The Daily Signal - INTERVIEW | Paul Kamenar on Why Special Counsel Should Expand Probe to Penn Biden Center's China Ties

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

President Joe Biden has had a difficult time explaining the increasing number of classified information documents that have been found at his home and at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank established in coordination with the University of Pennsylvania. The National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group, first flagged the fact that some $60 million in donations from Chinese-connected entities were donated to the University of Pennsylvania for the Penn Biden Center. The new special counsel named to investigate Biden's alleged mishandling of classified information, Robert Hur, should expand his investigation to include the China connections with the Penn Biden Center, contends National Legal and Policy Center counsel Paul Kamenar told The Daily Signal. The watchdog group has already provided information to the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, as well as to the newly established House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, Kamenar said. But watchdog groups and the press can only request information under the Freedom of Information Act, and at best litigate if agencies don't comply. Both a special counsel and a congressional committee can compel cooperation. Kamenar joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss the classified documents discovered at the Penn Biden Center and the president's private home in Delaware; the China connection; where Biden's son Hunter fits into all of this; and how the Justice Department, the National Archives and the intelligence community have treated the Biden classified documents case differently than the documents case of former President Donald Trump. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Today we're talking with Paul Kaminar with the National Legal and Policy Center about the latest with President Biden's classified document scandal. We'll talk more about that right after this. We get it. With big media bias, it's hard to find accurate, honest news. That's why we've put together the Morning Bell newsletter, a compilation of the top stories and conservative commentary. To subscribe, just head to Daily News.

DailySignal.com slash morning bell subscription or visitdailysignal.com and click on the connect button at the top of the page. I am here with Paul Kaminar. He is the Council for the National Legal and Policy Center, which was the first watchdog organization to really jump in on the Penn Biden Center. Thanks for joining us, Paul. Thank you for having me, Fred. Yeah, so I did want to talk to you. You were the first to really expose at the Penn Biden Center. had these China ties with the $60 million in donations from China entity. Do you think the stakes are higher now with this classified document investigation being tied back to this organization? Oh, sure, absolutely. Yeah, yes.

The National Legal Policy Center, we've been investigating the Biden Center for the last several years. And in May 2020, we filed a complaint. with the Department of Education that the University of Pennsylvania wasn't fully disclosing the donations they received from China, from entities within China. And at that time, they were receiving approximately some $63 million, of which $22 million was marked as anonymous. they did list for the other donations, the name of the entity within China that was giving the money, whether it was a Chinese bank or some other institution there, that all these corporations and entities are

connected, of course, to the Chinese Communist Party. So, yeah, we've been on that. And then, of course, since our complaint filed in 2020, there's been, I think, another 20, million or so that University of Pennsylvania has received up to July 2022, which was the last date of the reporting period that university, as well as all universities, have to report to the Department of Education money they're getting from foreign sources. All right. Is this something that you think the special counsel, his role is to investigate the mishandling of classified documents, but is this something that his investigation could expand into?

Well, yeah, it certainly can. He's charged by Mayor Garland to investigate the classified documents, as we know. several of them were found at the Biden center. And there's a whole issue of how they got there and why Biden hired expensive private attorneys on November 2nd to move his office after being in the White House for almost two years. That makes no sense at all. But, yeah, the special counsel can get into that China connection. But I think if he does that, he would need to go back to Mayor Garland and asking for an expansion of his charter or jurisdiction to get into that.

I recall that's how it kind of happened when Robert Mueller was a special counsel looking into the Russian hoax issues. And he was looking at Paul Manafort. And Paul Manafort, he found out was having some tax problems with his, connection with Ukraine and so forth. And so that was not the Russian hoax. It was back taxes back, you know, even before Trump decided to run. So what Muddledon has went back to Rod Rosenstein, it was the deputy attorney general and said, hey, I'm uncovering some other possible criminal activity. Will you please give me the authority to go after Paul Manafort on his

back tax issue, which he did? And of course, he was convicted. So, yes, the current special counsel, Robert Herr, who, by the way, is not on the job yet, which is kind of interesting. It's still being handled by John Losh, the U.S. Attorney in Illinois, because he's the one that oversaw the investigation this weekend at Biden's home. But anyway, yeah, it can expand into the China connection. But even if it doesn't, James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, has already sent out a letter to the University of Pennsylvania on Friday asking for a lot of stuff about all their Chinese donations, all the connections and emails about that, about who had access to the Biden center. center, so forth and so on.

