WTI Extends Losses After API Reports Big Crude Build
Oil prices tumbled today. Overnight saw gains on the heels of China reopening hope (and optimistic IEA forecasts for 2023 demand) and then dumped it all back and then some during the US day session as macro data signaled a harder landing than so many have hoped for.
“Oil’s rally could not last after energy traders saw broad weakness across large parts of the US economy,” said Ed Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA.
“Crude-demand concerns are growing as the consumer is much weaker than expected and as the manufacturing sector is plunging.”
After last week’s utterly chaotic looking inventory data (massive builds likely due to the national ‘deep freeze’), traders are waiting for outputs to normalize somewhat, and expect this week’s data to remain noisy.
API
Crude +7.6mm
Cushing +3.7mm
Gasoline +2.8mm
Distillates -1.8mm
Echoing last week’s official data, we suspect API is playing catch-up as it reports huge builds in crude and at Cushing and a Distillates draw
Source: Bloomberg
WTI was hovering around $79.50 before the print and slipped lower after…
“Two wild cards dominate the 2023 oil market outlook: Russia and China. This year could see oil demand rise by 1.9 mb/d to reach 101.7 mb/d, the highest ever, tightening the balances as Russian supply slows under the full impact of sanctions. China will drive nearly half this global demand growth even as the shape and speed of its reopening remains uncertain,” the IEA said.
The World Economic Forum, governments around the world, and the mainstream news media are sounding the alarm in Davos about crazy-sounding, right-wing conspiracy theories. And it’s easy to see why: conspiracy theories are prima facie silly. The boring truth is that people and institutions are terrible at keeping secrets.
And yet, a shocking number of crazy-sounding right-wing conspiracy theories have, recently, turned out to be true:
The World Economic Forum really does exercise a creepy influence over world leaders and it really does want “A Great Reset” whereby we’ll collectively move to living in low-energy, high-density, and low-privacy environments, having less physical wealth and, yes, eating insects for protein instead of meat.
The FBI really did spy on Donald Trump’s campaign, run brief-and-leak operations, and spread misinformation about the extent of Russian election interference in ways that led nearly all of the media, media platforms, and Democrats to believe that Hunter Biden’s laptop was fake and anyone who talked about it is a conspiracy theorist, and in a way that may have constituted election interference.
Facebook and Twitter really did censor accurate covid information at the behest of the White House and Twitter, and operate secret blacklists to censor and deplatform disfavored voices and opinions, even when their own internal teams said the people being censored had not actually broken any of the platform’s rules.
The people who allege that the above were, and remain, “conspiracy theories,” say that World Economic Forum is just a gabfest, the FBI was simply doing what bipartisan majorities in Congress and the President agreed was necessary after Russian election interference on the 2016 elections, and government officials and social media executives were doing the best they could with the information they had during a fast-moving pandemic where millions of lives were at stake.
But if the World Economic Forum is a gabfest, it is also, including in its own opinion, enormously powerful, with its founder, Klaus Schwab, playing a mysteriously large role within the G-20 organization of world leaders.
Russian influence over the 2016 election was massively overstated, and the FBI went far beyond what Congress and the President asked and appears to have carried out an orchestrated campaign to deliberately misinform the media and social media platforms about the Hunter Biden laptop, which it had in its possession.
And while Monday morning quarterbacking on covid often goes too far, it’s also the case that Twitter and Facebook censored qualified people who were expressing a reasonable point of view about the vaccines and suppressed factually-accurate vaccine information.
What’s more, all of the above raise significant concerns about the current state of Western democracy.
A rich, secretive, and unelected person, Klaus Schwab, is exercising a weirdly large influence over world leaders on the Left and Right, from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
The FBI, the most important law enforcement organization in the world, is under the control of people who have shown great comfort in abusing the warrant process, leaking to the press, and influencing journalists and social media executives in what appears to be deliberate influence operations, known as IOs, and which used to be known as psyops.
And everybody from Davos to the White House to the mainstream corporate news media are using claims of “disinformation” and “misinformation” whether coming from Russians, 4chan, or Harvard professors, as excuses to censor social media platforms.
Why is that, exactly? Why did so many crazy-sounding right-wing conspiracy theories turn out to be true? And why are the elites behaving so undemocratically?
