $900,000 in 2017, 2018, and early 2019, according to Biden’s financial disclosure forms, for an often vague role with few formal responsibilities, though experts in higher education have said there’s value in the prestige of being associated with a former vice president.
Along with lending his name to the foreign affairs institution, Biden was the Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor, a title created for him. He took a leave of absence in April 2019 after launching his presidential campaign.
In addition to the many Biden aides who found jobs at the center in between his time as vice president and president, two of Penn’s top figures at the time have gone on to plum ambassadorships.
Gutmann is now ambassador to Germany and David L. Cohen, a longtime Democratic powerhouse and former chair of Penn’s board of trustees, is ambassador to Canada. Both appeared alongside Biden for the ribbon cutting when the Biden Center opened in Washington, steps from the U.S. Capitol.
Biden used the office “periodically” until he launched his 2020 campaign, Biden’s attorney, Richard Sauber, said in a statement last week.
According to Sauber, a “small number of documents with classified markings” were discovered in a locked closet at the Penn Biden Center on Nov. 2 as the president’s personal attorneys were clearing out the offices. Additional classified materials were found in Biden’s Wilmington garage.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has assigned former U.S. Attorney Robert Hur as a special counsel to investigate Biden’s handling of classified material. A separate special counsel investigation of Trump’s handling of classified material is ongoing.
(Staff writer Oona Goodin-Smith contributed to this article.)