So one way or another, the Chinese money connection will be exposed on this. Now, the University of Pennsylvania has been playing coy with us and the media by denying that the Biden Center receives any China money. their standard line that they've been spewing for the last couple of years is that we do not solicit money to the Biden Center from China, period. Well, yeah, but when you start parsing that statement, that very well may be true that you don't solicit money directly to the Biden Center. But China is not given the University of Pennsylvania all these millions of dollars for their music department. No, no. Doesn't it take a Sherlock Holmes to figure out that they're giving them money to the University of Pennsylvania to run their China programs? And they have several of them, and the Biden Center is part of that program that they have.

It's called Penn Global. And at their one China summit back in January 2020 at the University of Pennsylvania, they had their annual China Summit. back in January 2020 at the University of Pennsylvania. They had their annual China summit kicked off with the ambassador from China, the Council General from New York, went down in Philly, was their keynote speaker. And sitting at the roundtable there was a representative of the Biden Center. And they're all talking about how we can get along with China and this, done the other thing. Of course, this is just as the COVID broke, but there was not an area

a bad word about how China was the source of the COVID pandemic to begin with. So that's why the national legal policy center after digging deeper into the China connection with the Biden Center and with Hunter Biden, we also filed a complaint with the Department of Justice that both Hunter Biden and the Biden Center have to register as foreign agents of China under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. So there's the connection there that we're making. And the Justice Department won't confirm or deny that they're working on that complaint. But again, that's something that hopefully with the new Congress, Republicans taking charge, they'll have Mayor Garland testify.

We'll hopefully get to the bottom of all this China connection with not the University of Pennsylvania, but China connection with the Biden Center and with Hunter Biden, who we know is getting millions of dollars from the Chinese energy company there for his services, et cetera. Yeah, that's one thing I was going to ask in following up on whether the special counsel, so should expand the probe into the Penn Biden Center and that China money, that there wouldn't necessarily be anything illegal about those donations. However, what the legal matter would be is whether the Penn Biden Center and Hunter Biden should be registered as foreign agents, right?

Well, yeah, but that's illegal if they're not. Right. Right. At fact, right now, Hunter Biden is under investigation by the U.S. attorney in Delaware for back taxes that he's owed that he evaded of some $2 million. And that's been under investigation for the last couple of years. But also, that also includes whether he should have registered as a foreign agent with the Justice Department. and we've been calling as others that, hey, why don't you have a special counsel for Hunter Biden? Why is that being handled in-house at the Justice Department? So there's a question there whether that U.S. attorney will do a full investigation and prosecution of Hunter Biden in that separate matter. Now, it may dovetail with what the special counsel is doing, and they may get together and compare notes and swap, you know, information and their investigation.

So one way or the other, Hunter Biden and a Chinese connection, and the Biden Center is going to come to light, whether it's through the special counsel, whether it's through this U.S. attorney in Delaware, or more likely with the House Oversight Committee, as well as a special counsel. whether it's through this U.S. attorney in Delaware or more likely with the House Oversight Committee, as well as a special select committee, as you know, has been set up on the China connection here. And that's being chaired by Wisconsin Congressman Mike Gallagher. And so there's multiple House committees that are investigating this whole thing. with China and these unabided and the Biden Center. Do you expect the NLP will be working and providing information to the committee's oversight committee and the Select China Committee? Oh, yes.

