The following article was adapted from Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow’s new book Breaking Biden: Exposing the Hidden Forces and Secret Money Machine Behind Joe Biden, His Family, and His Administration, which is out now.
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While media reports have focused University of Pennsylvania’s Biden Center, less attention has been paid to University of Delaware’s Biden Institute, even though these two “institutes” were opened on the same day and meant to serve a shared goal of being incubators of advancing globalism and leftism. The UPenn Biden Center became a pipeline for longtime Biden allies into his administration, and, as previously reported by Peter Schweizer, preceded a suspicious influx in Chinese donations to the university.
Together with a Penn Biden office in DC, the two entities would be the public-facing “stage” for the “Biden Brand.”
The key players at the University of Delaware’s Biden Institute were either Biden family members, people with deep ties to China, or both. In fact, in my new book, Breaking Biden, on sale today, I reveal that the University of Delaware Biden operation was Hunter’s “baby” and was part of a larger strategy to replicate the Clinton Global Initiative without onerous fundraising.
Who would provide the funds to the UD Biden Institute if they weren’t going to be gathered by traditional means? That part is unclear, but the constellation of facts I present in the book certainly raises suspicion that it could be a vehicle for influence peddling that could benefit entities foreign and domestic.
Valerie Biden Celebrates Hunter’s “Baby”
On December 11, 2018, the University of Delaware announced that it was naming its public policy school after Vice President Biden. Emails show that this move was orchestrated by members of UD’s Biden Institute. It was on the day of the announcement that Hunter Biden received a text message from his aunt and former Joe Biden campaign manager, Valerie Owens (who chairs the Biden Institute), crediting him for the deepening partnership with between the Biden family and the university: “Bravo Hunter—UD was your baby and you made sure I was part of it.”
The University of Delaware Biden Institute was Hunter’s “baby.” And this was the type of baby the family most certainly was not going to ignore.
President Joe Biden, with his sister Valerie Biden (2nd L), and son Hunter Biden (L), arrives to board Air Force One on April 11, 2023. (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
Tied to China from the Start
Like the University of Pennsylvania, University of Delaware (UD) disclosed receiving funds from China soon after forging the partnership with the Bidens.
The emails show that in March 2016, Hunter and his colleagues met with incoming UD president Dennis Assanis to discuss plans for the UD/UPenn venture months before Assanis was officially instated. Assanis has deep and long-standing ties to China. In addition to serving as the founding director of the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center—Clean Vehicle Consortium (CERC-CVC) since 2003, Assanis has been a guest professor (2003–2008) and advisory professor (2009 to present) at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU). This fact alone raises concern given that SJTU has signed cooperative agreements with China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). What’s more, cyberattacks on American companies such as Google have been traced to computers at SJTU.
Like UPenn, the UD Biden Institute was quickly stocked with future Biden appointees–at least twelve so far–including soon-to-be senior Biden advisor Mike Donilon and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. Assanis himself would be named to Biden’s President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
The University of Delaware had never disclosed receiving funds from China until April 2018, when it accepted over $3.2 million for a contract with an unnamed Chinese entity. This came two months after the Penn Biden Center opened its DC office. Then, in December 2018, UD received $1.9 million from an unnamed Chinese entity. In 2019, UD received another $625,000 from China. In 2020, UD initiated three contracts with the Chinese entities and received over $1 million in funds. In sum, UD has received over $6.7 million from unnamed Chinese sources, including a substantial amount from the Chinese government.
All these funds started flowing to UD after the Biden Institute was announced and increased immediately after the launch of the Penn Biden Center.
President Joe Biden delivers the commencement address at the University of Delaware graduation ceremony in Newark, Delaware, on May 28, 2022. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
Supporting Chinese Military Technology
This money from China is cause for alarm given that UD has thirty-seven international partnerships with Chinese universities, including several that support the development of Chinese military technologies. The most logical reasons for the Chinese to engage in these partnerships is that they want to influence American institutions, acquire American intellectual property, or both.
On February 8 2022, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) wrote a letter to UD president Dennis Assanis urging him to terminate UD’s academic and research partnership with Xiamen University, which actively supports Beijing’s military-industrial complex and which allegedly conspired with Huawei to steal trade secrets from an American semiconductor start-up. Yet, according to the International Cyber Policy Centre’s China Defence Universities Tracker database, that partnership with Xiamen University is only a “medium” risk.
The University of Delaware has worked with at least four other universities linked to Chinese defense laboratories.
“Like the Clinton Global Initiative Without the Money Raise”
In April 2016, Hunter exchanged emails and had at least one meeting with Craig Gering, a talent agent for the legendary Creative Artists Agency, about Vice President Biden’s future after he leaves office. Gering took “confidential notes” from the meeting that describe details about the plans for the UD/UPenn operation, including the possibility of Hunter serving in the Penn Biden Center DC office. Gering fantasized about an entity that “operates like The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) without the money raise.”
CGI claims it convenes “established and emerging global leaders to create and implement solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges,” according to its website, but functionally, it was an easy way for the Clintons to reap donor funds to leverage relationships with celebrities and major corporations to boost their profiles all the while promoting their own cultural and political agenda items. Donations to CGI dried up when it came under media scrutiny from Schweizer and others for soliciting millions of dollars from foreign governments and businesses—the same governments and businesses that received favorable treatment from the Obama administration during Hillary’s tenure as secretary of state.
Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, and Bill Clinton onstage during Clinton Global Initiative’s annual meeting on September 24, 2014, in New York City. (Jemal Countess/Getty Images)
The Clinton Global Initiative was shut down in 2016 and revived in 2022. In retrospect, it was always meant to be an influence-peddling operation by the Clintons. It was shuttered at the specific moment where Hillary Clinton could no longer do anything substantial for the donors.
That’s where the Bidens could step in and fill the void.
“Wealth Creation” for the Bidens
It was clear from the Laptop from Hell emails that Biden World fantasized about an entity like the CGI for Joe. It could be a means for influential figures around the world to boost the Biden brand. The UD/UPenn/Biden venture is ultimately about “wealth creation,” according to Gering.
It could be used for philanthropy, bettering the world, and advancing the Biden name. But most importantly, “wealth creation.”
A stunning admission.
The degree to which the Bidens were able to leverage these new entities to benefit themselves financially is unclear, but we do know, thanks to the Laptop from Hell, that the vision was in place to create a secret money machine that could be relevant for generations.
It was Hunter’s baby.
Breaking Biden is available now in hardcover, eBook, and audiobook read by the author.
Alex Marlow is the Editor-in-Chief of Breitbart News and a New York Times bestselling author. His new, Breaking Biden: Exposing the Hidden Forces and Secret Money Machine Behind Joe Biden, His Family, and His Administration, is available now. You can follow Alex on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @AlexMarlow.
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