…
The control of publicly-available information over the last 10 years by WEF, the White House, and intelligence agencies including the FBI has been remarkable. Cushy gabfests like the ones in Aspen and Davos are effective in making journalists subservient to elites. The ability of government agencies like the White House and FBI to abuse their power is particularly strong when they have the support of the majority of the public, as was the case with Covid and with Trump, whose support hovered between just 35 and 45 percent. And the centralization of power in a small number of social media sites — mostly Facebook and Twitter — created an opportunity to bully politicians and government officials to deprive hundreds of millions of people of true information and feed them false information.
But all of the above are retrograde attempts to put the Internet genie back in the bottle and thus doomed to fail. The takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk showed how fragile the control of social media platforms was. Musk not only made public just how much control the FBI exercised over Twitter, he also has destroyed the older blue checkmark verification system that biased the whole system toward woke-WEF ideology, or what Martin Gurri calls the “one-sided politics of identity and ecology.”
…
Change is coming. A growing number of people understand that they must pay for news and information from trustworthy and independent sources, ones without financials conflict of interest, and who make their values and beliefs explicit, rather than hide them…
Beige Book Finds “Little Growth” Ahead”, Increasing Difficulty For Retailers To Pass Cost Increases
There wasn’t too much excitement in the latest Fed Beige Book report which was based on information collected on or before January 9, 2023: it found that overall economic activity was relatively unchanged since the previous, Nov 30, 2022 report: five Districts reported slight or modest increases in overall activity, six noted no change or slight declines, and one cited a significant decline. Looking ahead, there wasn’t much excitement (or hope) either, with contacts expecting “little growth in the months ahead.”
That said, if one reads the components of the report, one doesn’t get the impression that the economy was “relatively unchanged” – if anything, it sounds like the economy is sliding into a recession, especially for the low and moderate-income households:
Consumer spending increased slightly, with some retailers reporting more robust sales over the holidays. These would be retailers targeting the 1%.
Other retailers noted that high inflation continued to reduce consumers’ purchasing power, particularly among low- and moderate-income households.
Auto sales were flat on average, but some dealers noted that increased vehicle availability had boosted sales.
Tourism contacts reported moderate to robust activity augmented by strong holiday travel.
Manufacturers indicated that activity declined modestly on average, and, in many Districts, reported that supply chain disruptions had eased.
Housing markets continued to weaken, with sales and construction declining across Districts.
Commercial real estate activity slowed slightly, on average, with more notable weakening in the office market.
Nonfinancial services firms experienced stable demand on balance. Most bankers reported that residential mortgage demand remained weak, and some said higher borrowing costs had begun to dampen commercial lending.
Energy activity continued to increase moderately, and agriculture conditions were generally unchanged or improving.
Turning to labor markets we find a far stronger underlying picture, although one wonders how much of this is still a kneejerk response to the chaos in the immediate aftermath of the covid lockdowns:
Employment continued to grow at a modest to moderate pace for most Districts. Only one District reported a slight decline in employment, and one other reported no change in employment levels.
While some Districts noted that labor availability had increased, firms continued to report difficulty in filling open positions.
Many firms hesitated to lay off employees even as demand for their goods and services slowed and planned to reduce headcount through attrition if needed.
With persistently tight labor markets, wage pressures remained elevated across Districts, though five Reserve Banks reported that these pressures had eased somewhat. Some employers noted they have continued to offer bonuses and enhanced benefits to attract and retain workers.
There was better news when looking at inflation: here the Beige book found that selling prices increased at a modest or moderate pace in most Districts, though many said that the pace of increases had slowed from that of recent reporting periods.
Manufacturers in many Districts reported continued easing in freight costs and prices for commodities, including steel and lumber, though some said input costs remained elevated.
Many retailers noted increased difficulty in passing through cost increases, suggesting greater price sensitivity on the part of consumers.
On the other hand, and in keeping with the reverse bullwhip effect, “some retailers offered more discounts and promotions than they had a year ago in order to move merchandise and clear out excess inventories.”
Most importantly, however, contacts across Districts said they expected future price growth to moderate further in the year ahead.
Two charts to end with: first, peak inflation is now comfortably in the rearview mirror…
… although the risk of stagflation remains with mentions of “slow” sticky near record highs.
