Posted on 01/12/2023 8:38:38 AM PST by george76
University of Pennsylvania, which hosted the Penn Biden Center where classified documents were found in November, received $47.7 million from China in the three years when Biden was affiliated with it.
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The University of Pennsylvania, the Ivy League institution which collected tens of millions of dollars from China while paying Joe Biden and hosting his foreign policy think tank, successfully pressured the Biden Justice Department to end an FBI counterespionage program targeting Beijing's increasing influence within U.S. academia.
Attorney General Merrick Garland shut down the FBI's so-called China initiative in February 2022 shortly after more than 160 members of the University of Pennsylvania faculty signed and made public an open letter demanding the program be shuttered, on the grounds that it amounted to racial profiling. The faculty letter was part of a larger university battle against the program.
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A handful of left-leaning universities, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, had also previously appealed to the DOJ to close down the program.
Two weeks after the letter was sent, Garland announced the termination of the program, sending shockwaves through federal law enforcement.
The DOJ's own website still includes, to this day, a lengthy recitation of criminal cases the 4-year-old program had brought against members of academia who were working with China — either on espionage charges or failure to disclose foreign monies, as is required by law.
Just a month prior to the Garland decision, FBI Director Christopher Wray traveled to the Reagan presidential library to give a speech pleading for the government to devote more attention and resources to combating China's devastating influence inside the United States. He specifically cited cases where Beijing had used university academics to do its bidding. The FBI boss claimed China's espionage has become "more brazen, [and] more damaging."
"China's government has the global reach and presence of a great nation, but it refuses to act the part and too often uses its capabilities to steal and threaten, rather than to cooperate and build," he argued. "That theft, those threats, are happening right here in America, literally every day."
Just the News reached out to both the Justice Department, to confirm whether Penn ever officially lobbied the DOJ directly, and also to the university itself. Neither institution responded.
Penn has long ties to both the Biden family and China. Its former president, Amy Gutmann, for instance, was named by the president in 2021 to be his ambassador to Germany.
During her Senate confirmation, Gutmann acknowledged the university took money from Chinese interests but insisted it did not affect the school's values and that the university even rejected creating a Confucius Institute on campus funded by entities tied to the Chinese government.
"What I do know, and what I make sure of, is that no gifts, no contracts, to the University of Pennsylvania are allowed to threaten academic freedom, are allowed to threaten national security," she testified. "We do no classified research."
Penn is in the limelight now after the revelation Monday that classified documents from Biden's vice presidency — including top secret items and intelligence on Ukraine and Iran — were found last November in Biden's old office at the Penn Biden Center think tank, where he worked in D.C. from 2017 to 2019.
The White House claimed the memos were found by lawyers cleaning out Biden's old office. Multiple news organizations reported Wednesday that more classified documents were found at a second location used by Biden.
The university has said it did not solicit any donations specifically to fund the Penn Biden Center, funding it out of its operating budget while also paying Biden a handsome sum to be an honorary professor who did not teach classes but made occasional appearance or lectures.
Biden's tax returns reviewed by Just the News show Penn paid the future president $911,644 between spring 2017 and spring 2019, when he stepped aside to run for president.
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Reports compiled by the conservative watchdog group National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) from disclosures to the Department of Education showed that Penn collected more than $67.6 million in donations and contracts from China between 2013 and 2019. The vast majority of that money, $47.7 million, flowed during the three years Biden was employed by the university, the records show.
The Chinese money poured in most rapidly in the four months after Biden opened the center in February 2018, a period during which nearly $20 million came through, including a $14.5 million anonymous gift on May 28, 2018, according to a complaint the NLPC filed with the U.S. government in 2020.
"The University of Pennsylvania and the Penn Biden Center are particularly vulnerable to China government influences due to the large amounts of China donations and contracts," the NLPC alleged in the complaint.
The NLPC filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on Tuesday seeking "all documents, including but not limited to emails, text messages, communications, memoranda, and photographs, that refer to the discovery and handling of classified and other presidential records that were in a closet at the Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement."