In fact, we already have. We're in contact with the House Oversight Committee, and we're sharing our information with them, and hopefully we'll be able to help them. find out where some of the dead bodies are, so to speak, and what avenues they should look at. They're doing a good job, but, you know, we need to get more information and also, you know, get the actual funding sources from the University of Pennsylvania in terms of how that the Biden Center is funded. We need to see their internal financial documents because they could

truthfully say, oh, we don't solicit money for the Biden Center. So Congressman Comer, we have nothing to give you on that. We don't have any documents about soliciting. So, but then we have to make them dig another layer deeper on that and follow the money. And in other words, of course, you know, the $900,000 that Joe Biden received as a honorary professor after he left the White House in 2017. And for that, he gave just a half dozen lectures and appearances. So the question is, where do that money come from? You know, the University of Pennsylvania, say, well, that came out of our general treasury. Well, we have to see about that. or whether they dipped into a separate account that was, you know, had a lot of the Chinese money in there.

But we'll get to the bottom of one way or the other because there's a lot of, you know, as they say, follow the money. And that's what we hope to do here. Yeah. I wondered what are your thoughts on the special counsel, Robert Hur. Some say he's got a really good reputation in putting away crooked Maryland politicians. but at the same time, others fear that he's part of the DOJ Swamp. Do you have any thoughts either way? Yeah, he is part of the old boy network here.

I mean, he has got good credentials, et cetera. A couple things about that. First of all, he was appointed a couple weeks ago, and yet he hasn't been on the job yet. which I've scratched by the head because the search of Biden's home on Friday that uncovered a bunch of documents was by the FBI. That was done under the auspices of the U.S. Attorney John Lausch, who was initially appointed in the end of December, early January, to do a preliminary investigation. And after he did that, he went back to Mayor Garland.

And Merrick Garland said, okay, you gave me enough evidence. I need to appoint a special counsel. So on January 11th, you know, basically almost two weeks ago, he appointed Robert Hur. But the questions were, why isn't Robert Her conducting this investigation of the search of Biden's house over the weekend. Why is Laoshe still handling it? There's no clear answer to that.

You know, I know Laosch is a current U.S. attorney in Illinois, but he's leaving and go to private practice. That's why he just say, I don't want to be involved anymore. You better appoint a special counsel. And then Robert Herr, you know, he's, is currently in private practice, so I don't know what's taken him so long to get on the job and open up shop here in D.C. So, you know, there's some transition going on there. But Robert Hur also has some complaints about him because during the Mueller investigation of the Russia hoax,

he was basically a liaison between Mueller and Rod Rosenstein. was the deputy attorney general that oversaw the Russian investigation, because as we know, Jeff Sessions had to recuse himself from that whole thing because it involved things dealing with the campaign that he worked with Trump on. So the Congressman Nunes and Cash Patel have some complaints about Robert Hur, because he was involved in getting some subpoenas against Nunes' staff, et cetera, on this Russian hoaxing. So there's some, you know, interesting background with Robert Hur being closely affiliated with the Robert Mueller hoax an investigation. So we'll have to see how this shakes out. But what we're

doing now is calling upon Robert Herb to, you know, finally get on the job, please, and then also search the University of Delaware, because over the weekend, as we learned, there were some documents that they found at Biden's home that dated back to when he was a senator. And so the question is, well, if you found some of his Senate documents at home, I bet you'll find some more of those in the 1800 boxes that he shipped over to the University of Delaware back in 2009. That is to be his, so to speak, his Senate library, et cetera. Now, those documents are under seal. The University of Delaware has a deal with Joe Biden that they won't allow anybody to look at those documents until two years after Biden leaves the White House, and Biden doesn't want anybody to see what's in there.

But, of course, the Justice Department can go in any time they want. Because, you know, Biden himself can say tomorrow, hey, Justice Department, Robert Herr, yeah, go look at my Senate records, have fun going through my 1800 boxes and see what they find, whether there's some classified documents that are there. And I wouldn't be a surprise, because if he's got some of them at his home, right, it's likely they've got some of those in his Senate file. that he shipped over to the University of Delaware. Right, and a special counsel is not really going to care that much about whatever agreement the university has with the president. No, that's right. And, in fact, Biden will be forced to allow him to do that because, as we know, they searched his home, which they called a, quote, consensual search, end quote.