Secretive Surveillance Program Captured 150 Million International Money Transfers Spanning 20 Countries: Sen. Wyden
A secretive financial surveillance database established by the Arizona attorney general’s office in 2014 has ballooned into a behemoth tool used by more than 600 law-enforcement entities, which can search for more than 150 million money transfers between people in the US and more than 20 countries, according to internal program documents obtained by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR).
The database is called TRAC, or Transational Record Analysis Center, and was established as part of a settlement reached with Western Union to combat human trafficking and drug runners from Mexico. The data includes the full names of both the sender and the recipient, along with the amount of the transaction, the Wall Street Journal reports.
“It’s a law-enforcement investigative tool,” said Rich Lebel, TRAC’s director, who claims that the program has resulted in hundreds of leads and busts involving drug cartels and other criminals engaged in money laundering. “We don’t broadcast it to the world, but we don’t run from or hide from it either.”
Three money-services companies, MoneyGram, Euronet, and Viamericas, sent TRAC bulk tranches of customer data in response to subpoenas issued out of the San Juan, Puerto Rico office of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
Euronet and Viamericas had received customs summonses from that office seeking data for transactions between anywhere in the U.S. and countries including many in the Caribbean and Latin America as well as Canada, France, Spain, Ukraine and China, the companies told Mr. Wyden. Those subpoenas ordered the money-services companies to turn the data over to TRAC. -WSJ
What’s more, many of the subpoenas given to TRAC were extremely broad – often requiring all data on transfers between certain places above the $500 threshold, according to the documents – even in cases where an American living in a border state sends $500 or more to another American living elsewhere in the country.
Sen. Wyden thinks differently, saying TRAC allows the government to “serve itself an all-you-can-eat buffet of Americans’ personal financial data while bypassing the normal protections for Americans’ privacy.”
Internal records, including TRAC meeting minutes and copies of 140 subpoenas from the Arizona attorney general, were obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. They show that any authorized law-enforcement agency can query the data without a warrant to examine the transactions of people inside the U.S. for evidence of money laundering and other crimes. One slideshow prepared by a TRAC investigator showed how the program’s data could be used to scan for categories such as “Middle Eastern/Arabic names” in bulk transaction records. -WSJ
“Ordinary people’s private financial records are being siphoned indiscriminately into a massive database, with access given to virtually any cop who wants it,” said Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. “This program should never have been launched, and it must be shut down now.“
The program was established due to lax rules surrounding money-transfer services companies. While banks have to monitor transactions for suspicious activity – and report over $10,000 in cash transactions, companies such as Western Union and MoneyGram don’t have to. Now, customer transactions above $500 are available in the TRAC database.
What’s more, Wyden uncovered that the federal government has participated in TRAC, including the Department of Homeland Security’s Investigations division, collected around six million records of money transfers from Western Union and Maxitransfers since 2019.
“The scope of this surveillance program and federal agencies’ role is far greater than initially revealed,” said Wyden in a letter asking the DOJ inspector general to investigate the FBI and DEA’s involvement with the program.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ announcement that he intends to turn a flailing liberal public university into the Sunshine State’s answer to Hillsdale College has drawn fierce criticism from progressives.
A plethora of headlines shows that the Republican governor has struck a nerve.
“Ron DeSantis’s New College Coup is Doomed to Fail,” wrote the Chronicle of Higher Education, and “A Florida College Goes to War With Ron DeSantis” reads another from The New Republic, a left-wing online publication.
This month, DeSantis, who is widely expected to run for president in 2024, overhauled the foundering New College of Florida by appointing six new conservatives to its board of trustees.
The liberal arts college has been plagued by low student enrollment and financial problems. The college, located in Sarasota, fell far short of its stated goal to reach 1,200 enrolled students, declining recently from 800 to about 660.
The governor also mandated that public universities report their expenditures for critical race theory (CRT) and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. The move immediately drew a legal challenge, which was dismissed.
The Dec. 28 order from DeSantis came four days after The Epoch Times documented the experiences of six conservative students attending a major Florida university. The students described difficulties in seeking an education in what they described as an anti-white, anti-Christian, and anti-American culture.
Meanwhile, the Florida Legislature appears to want to take the accounting even further.
Florida House Speaker Paul Renner requested emails, text messages, and social media posts from Florida university DEI offices sent between Jan. 1, 2021, to Jan. 12 of this year.
