Penn firmly denied any connection between Chinese donations and the Biden Centre.

“It is important to reiterate that the Penn Biden Centre has never solicited or received any gifts from any Chinese or other foreign entity,” a Penn spokesperson said in a statement.

The House Republicans are seeking documents, visitor logs, and other information associated with alleged donations from China. They say they are concerned about foreign influence at Penn and the Biden Centre, given the discovery of the classified documents.

More classified documents found at Joe Biden’s home

The letter from Oversight Chairman James Comer says that Penn received “tens of millions of dollars from anonymous Chinese sources”, and that those donations tripled after the university announced the creation of the Penn Biden Centre, though it does not provide details of those donations, or any evidence of linkage between the centre and the uptick.

“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 Centre,” Comer wrote.

The letter adds that at least 10 people who would later join the Biden administration were employed at the centre, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Under Secretary of Defence for Policy Colin Kahl.

A Penn spokesperson said the university would provide the information in a “timely manner” and denied the allegations of foreign influence.

“One hundred per cent of the budget for the Penn Biden Centre comes from university funds. Any foreign gifts received by the university are all properly reported to the US Department of Education as required” by law, the spokesperson said. “Penn is fully compliant with federal law regarding the reporting of foreign gifts and contracts.”

Public records do show a sharp uptick in gifts from Chinese sources to Penn in 2017, 2018, and 2019, while Biden was at the school: US$39 million compared to US$15.4 million in the previous three years, according to public disclosures.

An additional US$33 million originated in Hong Kong. Combined with China, that giving accounted for more than half of Penn’s foreign gifts in 2017, 2018, and 2019.

But the donations were to Penn broadly, not the Biden Centre specifically. And the increase coincided with a broader jump in foreign donations to Penn, which more than doubled in that same time frame, to US$135 million over the three years when Biden was there, according to disclosures filed with the Department of Education.

At least some other Ivy League schools, including Harvard and Yale, also saw similar spikes in gifts originating from China in that time period. In each case, the donations originating in China also fell sharply in more recent years.

Special counsel to probe Biden’s handling of classified files

During a Senate confirmation hearing in 2021, US ambassador to Germany and former Penn president Amy Gutmann said a “very small fraction” of the US$10 billion raised during her tenure originated from China, according to CBS News.

“A very small fraction of that comes from China, considerably less than 1 per cent,” Gutmann told senators, according to CBS News. “What I do know, and what I make sure of, is that no gifts, no contracts of the University of Pennsylvania are allowed to threaten academic freedom, are allowed to threaten national security. We do no classified research. We get about one gift per three minutes.”

Penn’s increase in gifts reported from China came as the Trump administration pressured schools to provide a more thorough accounting of their foreign support. Penn’s Wharton business school had also opened a Beijing branch in 2015.

The school’s endowment was worth nearly US$21 billion as of June 30.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On Thursday, Biden said there is “no there there” when he was persistently questioned about the classified documents issue

“We found a handful of documents were filed in the wrong place,” Biden said to reporters who questioned him during a tour of the damage from storms in California. “We immediately turned them over to the Archives and the Justice Department.”

Biden said he was “fully cooperating and looking forward to getting this resolved quickly”.

“I think you’re going to find there’s nothing there,” he said. “There’s no there there.”

The Republican inquiry is one of the earliest examples of how the Republican Party plans to use its new control of the US House to investigate Biden and elevate criticism of him ahead of his potential re-election campaign.

Republicans, long silent or defensive of former president Donald Trump, who kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home in defiance of subpoenas, are now pressing Biden for answers about why classified material was found at his Penn office and private residence in Wilmington, Delaware.

Biden, according to his lawyers and the White House, returned those materials as soon as they were discovered, but didn’t inform the public about it until well after the November elections.

The Oversight Committee is the main arm of the House’s investigative power, and has long been used to pursue politically charged investigations. After the recent battle over the House speakership, the committee has become stocked with some of the Republican Party’s most far-right figures, including several conspiracy theorists and election deniers.

The Penn Biden Centre was created as part of the school’s global outreach initiatives, hosting political science courses, employing interns, and holding events on foreign policy. According to the centre’s website, it is “completely independent” of the Biden administration.

It was formed shortly after Biden’s time as vice-president ended, and employed him and a number of his aides in between his time in office and his 2020 run for president.

Penn paid Biden more than US$900,000 in 2017, 2018, and early 2019, according to Biden’s financial disclosure forms, for an often vague role with few formal responsibilities, though experts in higher education have said there’s value in the prestige of being associated with a former vice-president.

How House Republicans will investigate Joe Biden

Along with lending his name to the foreign affairs institution, Biden was the Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor, a title created for him. He took a leave of absence in April 2019 after launching his presidential campaign.

Biden used the office “periodically” until he launched his 2020 campaign, Biden’s lawyer, Richard Sauber, said in a statement last week.

According to Sauber, a “small number of documents with classified markings” were discovered in a locked closet at the Penn Biden Centre on November 2 as the president’s personal lawyers were clearing out the offices. Additional classified materials were found in Biden’s Wilmington garage.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has assigned former US attorney Robert Hur as a special counsel to investigate Biden’s handling of classified material. A separate special counsel investigation of Trump’s handling of classified material is ongoing.

Additional reporting by Associated Press