Well, yeah, consensual, and that's because the FBI went to Biden's attorneys and said, hey, we need to search Biden's home. I know you private attorneys did that, came up with some documents, but we don't trust you guys did a good job. So we want to search the home. Is that okay? well, what's Biden going to say? If he says no, then a subpoena is sent out, a search warrant is sent out.

That's what happens all the time when the FBI searches corporation offices, whatever, they contact the attorneys, and they say, hey, there's some crime we think is going on. we want to search your office, your records. You want to consent to that? And everybody knows, like, well, if you say no, they're going to get a search warrant. So that was a hammer over Biden said, so he had no choice but to consent to it. But then he comes out and makes it look to the public, oh, we're cooperating. See, we said the FBI, please come in, blah, blah.

Well, they had to do that. Otherwise, a search warrant had been issued, and then they would be right back square in the same boat as Donald Trump was when they had to do a search warrant. So they would lose that argument that, oh, we're different than the Trump people because we invited the FBI in there. Well, yes and no. So anyway, the next thing we want them to do is to search the Biden documents. at the University of Delaware. They'd be really derelict in their duties if they did not. And there's also a couple other places that they should search.

First of all, they should go back to the Biden Center. Recall that the private attorneys covered documents back on November 2nd at the Biden Center. and then they started to go at the house and the garage that they found some. But as we know, they did a bad job at the house, and that's why the FBI went in and found some more. Well, I submit they also probably did a bad job at the Biden Center back on November 2nd. So the FBI needs to go back there. and not only search Biden's office within the Biden Center that his attorney did, but search the whole Biden center. There's 14,000 square feet of office space that they have here downtown in the shadow of the Capitol building.

And other people in the administration had their offices there, including Anthony Blanken, who was the managing director. of the Biden Center and now is their Secretary of State. Huh. I bet he would, and he was also an aid to Biden when Biden was a vice president. So it wouldn't be surprised if Tony Blinken was looking at some foreign policy classified documents. So they need to search his old office there as well. And I'm still scratching my head as to, again, why Biden hired private attorney. to, as he said, clear out my office and the Biden Center.

This is two years after, almost two years after he occupied the White House. Why do he wait so long to say, oh, you know, I need to move my office out of the Biden Center? And why did he hire expensive private attorneys to do that rather than call up the Biden staff, you know, and their interns and say, hey, you know, can you clear out my office and send that stuff? to my home in Delaware. That would have been a normal course. And now we learn that when they did clear out his office on November 2nd, they didn't really do that. They apparently stopped searching and clearing out once they got some of these classified documents. And then now we learned that some of the stuff was set up to one of his private attorneys, this guy by the

him of Patrick Moore and his law office is in Boston. So there's some maybe documents there that need to be searched. I mean, this isn't like a scavenger on here. Fred, you know, we've got to find out where all these documents are. And then there was a temporary Penn Biden Center that was located here in town near Chinatown. That's kind of coincidental, the location, because the Biden Center offices right now weren't prepared back then and ready for to move in. So they had a temporary office, Midtown, D.C., before they moved to the Penn Biden Center, which is at 101 Constitution Avenue. And then, of course, there's another place they should search. There's probably nothing there. But after Biden left the White House in 2007,

he rented a huge mansion, 12,000 square foot in McLean, Virginia, a place that had the sauna, a swimming pool, can hold 20 cars in the parking lot in the front there. And it was owned by Mark E-I-N-I-N, I don't know, pronounce that, who's a big Democratic, donor, owner of the D.C.'s Women's Professional Tennis organization, Castle, is the name of the company. So there's stuff maybe there. Anyway, so you've got multiple locations that have to be searched

by the special counsel. But again, the bigger thing, I think we need to get to the bottom is the China Money Connection and Hunter Biden on this. Right, yeah, as you were saying, I think there was this lapse in time after Biden left as vice president before the Biden Center even opened up. So there was someone moving these classified documents and handling. They may or may not have been authorized to even handle these documents. So that opens up even another potential crime, right? Well, yeah.