Stopping ‘Woke’
The problem with New College of Florida and many other institutions of higher learning is they are no longer focused on academics, DeSantis’ press secretary, Bryan Griffin, told The Epoch Times.
Florida universities actively promote the Marxist-based CRT, according to the Critical Race Training in Education database maintained by the Legal Insurrection Foundation.
The database lists CRT programs at universities and schools nationwide.
The Florida students spoke anonymously to The Epoch Times and described their frustration with a hostile environment for conservatives on campus and in classrooms.
They described feeling uncomfortable, at best, and threatened, at worst.
Their accounts described a campus culture focused on race and social justice, with open hostility for conservative or Christian views. They asked to use pseudonyms to protect their identity, fearing retaliation for speaking publicly, they said.
One law student was reported as an extremist to the FBI and was visited by agents for questioning. He assumed it was because someone overheard him express his Christian beliefs and his support for the Second Amendment.
The experiences the students described happened even after DeSantis signed into law Florida’s Stop WOKE Act in April 2022. Among other things, the law bans colleges from promoting CRT.
Students and professors sued over the ban, and federal judge Mark Walker issued a preliminary injunction against enforcing the law.
The same federal judge sided with DeSantis on Jan. 12, though, over his request for information about university expenditures on CRT and DEI programs. Walker ruled that the administration’s move was not in violation of the injunction against enforcement of the Stop WOKE Act.
Public universities aren’t alone in pushing CRT, which divides people into oppressors and victims based on skin color or gender identity.
It’s a trend that’s swept across the nation, experts and students have told The Epoch Times.
A student at an elite private university in New York, who spoke with The Epoch Times on the condition of anonymity, described a racially discriminatory and segregated educational environment for white students.
“Most of all, I felt really shocked, especially at my classmates going along with the discrimination and bullying, as if it was OK to treat other human beings like that,” said the student, who is being identified as Beth, an alias.
In one class, her black professor segregated white students from brown and black classmates, Beth said. Meanwhile, Beth said, white students were told to “reflect on their whiteness,” while minority students were given instructions on assignments.
She said the curriculum was mainly about “anti-black racism,” which had little to do with the class on social services.
“The Compensation Isn’t Going To Be There”: JPMorgan’s Raghavan Warns Bonuses Will “Absolutely” Fall
Vis Raghavan of J.P. Morgan confirmed this week that his firm isn’t immune to the “anemic” year that investment banking had in 2022. As a result, he told Bloomberg from Davos that bonuses would “absolutely” fall.
Raghavan, who is the company’s global investment-banking co-head who also oversees Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said:
“All banks pay for performance, so if the performance isn’t there, the compensation isn’t going to be there.”
Raghavan said the company’s markets desks had a “mixed year” and, despite anemic dealmaking and lower demand for equities, posted strong performances in “commodities, rates and macro, as well as volatility-based equity trades”.
The firm’s investment banking revenue was down 57% year over year, per its earnings report last week. But Reghavan is optimistic the company is now at “steady state”, telling Bloomberg:
“We have most of our people back in the office. There is a spring in people’s steps, I think it’s really good having people back.”
Credit Suisse Group AG Chairman Axel Lehmann also made a statement this week warning about lower bonuses after what he called a “horrifying year”. Recall we wrote days ago that the bank had come out and was considering a large cut to its bonus pool. It was considering a 50% cut to its bonus pool, Bloomberg reported last week.
Meanwhile, as Credit Suisse tries to stave off swirling questions about its solvency, we noted last month that the bank filed a criminal complaint against a financial blog in Zurich, escalating a legal attack the bank has been putting in place over reader comments that were appended to a series of stories the blog ran about the bank earlier this year. Bloomberg reported that the complaint follows a 265 page civil lawsuit that was filed over the comments, which the bank said “were harshly critical of it and some of its executives”, including the bank’s new CEO Ulrich Koerner.
Credit Suisse and J.P. Morgan join a number of Wall Street banks who laid off employees, cut bonuses or both after a torrid 2022. Goldman Sachs, for example, is set to lay off up to 4,000 employees, we noted last month. The bank was also “considering shrinking the bonus pool for its more than 3,000 investment bankers by at least 40 per cent this year”.
