The anonymous Chinese donors who contributed more than $22 million to the Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania still have not been revealed, with less than a week to go till Election Day.
The National Legal and Policy Center has repeatedly pressed the university to divulge where the anonymous gifts came from. The NLPC also filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education flagging the donations, which it contends must be tied to a source under a federal law that requires universities to disclose any donations over $250,000.
Despite these efforts to uncover the source of the donations, the identities remain under wraps. According to the NLPC, the Education Department said it will not force the Biden Center to disclose the donor list.
According to NLPC, UPenn received more than $70 million from Chinese sources between 2013 and 2019. Of that amount, about $22 million was logged as coming from anonymous sources in China.
Money poured into the school after the Penn Biden Center officially opened. In May 2108, the largest anonymous donation from China rolled in, totaling $14.5 million. More money was donated once Biden announced he was running for president last year. It is unclear exactly how much money went directly to the Penn Biden Center, according to the financials reported in the NLPC complaint.
“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 complaint argued.
NLPC attorney Paul Kamenar told Newsmax he questions why the university "isn't coming clean" on the anonymous donations.
"Why aren't you releasing this information so we can see who these Chinese sources are and how much money is being funneled to the Biden Center?" he asked. "You have to scratch your head and say, 'What's going on here?' Millions of dollars are being funneled to the Biden Center and you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to find out that the Biden Center isn't making its money off bake sales."
The complaint also referenced the 2020 Penn China Research Symposium held on Jan. 31. A Penn Biden Center representative served as a panelist during an event called "China and the Future of Healthcare and Biotechnology." The event, which took place as the coronavirus was spreading globally, featured Ambassador Huang Ping, the consul general from New York's Chinese consulate general.
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