"They do get money from China, either directly or indirectly," NLPC counsel Paul Kamenar told Just the News. "With Hunter [Biden], it was directly from an energy company. It's a fact that UPenn has received some $60 million in Chinese donations, $22 million of which is anonymous. The actual donors should be disclosed. Not simply that it's 'from China.'"
The watchdog group had initially filed a complaint with the DOJ in 2020 urging that the center be investigated and potentially treated as "foreign agents." The University has denied any wrongdoing.
Penn has been very "opaque" when confronted with these discrepancies, and "it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to realize the money from China to the school is not going to Pennsylvania's music department," said Kamenar. "It's going to UPenn's international program, of which the Biden Center is one of the top beneficiaries."
Kamenar also raised several other questions and concerns, including how the classified documents in question ended up in the Biden Center in the first place when it didn't even open its doors until two years after the former vice president had left office.
Noting that the White House is claiming Biden was vacating the Penn-Biden Center office space, Kamenar said he spoke with the leasing manager of the building, who said the center still had 4-5 years left on its lease.
"Why would you have high powered attorneys be your movers?" Kamenar asked. "That's a high price to pay for a mover. What were the lawyers doing there in the first place? I'd like to know their names."
Penn boasts numerous programs in China, including "currently [having] over 20 international partnerships with Chinese institutions, including Shanghai Jiao Tong University, with whom Penn first entered into an agreement in 1980," according to its website. "Faculty from all of Penn's 12 schools have reported over 350 research projects and instructional activities in China, including many of the projects presented at the annual Penn China Research Symposium."
Several security experts interviewed by Just the News said the loss of the China Initiative after pressure from schools like Penn was a serious blow to the FBI's ability to fight Chinese espionage threats in the academic world.
"This may be the best $67 million investment the CCP has ever made," retired FBI intelligence chief Kevin Brock told Just the News. "By donating a stunning amount of money to an American university with deep ties to Joe Biden, China was able to have a major impediment to its strategy of targeting American academic researchers across the country completely removed courtesy of Biden's Attorney General Merrick Garland.
"Bottom line," Brock added, "the FBI's China Initiative worked against a known national security threat. The idea that it was racially biased is absurd and certainly less so than the common practice of admissions discrimination against Asian American students so common in many Ivy League schools."
Former National Security Advisor John Bolton said the Biden DOJ's closing of the FBI counterintelligence program was "a huge mistake" and that arguments by universities like Penn that the program was racist were preposterous.
"It obviously has nothing to do with race," Bolton said on the John Solomon Reports podcast Wednesday. "There's long been great relations between the people of China and the people of the United States. And the past 70-plus years, it's been the communist government of China. That's been the problem. And they're the ones that were conducting the espionage. They've been all over American universities."
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Among Congressional investigators, there is a broader concern that the Penn Biden Center and the flow of Chinese money to the host university may have been part of a larger China influence operation targeting the Biden family, one that U.S. banks began flagging with suspicious activity reports to the Treasury Department in 2013 — after Hunter Biden joined his father on a trip to Beijing and began scoring overseas business deals.
In the 2017-18 time period, while the center was set up, Hunter Biden was deep in negotiations with a Chinese energy company called CEFC on a deal to route U.S. natural gas and energy assets to the Chinese. The deal included the Biden family getting a $5 million no interest, forgiveable loan from Chinese sources, according to a document found on a laptop seized by the FBI.
The loan arrangement, confirmed in documents previously obtained by Just the News and information released by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), shows that CEFC Beijing International Energy Company Limited understood the transaction would greatly benefit Joe Biden's family (referred to as "BD family" in emails).
In one case uncomfortably close to the first family, Patrick Ho, one of Hunter Biden's business partners in the CEFC China energy deal, was charged with using a U.S. think tank to carry out a scheme to bribe officials in Africa over energy deals.
Patrick Ho, a CEFC executive who worked closely with Hunter Biden before his arrest, was eventually convicted in a federal court in Manhattan of multiple felonies and sentenced to three years in prison.