Also in mid-December, we wrote that Ernst and Young would be cutting its bonuses entirely. The company held an “all hands” meeting two weeks ago where it delivered the news to its employees. The company is in the midst of splitting its audit business from a tax and advisory business heading into 2023. Morgan Stanley’s Asia banker bonuses were also at risk by as much as 50%, we wrote days before that. In December, we also noted that Jefferies was considering slashing bonuses.
Continued increases in U.S. dry natural gas production are expected to outpace domestic demand and exports this year and next, sending the average U.S. benchmark price lower than in 2022, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Wednesday.
The EIA expects the U.S. benchmark Henry Hub price to average $4.90 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) this year, according to its January Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO). The projected average would be more than $1.50/MMBtu lower compared to the 2022 average of natural gas prices.
In 2024, Henry Hub prices are expected to remain almost the same compared to 2023 levels, as U.S. production is set to continue growing, the EIA said.
This year, prices are likely to average close to $5.00/MMBtu in the first quarter, due to higher demand in the winter and LNG exports at near-capacity volumes. The return of Freeport LNG after a fire in June 2022 will also drive higher natural gas demand in the first quarter, the EIA said.
As the winter ends in the second quarter of 2023, and as LNG exports will stay flat once Freeport LNG comes back online, natural gas prices are expected to drop in Q2, also because U.S. production will continue to rise, according to EIA’s estimates.
U.S. natural gas prices are back to reflecting the domestic supply and demand balances, shaking off – for now – the geopolitical premium that ruled the energy and natural gas markets throughout most of 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February.
Early on Wednesday, the U.S. benchmark price was tumbling by 4.10% to $3.433/MMBtu, as demand is light in the U.S. right now.
For the week January 18 to January 24, overall U.S. natural gas demand is expected to be very light through Friday, and then light from Saturday to Tuesday, according to NatGasWeather.com.
Stocks & Crypto Rebound After DoJ Announces ‘Nothingburger’ Enforcement Action
Update (1215ET): It appears fears over what the DoJ would say in their much-heralded Crypto Enforcement Action were what droive the weakness in crypto and dragged stocks lower too.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco led the press conference announcing the action, which began at 12ET…
Now that the DoJ has announced the arrest of the Russian founder of Bitzlato for money-laundering…
…the markets are ripping back as this is far from the far-reaching crackdowns some were concerned about (or even speculation about Binance)…
Preston Byrne (@prestonjbyrne) summarized the expectations mis-step by the DoJ perfectly:
“Several multibillion dollar Ponzis operated under our noses for a half a decade, but in this huge announcement we are pleased to notify the public that we took down a couple of guys running a crypto exchange with 100 followers on Linkedin who ran it out of a hot dog stand.”
Crypto and stocks are puking simultaneously this morning…
Dragging all the US majors into the red for the day…
The immediate catalyst for this joint-collapse is unclear…
Some suggest it was Bullard’s hawkish comments (but he said nothing at all that was not known).
Fed’s Mester’s hawkish comments also piled on the pressure according to some traders: “We’re not at 5% yet, we’re not above 5%, which I think is going to be needed given where my projections are for the economy… I just think we need to keep going.”
Others suggested it is DoJ headlines about a crypto enforcement action (but that hit the wires a while before this plunge).
A few traders noted that the drop happened as it was reported that Fed Chair Powell has COVID (seriously!)
Still more commented that Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson appeared on CNBC around that time and unleashed his bearish views on a desperate ‘soft landing’ narrative-loving audience (but Wilson’s comments are not new and simply repeat what he said last week).
Technically, selling accelerated as the S&P 500 broken below its 200DMA…
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said in a video address to the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Tuesday that Ukraine joining NATO would be an “appropriate outcome” of the war, reversing his previous position that Kyiv shouldn’t join the Western military alliance.
“Before this war, I was opposed to membership of Ukraine in NATO because I feared that it would start exactly the process that we have seen now,” Kissinger said. “Now that this process has reached this level, the idea of a neutral Ukraine under these conditions is no longer meaningful.”
Kissinger’s comments reflect an article he wrote for The Spectator last month. In the piece, he didn’t explicitly say Ukraine should join NATO but argued that “a peace process should link Ukraine to NATO, however expressed.”
In The Spectator article, Kissinger called for negotiations to avoid another world war and suggested referendums could be held to settle disputes over some of the territory Russia has captured from Ukraine. But his opinion on the matter appears to have changed.
