PHILADELPHIA — The FBI conducted a previously undisclosed search in November of President Joe Biden’s former office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, D.C., after his personal lawyers found classified documents there earlier that month, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.
It is unclear if any new classified documents were found in the mid-November FBI search, which was conducted with the cooperation of Biden’s representatives, according to CBS News, which first reported on the search.
A spokesperson for the University of Pennsylvania on Tuesday referred questions to the Department of Justice, which declined to comment. The White House also declined to comment.
The FBI search followed the Nov. 2 discovery of around 10 documents in a locked closet at the Penn Biden Center as the president’s personal attorneys were clearing out the office, located a short distance from the U.S. Capitol. The center was created in 2018 after Biden served as vice president.
On Jan. 20, the FBI conducted a consensual search of Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware. The next day, an attorney for Biden announced that six classified documents were found during the 13-hour search. Other records and notes were taken by the FBI as well. Biden’s legal team also found classified records at the Wilmington residence during an earlier review.
A total of 25 to 30 classified documents from his time as vice president and a senator have been found at Biden’s home and at the Penn Biden Center, CBS News reported.
The politically charged controversy over classified documents first erupted last August when the FBI raided the Mar-a-Lago estate of former President Donald Trump. Since then, more than 300 documents marked classified have been recovered from Mar-a-Lago and a South Florida storage unit.
A reportedly small number of classified documents also were found recently in the Indiana home of former Vice President Mike Pence. A lawyer for Pence said the documents were turned over to the FBI.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel to lead an investigation into how the documents ended up at Biden’s home and former office and whether any laws were broken.
Trump is facing an investigation by a separate special counsel after repeatedly refusing federal efforts to recover classified and official records at his Florida estate.
Under the Presidential Records Act, official files belonging to the president and vice president must be turned over to the National Archives at the end of their term, and knowingly removing classified documents with the intent to retain them is illegal.
The Republican head of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee recently wrote to Penn president Liz Magill demanding information about an increase in Chinese donations to the university after the formation of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.
Penn has 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.
The Penn Biden website says that the center’s mission is to conudct “original research, analysis, and commentary on America’s place in the world and the global forces that impact our national security, democratic institutions, and foreign policy.” The website says the center is “completely independent” of the Biden administration and does not collect any contributions or gifts.
The letter from Oversight Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-KY, said 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 did not provide any evidence of linkage between the center and the increased donations.
A Penn spokesperson 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.
Biden kept an office in the center after he left his vice presidency in 2017 and used it “periodically,” a lawyer for Biden said, until he launched his 2020 campaign.
During that time, Biden was also appointed an honorary professor and paid speaker at Penn, where he collected more than $900,000. He took an unpaid leave of absence from the university in 2019 when he announced his presidential campaign.
Many Biden aides 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. Former Penn president Amy 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.
Public records do show an increase 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.
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.
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