The DOJ alleged that Ho also tried to broker arms transactions and other business with Iran in violation of Western sanctions. Ho wrote an email in 2014 — before he connected with the Biden family — saying that "Iran has money in a bank in China which is under sanction" and that it wished to purchase precious metals through a bank in Hong Kong, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court.
At least one of the classified documents that Joe Biden's lawyer found at his private think tank office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington involved intelligence on Iran, according to multiple media reports.
This Garland guy seems to be a rotten apple.
Biden was selling information to the chinese of course. That’s why they have all those classified documents. Even I can figure that one out. Joe Bidet is one slimy individual. The there’s Hunter following in his father’s slime.
Garland is one of a fairly small group.
He’s a member of BOTH the Clinton Crime Family and the Chicago Political Mob.
China gave U Penn 54 Million. Biden set up his Center there and took 1 million year to teach and never taught. The Chinese own Biden and his son who had a 1.5 billion contract. Now we conclude the Chinese had access to the documents which involved Iran and the Ukraine.
When your President is on the Chinese payroll, his employees will act accordingly. The Manchurian Candidate became President.
Spreading like a cancer on the country.
The Beltway Maytag Group, LLC.
[received $47.7 million from China]
Who says money can’t buy anything anymore?
The CCP has more power than the interests of the American people given that they were effectively paying our current President a salary (laundered through an Ivy League School).
The CCP has enough power to shut down investigations into America academia working for Chinese interests.
The CCP gave the son of the President hundreds of millions of dollars to “invest”.
The President flew his son on an official visit to China and the son conducted business on behalf of the family while his father, the VP, was supposed to be conducting official business on behalf of the American people.
Substitute the name “Trump” for “Biden” and tell me what the news coverage would look like.
One of the few things Mitch McConnell did was keep Garland off the Supreme Court. Garland is as bad as Eric Holder.
Biden shut down Trump’s ‘China Initiative’ intelligence operation that targeted Chinese espionage in the U.S. The ‘Big Guy’ wanted to keep getting his cut of Chinese Commie payoffs I guess.
Its even worse.
Anthony Blinken, who is now our Chief Diplomat, was the CEO of the Biden Penn Center so he was also paid by the CCP. I wonder what his salary was? Who paid his “travel expenses”?
At the same time he was being paid by the CCP for the Biden Penn Center, he had a “consulting firm” to help American universities solicit foreign money (primarily from the CCP) legally.
After taking office, they shut down a DOJ/FBI program to investigate infiltration by the CCP into American universities.
Nothing to see there..... /s
This goes beyond a “conflict of interest”. The two people who have the most power over our relationship with the CCP are on the payroll of the CCP.
thanx
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April 20, 2021
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California Man Sentenced for Illegally Exporting Cesium Atomic Clocks to Hong Kong
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February 3, 2021
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Chinese National Charged with Criminal Conspiracy to Export U.S. Power Amplifiers to China
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October 28, 2020
Eight Individuals Charged With Conspiring to Act as Illegal Agents of the People’s Republic of China
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September 16, 2020
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September 15, 2020
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June 9, 2020
Harvard University Professor Indicted on False Statement Charges
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University of Arkansas Professor Arrested for Wire Fraud
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May 11, 2020
Former Emory University Professor and Chinese “Thousand Talents” Participant Convicted and Sentenced for Filing a False Tax Return
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April 9, 2020
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March 17, 2020
Hayward Resident Sentenced to Four Years for Acting as an Agent of the People’s Republic of China
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March 10, 2020
Former West Virginia University Professor Pleads Guilty to Fraud That Enabled Him to Participate in the People’s Republic of China’s “Thousand Talents Plan”
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February 27, 2020
Chinese National Sentenced for Stealing Trade Secrets Worth $1 Billion
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February 13, 2020
Chinese Telecommunications Conglomerate Huawei and Subsidiaries Charged in Racketeering Conspiracy and Conspiracy to Steal Trade Secrets
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February 11, 2020
American Businessman Who Ran Houston-Based Subsidiary of Chinese Company Sentenced To Prison for Theft of Trade Secrets
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February 10, 2020
Chinese Military Personnel Charged with Computer Fraud, Economic Espionage and Wire Fraud for Hacking into Credit Reporting Agency Equifax
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January 28, 2020
Harvard University Professor and Two Chinese Nationals Charged in Three Separate China Related Cases
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January 28, 2020
Cancer Researcher from China Charged with Smuggling and False Statements After Being Caught at the Airport with Twenty-one Vials of Stolen Biological Research Material
Zaosong Zheng, 30, a Chinese national, was arrested at Boston’s Logan International Airport, and charged by criminal complaint with attempting to smuggle twenty-one vials of biological research to China. Zheng was later indicted on one count of smuggling goods from the United States and one count of making false, fictitious or fraudulent statements. He pleaded guilty to making false statements in December 2020 and was sentenced to time served in January 2021.
