The Republican House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman wants answers about the classified documents found at the Penn Biden Center from Secretary of State Antony Blinken — a former managing director of the center in the nation’s capital.
President Joe Biden’s personal attorneys allegedly first discovered classified documents in early November at the center. Biden’s lawyers have since found more classified documents at Biden’s Wilmington home in December and January, and the Department of Justice found more when it conducted its own search Friday. The classified records allegedly date back to Biden’s days as senator and vice president.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES DEFENSE OF OBAMA-ERA RECORDS RINGS HOLLOW
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), who now holds the GOP gavel, wants to know what Blinken knew and when he knew it, saying he has “grave concern” about the improper handling of the classified documents.
“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 the Monday letter to Blinken that was obtained by the Washington Examiner. 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.”
Blinken, who had led the Penn Biden Center prior to becoming secretary of state, denied knowing about the classified documents.
“The short answer is no,” Blinken said last week when asked about any foreknowledge. “As you heard from President Biden about a week ago, I was surprised to learn that there were any government records taken to the Penn Biden Center. I had no knowledge of it at the time. The White House, of course, has indicated that the administration is cooperating fully with the review that the Justice Department has undertaken, and I of course would cooperate fully with that review myself.”
McCaul asked Blinken to provide any and all communications from November through the present related to classified documents found at the Penn Biden Center or Biden’s Wilmington home and asked whether any of the documents are State Department records.
The congressman also asked for a “detailed explanation” of Blinken’s role at the Biden center, including when he became aware of the presence of classified documents there and whether he had access to spaces where classified records were found.
Multiple other top Biden State Department officials also previously worked for the Biden center.
Michael Carpenter, the U.S. permanent representative to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe as of late 2021, had been managing director of the Penn Biden Center prior to that. Jeffery Prescott, deputy to the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, had been a senior fellow and strategic consultant at the Biden center. And Brian McKeon, deputy secretary for management and resources from early 2021 until the end of 2022, was a senior director at the center before that.
McCaul asked when the trio each became aware of the classified materials at the Biden center and whether they had access to those spaces and also asked what role the officials had played in or knowledge they had of Penn’s fundraising related to China.
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 University of Pennsylvania has received tens of millions of dollars in donations and gifts from Chinese sources since the end of Biden’s vice presidency and the launch of the Biden center.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
McCaul told Blinken that these Chinese donations “raise questions about the Center’s potential ties to — or benefits derived from — that funding, interactions you or others had with the donors, and whether People’s Republic of China linked individuals ever entered the Center and came within close proximity of classified U.S. intelligence information.”
“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 spokesperson for the school said last week.
McCaul asked Blinken about his involvement in fundraising activities for the Biden center or for Penn and whether he had any knowledge of or involvement in the Chinese donations.
