The Penn Biden Center, which has come under scrutiny as the site where classified documents were found in the office of now-President Joe Biden, operated as something of a well-funded administration-in-waiting at the end of the Obama administration.
At least 11 former officials at the Penn Biden Center, including a few of its managing directors, have joined the Biden administration. And at least three former leaders of the University of Pennsylvania, including the school president who helped establish the Penn Biden Center, have also gotten plum diplomatic posts during Biden’s presidency.
Biden’s personal attorneys said they first discovered classified documents in early November at the Penn Biden Center, located in the nation’s capital. Biden’s lawyers have since found more classified documents at his Wilmington, Delaware, home, and the Department of Justice found more when it conducted its own search last month.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken was the managing director of the Penn Biden Center from 2017 to 2019. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wants to know what Blinken knew about the Biden documents saga and when he knew it, saying he has “grave concern” about the improper handling of the classified records.
“The Foreign Affairs Committee is concerned about the national security and foreign policy implications of classified documents found at the Penn Biden Center, where you and several high-ranking State Department officials worked prior to your current executive branch appointments,” McCaul said in his January letter to Blinken. He added he would “like to better understand the role you and other Department officials played at the Center, as well as the extent of your knowledge and access to the documents found at the Center.”
Steve Richetti, now a White House counselor for Biden, was also briefly the managing director at the Penn Biden Center in 2019 following Blinken before joining Biden’s campaign.
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“I’m hoping that we’re gonna see some future secretaries of state, some presidents, some national security advisers roll through this outfit,” Biden said of the Penn Biden Center in February 2018. Blinken became secretary of state, and multiple Penn Biden Center staffers joined the National Security Council under national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
Ariana Berengaut, the founding director of programs and strategic planning at the Penn Biden Center, is now a senior adviser to Sullivan. Juan Gonzalez, a former senior fellow at the center, is now the NSC senior director for the Western Hemisphere. And Carlyn Reichel, the former communications director at the center, was named the senior director for speechwriting and strategic initiatives at the NSC.
Michael Carpenter, now the U.S. permanent representative to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe as of late 2021, had also been a managing director of the Penn Biden Center prior to that. Jeffery Prescott, currently the deputy to the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations as of early 2021, had been a senior fellow and strategic consultant at the center.
Brian McKeon, who served as deputy secretary for management and resources at the State Department from early 2021 until the end of 2022, was a senior director at the center. And Bill Russo, who helped start up the center, is the acting principal deputy assistant secretary of state in the bureau of global public affairs.
Colin Kahl, a former strategic adviser for the Penn Biden Center, is now the undersecretary of defense for policy under Biden. And Spencer Boyer, a former senior fellow at the center, became deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO policy during the Biden administration.
Multiple former top University of Pennsylvania officials have also helped fill out the Biden ambassadorial ranks since he took office.
Amy Gutmann was the president of Penn from 2004 until she was confirmed U.S. ambassador to Germany in 2022. Gutmann also played a key role in hiring Biden as a professor at Penn and in establishing the Penn Biden Center. Biden earned more than $900,000 from the University of Pennsylvania from 2017 to 2019, according to his tax filings. He was named the Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice professor at Penn, where he led his center and also had an office on campus.
The Penn Biden Center released a launch announcement video in early 2018, and it features Gutmann and Biden. During speeches at the grand opening in Washington, D.C., Blinken gave a short introduction of Gutmann and welcomed everyone in the crowd on behalf of himself and Richetti. Gutmann then gave a speech launching the Penn Biden Center and introducing Biden.
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David Cohen, who had been chairman of the board of trustees for Penn, also became U.S. ambassador to Canada in late 2021. And Randi Levine, a former board member for the Barbara and Edward Netter Center for Community Partnerships at Penn, became U.S. ambassador to Portugal in early 2022.
McCaul asked for details on any interactions Gutmann and Cohen had with China both at Penn and now as diplomats, what their roles were in China-related fundraising at the school, and whether they had access to the Penn Biden Center.
