After classified documents were found stored in a closet at the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Biden Center, a watchdog group is calling for the university to disclose whether any of the foreign donations it was given were channeled into the think tank.
The calls from the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) come amid reports that the Department of Justice is investigating how Biden’s classified documents ended up at the institute and could revive congressional probes into national security risks posed by the Penn Biden Center, the policy institute launched by Biden and the University of Pennsylvania in 2017.
Foreign donations to the University of Pennsylvania more than tripled in the two years after the think tank opened, with most of the $61 million coming from China, the Washington Free Beacon reported in 2021. Republican lawmakers and foreign policy officials have warned about the Chinese government’s influence-buying operations on college campuses, while the Department of Justice has been cracking down on Chinese espionage at American universities.
Tom Anderson, director of the Public Integrity Project at the NLPC, said UPenn has shown an "unwillingness to disclose what appears to be millions of dollars of foreign donations" raised following the creation of the Penn Biden Center, which may have been channeled into Biden’s think tank.
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