Today, House Education and Labor Committee Ranking Member Virginia Foxx (R-NC), House Committee on Oversight and Reform Ranking Member James Comer (R-KY), and House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan (R-OH) sent a letter to the President of the University of Pennsylvania, Amy Gutmann, expressing concerns over the university’s close relationship with the Biden family and recent revelations regarding their potentially illicit ties to China. The lawmakers request the university provide unredacted financial and communications records to better understand the scope of potential foreign influence at the University of Pennsylvania’s Biden Center.
“Understanding whether the University of Pennsylvania’s Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement received funds from China or other adversarial nations at the behest of the Biden family or future Biden Administration officials will shed light on the depth and breadth of the potential improper influence these nations enjoy over the Biden family,” wrote the lawmakers.
The inquiry comes after the recent revelation of an ongoing criminal investigation into Hunter Biden’s financial dealings with China. The lawmakers initially wrote to the University of Pennsylvania and other universities on August 3, 2020 expressing concern about multimillion-dollar donations from China and rogue regimes to higher education. The gifts have become a growing national security threat and have called into question whether U.S. institutes of higher education receiving federal taxpayer dollars should be allowed to accept funds from foreign adversaries.
“For some time, we have been concerned about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) efforts to use its strategic investments to turn American college campuses into indoctrination platforms for American students. At the very least, increased CCP influence in the U.S. allows a window into U.S. culture, infrastructure, and planning—providing a gathering ground for Chinese intelligence agencies,” concluded the lawmakers.