December 19, 2019
Department of Justice Reaches $5.5 Million Settlement with Van Andel Research Institute to Resolve Allegations of Undisclosed Chinese Grants to Two Researchers
The Department of Justice announced today that Van Andel Research Institute (VARI) has agreed to pay $5,500,000.00 to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act by submitting federal grant applications and progress reports to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in which VARI failed to disclose Chinese government grants that funded two VARI researchers. The settlement further resolves allegations that, in a December 2018 letter, VARI made certain factual representations to NIH with deliberate ignorance or reckless disregard for the truth regarding the Chinese grants.
November 22, 2019
Former CIA Officer Sentenced for Conspiracy to Commit Espionage
A former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) case officer was sentenced to 19 years in prison for conspiring to communicate, deliver and transmit national defense information to the People’s Republic of China.
November 21, 2019
Chinese National Who Worked at Monsanto Indicted on Economic Espionage Charges
Haitao Xiang, 42, formerly of Chesterfield, Missouri, was indicted \by a federal grand jury on one count of conspiracy to commit economic espionage, three counts of economic espionage, one count of conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets, and three counts of theft of trade secrets. According to the indictment, Xiang was selected to be a member of a Chinese government Talent Plan, and, within a year, quit his job, and sought to take proprietary farming software to China.
November 14, 2019
Two Former Executives of the China Subsidiary of a Multi-Level Marketing Company Charged for Scheme to Pay Foreign Bribes and Circumvent Internal Accounting Controls
The former head of the Chinese subsidiary of a publicly traded international multi-level marketing company and the former head of the external affairs department of the Chinese subsidiary of the same company were charged for their roles in a scheme to violate the anti-bribery and the internal control provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
October 18, 2019
Chinese National Sentenced to 40 Months in Prison for Conspiring to Illegally Export Military- and Space-Grade Technology from the United States to China
Tao Li, a 39-year-old Chinese national, was sentenced to 40 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release after pleading guilty to conspiring to export military and space-grade technology to the People’s Republic of China without a license, in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which makes certain unauthorized exports illegal.
September 24, 2019
Former Intelligence Officer Convicted of Attempted Espionage Sentenced to 10 Years in Federal Prison
Ron Rockwell Hansen, 60, of Utah, a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer, who pleaded guilty to attempting to communicate, deliver, or transmit information involving the national defense of the United States to the People’s Republic of China, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.
August 21, 2019
University of Kansas Researcher Indicted for Fraud for Failing to Disclose Conflict of Interest with Chinese University
Feng “Franklin” Tao, an associate professor at Kansas University, was indicted on federal charges for concealing the fact he was a full-time employee for Fuzhou University, in China, while doing research at KU that was funded by the U.S. government. Jury trial continued from December 2021, with a new date to be determined.
July 11, 2019
Newly Unsealed Federal Indictment Charges Software Engineer with Taking Stolen Trade Secrets to China
Xudong Yao, aka William Yao, a software engineer at a suburban Chicago locomotive manufacturer, was charged with nine counts of theft of trade secrets for allegedly stealing proprietary information from the company and taking it to China.
