Government Integrity Project

NLPC “blows the whistle” on government officials and interest groups engaged in questionable activities. NLPC has filed formal Complaints with a variety of authorities and regulators, including the Federal Election Commission, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Congressional Ethics Committees.

NLPC supports government integrity in two additional ways: by promoting the First Amendment as the basis for campaign finance reform, and by promoting use of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Watchdog Asks Feds to Investigate University, Biden Center for Millions in Anonymous China Donations

Posted on by Peter Flaherty

From Just the News by Daniel Payne:

A watchdog group is asking the U.S. Education Department to investigate the University of Pennsylvania and its Biden Center, a diplomacy and global engagement initiative named after the Democratic presidential candidate, for accepting millions of dollars in anonymous funds from Chinese donors.

The complaint, filed by the National Legal and Policy Center, says that over the past three years, the university has accepted around $22 million in anonymous funding from Chinese sources. That’s out of a total of more than $70 million from Chinese donors during that time, the NLPC said. 

Those significant funds, including the anonymous amounts, rolled in after the Biden Center was announced in early 2017 and launched in February 2018. The center is located in downtown Washington, D.C. 

Click here to read the rest on Just the News.… Read More ➡

One America News: Paul Kamenar on Biden Center’s Undisclosed China Donations

Posted on by Peter Flaherty

One America News’ John Hines interviews Paul Kamenar, Counsel for the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), which filed a Complaint with the Department of Education alleging the University of Pennsylvania and the Biden Center failed to disclose millions of dollars of anonymous donations from China, as required by law.… Read More ➡

Government Watchdog Raises Questions About Chinese Influence at University of Pennsylvania’s Biden Center

Posted on by Peter Flaherty

From the Washington Free Beacon by Alana Goodman:

When Joe Biden announced he was opening a foreign policy center at the University of Pennsylvania, the goals for the project were ambitious.
At its founding in 2018, Biden described the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement as “a place where policymakers here and abroad will know they can be in touch with some of the best minds.”

The center is one of several organizations Biden founded since leaving the White House in 2017, including the domestic policy-focused Biden Institute at the University of Delaware and the Biden Cancer Initiative, all launched in 2017. All three entities have refused to reveal the sources of their funding, a potential landmine for the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee that raises questions about the influence of individual, corporate, and foreign donations on the presidential candidate.

The lack of transparency has drawn the attention of … Read More ➡

Complaint Filed Against University of Pennsylvania and Biden Center for Undisclosed China Mega-Donations

Posted on by NLPC Staff

National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), a nonprofit public interest organization, filed a complaint with the Department of Education requesting that it conduct a full investigation into the University of Pennsylvania’s failure to disclose the source of millions of dollars of donations from China since 2013 to the university and its Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement as required by law.

Since 2017 alone, when the Biden Center opened and after Joe Biden announced he was running for President in April 2018, the university received over $70 million from China, of which $22 million were listed as “Anonymous.”  Federal law requires the disclosure of the source of all donations over $250,000.  The complaint also requests referral to the Department of Justice to file an enforcement action seeking compliance and to recoup all the costs of the investigation.

The complaint notes that the Biden Center co-sponsored the 2020 Penn China … Read More ➡

Pompeo is Right; Menendez is a Crook, but How Did He Get Off?

Posted on by Peter Flaherty

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Senator Robert Menedez (D-NJ) of orchestrating the controversy over the firing of State Department Inspector General Steve Linick.

Abbe Lowell and his client

Pompeo said. “I don’t get my ethics guidance from a man who was criminally prosecuted — case number 15-155, New Jersey Federal District Court. A man for whom his Senate colleagues, bipartisan said basically that he was taking bribes. That’s not someone who I look to for ethics guidance.”

Pompeo is right. Menendez is a crook. He should have been forced out of the Senate and gone to jail with his co-defendant Salomon Melgen. But it was the Trump Justice Department that let Menendez off the hook.

As we have recounted previously, Menendez was tried on bribery and related charges, but that trial ended in a mistrial on November 16, 2017, and the Justice Department made a decision not to retry … Read More ➡

NLPC Files FOIA for Biden Documents at University of Delaware

Posted on by NLPC Staff

Today NLPC filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request with the University of Delaware seeking all documents related to the transfer, curating, and access to the Senatorial Papers of Joe Biden to the university library and to order a search of those documents by the Board of Trustees for any reference to Tara Reade, who has accused Mr. Biden of sexual assault in 1993 when she was employed by Biden.  Both the Washington Post and the New York Times have called for such a search of Biden’s papers.

The FOIA request also calls for the release of all visitor logs to the university’s library by Biden’s campaign or personal aides who have searched the files as has been reported.  NLPC also requests that John Cochran, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, be recused from voting on the search and disposition of the requested documents as required by the … Read More ➡

NLPC Seeks NIAID Documents Regarding Wuhan Lab and Pandemic

Posted on by Peter Flaherty

Today, the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), a nonprofit public interest organization, filed a Freedom of Information Request (FOIA) with the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectiousness Diseases (NIAID) at NIH seeking all documents in its possession and that of Director, Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., regarding grants of $3.7 million first given in 2015 to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China or through grants given to EcoHealth Alliance to experiment with bats and coronaviruses.

The FOIA request noted the Trump Administration recently terminated all funding to EcoHealth which was initiated during the Obama Administration.

“It is outrageous that U.S. taxpayers have been funding millions of dollars to the Wuhan, China laboratory, which had a history of safety problems since January 2018 that may have led to the release of the novel coronavirus causing a worldwide pandemic.” said Peter Flaherty, Chair of NLPC. The request also seeks documents … Read More ➡

Leftist Activists Take Advantage of Pandemic to Push Rent Strikes

Posted on by Carl Horowitz

Rarely has a word been subject to so much misuse in recent years as “stimulus.” The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES), overwhelmingly passed by Congress and signed by President Trump on March 27, represents an apex of this language malpractice. The stated purpose of this $2.2 trillion “stimulus plan” is to boost our economy in the wake of virus-induced mass layoffs and business closings. But the implicit purpose is paying people not to work. One of the law’s key features, Section 4022, a residential landlord bailout, effectively does that. And it may prove very expensive.  

Fear of COVID-19 has triggered an economic downturn potentially rivaling that of the Great Depression. With “social distancing” now the gold standard for staying healthy, especially in venues where people congregate (e.g., restaurants, theaters), employers, prodded by state mandates and federal guidelines, are closing shop or severely restricting hours. A staggering 22 … Read More ➡

Rep. Omar Sends Another $300K to New Husband’s Firm

Posted on by Peter Flaherty
Mynett and Omar

This article by Joe Schoffstall appears on the Washington Free Beacon website:

Democratic representative Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) continues to push cash from her campaign committee to her now-husband’s consulting firm.

Omar’s new committee filings, posted Wednesday afternoon, show that during the first three months of the year, the campaign paid $292,905 to the E Street Group. E Street is a political consulting firm owned by Omar’s husband, Tim Mynett. The cash, which reportedly went toward an array of services that included fundraising and advertisements, accounted for over 40 percent of the campaign’s $674,892 in disbursements. Omar raised $456,374 during the quarter.

Omar’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Omar campaign also doled out $525,000 last year to Mynett’s firm, its top vendor. At the time, Omar and Mynett were married to different people, but Mynett’s wife alleged they were having an … Read More ➡