As part of TBORA President John Pudner's radio interview tour following recent revelations in the Biden/UPenn Saga, he went on WWVA in Wheeling, West Virginia, to discuss these developments, his July 2021 inquiry to then-Pennsylvania AG Josh Shapiro, and how this all ties to China's growing influence in American elections.
The following transcript from this interview is presented in its entirety with minor edits:
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Documents, Biden, Democrats, UPenn, Chinese, classified documents
SPEAKERS
John Pudner, Ron Potesta
Ron Potesta 00:00
Records from President Biden's time as Vice President were discovered at the Penn-Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement- that's a think-tank building. These documents were found two months ago back on November 2nd, so lots and lots of questions about this and, well, the President doesn't want to answer any of them. Let's be joined in by the President of Take Back Action Fund, and he was also an aide to George W. Bush back in 2000, he is John Pudner. John. Good morning, and Happy New Year to you.
John Pudner 00:40
Happy New Year! Thank you.
Ron Potesta 00:43
So many questions about this. First and foremost, why isn't President Biden speaking on this? He refused to answer questions about these classified documents.
John Pudner 00:54
And it's hard to miss the hypocrisy. I mean, the self-righteous statements he put out on some documents at Mar-a-Lago and, "how could anyone be this irresponsible?" So, pretty hard to come back. Anything he'd say now, it'd be juxtaposed to those comments he made, but I think it's probably even more serious when you look at where these documents were found. We had requested the Attorney General of Pennsylvania to examine the relationship between University of Pennsylvania, the $911,000 they had paid to Joe Biden for a no-show job, and then on top of that, that the president of UPenn had solicited millions from the Chinese, given Biden that job, and then Biden offered her the German ambassadorship. The fact that these documents were sitting in that spot, this is a much bigger story. This may just be the tip of the iceberg.
Ron Potesta 01:55
John Pudner joining me, and again, the documents were discovered at the think tank by the President's personal attorneys on November 2nd. In the first hour, I kind of speculated on this. John, let's be honest, had we known, had the public known right when this happened, we would not be looking at the Democrats hanging on to the Senate. I think if we had known immediately after every document was found, the election day in November would have been a little bit different.
John Pudner 02:33
I believe so. For a good bit of history, we've talked about the October surprise derailing campaigns and here you have the flip side suppressing the October surprise, or in this case, very beginning of November. Obviously, that puts a lot of light on why we're concerned about dealing with China, why President Trump was tough on China just economically, and again, to juxtapose this with the Russian hoax, and the impact that had on elections. I think this is a clear difference, and when you've got so much of the media on a team, they aren't going to report these kinds of things, that's a problem.
Ron Potesta 03:18
The National Archives were notified of this, they took possession of the documents the following day, which would have been November 3rd, still a few days away from the general election. Now, the documents were not the subject of any previous request or inquiry by the archives, this according to White House Special Counsel Richard Sauber. Do you buy that, John?
John Pudner 03:46
Well, I think strategically, I'm sure his lawyers are more confident being on record as getting these out, rather than having them come from request at some point, but yeah, they kind of had their cake and ate it, too. They can technically say they got them out before the election, but obviously, if the news doesn't get out before the election, then American voters don't have the ability to weigh in on what influence these might have. Our concern at Take Back Our Republic Action has been more on election rules and election money, but we've been worried about the Chinese putting money through ActBlue to elect Joe Biden and friends, to help them in elections. But, it seems to me, for other groups, the bigger concern would be the influence they're going to have with the UPenn arrangement. So, this is scary that voters should have had the opportunity to vet this as part of their consideration, and if voters didn't think it was an issue, they could have still voted for Biden's allies, but you certainly think voters have the right to know this.
Ron Potesta 04:49
John Pudner is the president of Take Back Action Fund. John, one final thing before we let you go. The Democrats would say, "Look, there's a big difference. between what has happened with former President Trump and what is currently happening with Joe Biden. President Trump had his stuff at Mar-a-Lago. He didn't give any of that stuff up. Whereas Biden, once he found out that there were some documents at the think tank, they had no problem giving up those documents, and they're cooperating", whereas the Democrats say former President Trump did not cooperate. Are you buying what the Democrats are selling in terms of trying to lay out a difference between the Democrats and the Republicans?
John Pudner 05:43
I don't always agree with everything President Trump does, but I do find I always disagree with the people who hate President Trump. I mean, you can always make distinctions, that's what spins about, but the distinction for me is I'm a little more concerned about these documents being in a place that seems to be funded heavily by the Chinese, etc. I'm a little more concerned about that than a lock safe and Mar-a-Lago. I'm not saying it's not worth double-checking on those documents too, but I've actually more worried about the evidence of Biden's potentially being compromised by China, and then them having classified documents in the wrong place. So, I'd say I'd be more concerned on that one, but the left can spin how they want, you can always make some distinctions.
Ron Potesta 06:37
John, thank you so much for coming on board this morning. Look forward to speaking with you soon.
For more on TBORA's efforts on prohibiting foreign donations into elections, please click here.
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