In fact, his attorneys who first found the documents at the Bible. Center, they realized that they didn't have clearance, and therefore they contacted the White House counsel who does have clearance to come by the Biden Center office, and that's when they took the documents and said, oops, we better turn this over to the National Archives. And then after that, his private attorneys went to the House and Wilmington, but it was the same private attorneys that didn't have clearance. And when they uncovered some more documents in the garage, they did another oopsie and called the White House counsel office and say, hey, you better get over here because you have clearance. We don't.

I mean, you know, this whole thing was amateur hour, the way the whole thing was run. And none of this adds up. And so, yeah, they've also investigated, or at least, talked to this woman who's now at the Defense Department, who apparently was one of Biden's age while he was vice president, Kathy Chung, who Hunter Biden had known and recommended her to work for his dad in the White House. And she was apparently one of the people that help move Biden's documents out of the White House to, at least there was a temporary transition office that GSA had across the street from the executive office building where Biden had his vice presidential offices. So there was some documents stored there first.

So, you know, they're all over the place. It's hard to find out. But hopefully these committees and the special counsel will get to the bottom of it. Yeah. Yeah. In terms of distinguishing this from the Biden classified document case and the Trump classified document case, we've done some reporting here that the National Archives, they're not commenting generally at all on the Biden classified documents. And that agency was sort of like a public statement canon.

during the Trump investigation. They were sending out, they sent out something like 10 public statements regarding the Trump document issues. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah, and I was going to say, similarly, the Office of Director of National Intelligence,

they launched a national security risk assessment regarding the Trump documents. It doesn't look like they're doing the same for Biden. I just kind of wanted to talk to you about the difference and kind of how, not to mention how the Justice Department has handled this whole matter. Yeah, yeah. The federal government's response here. With respect to the National Archives, in fact, Congressman James Comer, you know,

the chairman of the Oversight Committee who's investigating all this, he sent a letter out to the National Archives earlier last week, drilling down on exactly that in terms of how they're handling the Biden classified documents compared to how they handle it with respect to Donald Trump and whether or not there's some bias going on there. And even the Democrats have called for the fact that they need a risk assessment in terms of what were these classified documents about what information they contained and were, where was our national security at risk. So even Mark Warner, the Democratic Senator from Virginia, has called for an assessment from the DNI and the intelligence community to give Congress assessment because that's part of what they're

supposed to do. And so far, we haven't heard much of anything about that. I think that's all I have. Is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners on this point? No, I think we've covered basically everything so far. So it's just a matter for the House committee to keep doing it because I'm sure what's going to happen is Merrick Garland and the Special Counsel will try to tell the House, oh, don't investigate this.

We're working on possible criminal charges, then you're going to interfere with our investigation. And that, I think, is not a valid argument. The Congress is not taking its orders from the executive branch or separate branch under our government. Congress has basically plenary oversight power to investigate anything they want. and if it comes down to whether there's a criminal problem, they can also give immunity if they think is necessary to witnesses who they subpoena before the committee, because I'm sure some of them will say, oh, no, I hereby take the fifth. Robert Herr is investigating this.

Well, if it's something that we think the public should know, the committee can give immunity, but I don't think they should simply stop their investigation just because the special counsel is now investigating it. Gotcha. All right. Well, Paul Kamenar with the National Legal and Policy Center. Thanks for joining us. Thank you, Fred.

My pleasure. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thank you for listening to the Daily Signal podcast. If you haven't gotten a chance, be sure to check out our evening show right here. in the podcast feed when we bring you the top news of the day. Also, make sure you subscribe to the Daily Signal podcast wherever you get your podcast and help us reach more listeners by leaving a five-star rating and review. Thanks again for listening.

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