While he still called for talks with Moscow in his address on Tuesday, he said on Tuesday that the fighting should only end after Russia is pushed back to the pre-invasion lines. “I believe in dialogue with Russia while the war continues, an end of fighting when the prewar line is reached,” he said.
The chances of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine are slim as Ukrainian officials are demanding a complete withdrawal and for Moscow to face war crimes tribunals before talks can even happen. For their part, Russia says it’s open to talks but maintains that any deal must involve the territories it annexed joining the Russian Federation.
Kissinger said that the conflict should be kept “from becoming a war against Russia itself” due to Moscow’s large nuclear arsenal. He also said after the war, Russia should be given “an opportunity to rejoin the international system.”
Speaking at Davos, Kissinger backs Ukraine’s NATO bid and says the U.S. should intensify its military aid to Kyiv. pic.twitter.com/cMmzjNFBQw
The former secretary of state angered Ukrainian officials the last time he addressed the WEF back in May 2022. In those remarks, Kissinger suggested Ukraine should cede Crimea and the territory separatists controlled in the Donbas before Russia’s invasion.
While known as a hawk for his infamous role in leading the secret US bombing of Cambodia as President Nixon’s national security advisor, Kissinger has long called for a more friendly posture toward Russia since the end of the Cold War. In 2014, shortly after the US-backed ousting of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, Kissinger warned that if Ukraine were to “survive and thrive,” it must function as a “bridge” between Russia and the West.
House Oversight Chair: China Donations To Penn-Biden Center May Have Influenced US Policy
The chair of the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday demanded that the University of Pennsylvania – home to the infamous Penn-Biden center where classified documents were found in November – answer questions over anonymous donations from China, based on concerns that the CCP may have bought influence with the Biden administration.
“The Committee has learned UPenn received millions of dollars from anonymous Chinese sources, with a marked uptick in donations when then-former Vice President Biden was announced as leading the Penn Biden Center initiative,” said the GOP-led committee in a statement that followed a report from Just the News regarding the donations.
“Following the formation of the Penn Biden Center, donations originating from China tripled and continued while Joe Biden explored a potential run for President,” the statement continues.
The committee is already investigating now-President Biden’s possible mishandling of classified documents from his time as vice president. While some of the documents were discovered in November in Biden’s former Washington, D.C., office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, news about the records did not surface until this month. -JTN
“The Committee is concerned about who had access to these documents given the Biden family’s financial connections to foreign actors and companies,” wrote committee Chairman Rep. James Comer to university President M. Elizabeth Magill.
Last April, a government watchdog asked the US attorney investigating Hunter Biden to investigate $54.6 million in Chinese donations to the University of Pennsylvania – most of which happened after the university’s February 2017 announcement that it would create the Biden Center – and $23.1 million of which were anonymous and started in 2016, according to public records.
According to the NY Post, the vast majority of donations from China to UPenn occurred after the announcement that the university would create the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement shortly after Biden’s term as vice president had just ended.
The center, which is located in Washington, DC., opened its doors in February 2018. Antony Blinken, whom Biden named as Secretary of State, briefly served as its managing director.
The Ivy League university received $15.8 million in anonymous Chinese gifts that year, including one eye-popping $14.5 million donation in May 2018, records show.
The flurry of donations may be related to Hunter Biden’s business interests in China, the National Legal and Policy Center, a Virginia-based watchdog, alleged in complaints sent in May and October 2020 to the Departments of Education and Justice. -NY Post
The classified documents found at the Penn Center included materials related to Iran and Ukraine, while more classified documents were found at Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware.
“The American people deserve to know whether the Chinese Communist Party, through Chinese companies, influenced potential Biden Administration policies with large, anonymous donations to UPenn and the Penn Biden Center,” wrote Comer.
According to Just the News, Secretary of State Antony Blinken – the Penn-Biden Center’s former managing director, is one of 10 people who took the revolving door from Penn to senior positions in the Biden White House.
Blinken claimed on Tuesday that he “had no knowledge” of the classified documents.
According to UPenn spokesman Stephen MacCarthy last April, “The Penn Biden Center has never solicited or received any gifts from any Chinese or other foreign entity. In fact, the University has never solicited any gifts for the Center.”