July 9, 2019
Former State Department Employee Sentenced for Conspiring with Chinese Agents
Candace Marie Clairborne, a former employee of the U.S. Department of State, was sentenced to 40 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of $40,000. Clairborne was found guilty of conspiracy to defraud the United States by lying to law enforcement and background investigators, and hiding her extensive contacts with, and gifts from, agents of the People’s Republic of China, which were provided in exchange for internal documents from the U.S. State Department.
July 2, 2019
Electrical Engineer Convicted of Conspiring to Illegally Export to China Semiconductor Chips with Missile Guidance Applications
Yi-Chi Shih, an electrical engineer, was found guilty of multiple criminal charges, including a scheme to illegally obtain integrated circuits with military applications that were later exported to China without the required export license. After a six-week trial, Shih was found guilty of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a federal law that makes certain unauthorized exports illegal. He was sentenced to over five years in prison in July 2021.
May 17, 2019
Former CIA Officer Sentenced to Prison for Espionage
Former U.S. Intelligence officer Kevin Patrick Mallory was convicted under the Espionage Act for conspiracy to transmit national defense information to an agent of the People’s Republic of China. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison followed by five years of supervised release.
May 9, 2019
Member of Sophisticated China-Based Hacking Group Indicted for Series of Computer Intrusions, Including 2015 Data Breach of Health Insurer Anthem Inc. Affecting Over 78 Million People
A federal grand jury returned an indictment charging a Chinese national as part of an extremely sophisticated hacking group operating in China and targeting large businesses in the United States, including a computer intrusion and data breach of Indianapolis-based health insurer Anthem Inc.
April 23, 2019
Former GE Engineer and Chinese Businessman Charged with Economic Espionage and Theft of GE’s Trade Secrets
An indictment charged Xiaoqing Zheng and Zhaoxi Zhang with economic espionage and conspiring to steal General Electric’s (GE) trade secrets relating to its turbine technology, knowing and intending that the stolen trade secrets would be used to benefit the People’s Republic of China. The 14-count indictment alleged Zheng, while employed at GE Power & Water, exploited his access by stealing multiple electronic files and transferring them to Zhang, his business partner in China. Jury trial is set to begin in March 2022.
April 17, 2019
Former Manager for International Airline Pleads Guilty to Acting as an Agent of the Chinese Government
Ying Lin, a former manager with an international air carrier headquartered in the People’s Republic of China, pleaded guilty to acting as an agent of the PRC, without prior notification to the Attorney General. Lin transported packages from John F. Kennedy International Airport to the PRC at the orders of the Chinese military officers, in violation of Transportation Security Administration regulations. Lin was subsequently sentenced to probation in December 2019.
January 28, 2019
Chinese Telecommunications Device Manufacturer and its U.S. Affiliate Indicted for Theft of Trade Secrets, Wire Fraud, and Obstruction of Justice
A 10-count indictment, unsealed in the Western District of Washington, charged Huawei Device Co., Ltd. and Huawei Device Co. USA with theft of trade secrets conspiracy, attempted theft of trade secrets, seven counts of wire fraud, and one count of obstruction of justice. The indictment details Huawei’s alleged efforts to steal trade secrets from T-Mobile USA and then obstruct justice when T-Mobile threatened to sue Huawei in U.S. District Court.
December 20, 2018
Two Chinese Hackers Associated with the Ministry of State Security Charged with Global Computer Intrusion Campaigns Targeting Intellectual Property and Confidential Business Information
The Southern District of New York unsealed an indictment charging Chinese nationals Zhu Hua and Zhang Shilong with conspiracy to commit computer intrusions, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft. As alleged, the defendants, through their involvement in a hacking group associated with the Chinese Ministry of State Security, from 2006 to in or about 2018, conducted global campaigns of computer intrusions targeting, among other data, intellectual property and confidential business and technological information at managed service providers, which are companies that remotely manage the information technology infrastructure of businesses and governments around the world, including in the United States.
Updated February 23, 2022
Garland has no core though.....
p
Garland carries a commie stench about him - same as John Kerry, Meathead, and the Teacher's union babe'... I wonder what that means?
Rush Limbaugh called it “Big Education”. Wow! How right he was.
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