World Courant
FIRST ON FOX: A Biden appointee who has donated tens of 1000’s of {dollars} to his campaigns and is married to a former high aide to the then-senator. Biden has been instrumental in recruiting Chinese language firms to Delaware.
Michael Marquardt, whom Biden appointed to the U.S. Fee on the Preservation of America’s Heritage Overseas in 2022, has spent the previous 20 years advising worldwide firms and lately serving to the Delaware Prosperity Partnership (DPP) recruit Chinese language firms to work in Delaware to speculate.
Marquardt, who has served as a “world advisor” to DPP since 2017, has used his social media accounts to focus on his work in introducing Chinese language enterprise leaders and Chinese language firms to Delaware.
“Immediately we welcomed greater than fifty Chinese language businessmen to The First State, a go to deliberate and sponsored by the Financial institution of China,” Marquardt wrote in a Fb put up from 2015. “After a program highlighting the benefits and advantages of Delaware as a ‘Gateway to America,’ we visited one of many nation’s quickest rising firms: Incyte Company. Our guests had been very impressed. Delaware is the one state that has them apart from New York Metropolis and Washington DC (for sightseeing).”
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President Biden, Michael Marquardt and former President Invoice Clinton attend a fundraiser in New York. (Michael Marquardt X account)
A day earlier, Marquardt posted on his Fb profile from New York Metropolis that then-Delaware Governor Jack Markell, a Biden ally, “acquired the Worldwide Management Award from the Chinese language Normal Chamber of Commerce on the Financial institution’s new U.S. headquarters or China in Manhattan at 7 Bryant Park.”
“The constructing is definitely not completed but and it was nice to see it earlier than it formally opens,” Marquardt continued. “This ceremony capped a day of enterprise matching periods between greater than 100 Chinese language firms and greater than 100 U.S. firms, together with 21 from Delaware.”
That very same yr, Marquardt posted an article on Fb touting funding from Delaware for “the growth of a China summer season overseas program for highschool college students finding out Mandarin.” He additionally posted the Twitter hashtag “#ForwardThinkingDelaware.”
“And as we speak we welcomed two buses of Chinese language businesspeople to @DelawareGlobal to be taught extra in regards to the First State,” mentioned Marquardt posted on X in 2015 together with a photograph of buses believed to be getting into Delaware with Chinese language businessmen on board.
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Chinese language President Xi Jinping in the course of the closing session of the Nationwide Folks’s Congress on the Nice Corridor of the Folks in Beijing, March 11, 2024. (AP Photograph/Ng Han Guan)
In 2016, the ultimate yr of the Obama-Biden administration, Marquardt posted on his Fb about attending a “very particular occasion” in New York Metropolis “celebrating the strengthening of enterprise ties between China and america.”
“Delaware once more on the middle of the world!” he added.
In accordance with the pictures Marquardt posted, he was on the China-US Financial and Commerce Cooperation Convention together with keynote remarks from Hu Chunhua, who on the time was a member of the highly effective political bureau of the CPC Central Committee and get together secretary of Guangdong Province.
Chunhua is at the moment vice chairman of the 14th Nationwide Committee of the CPPCC, a “central element” of China’s United Entrance system, which is dedicated to “co-opting and neutralizing sources of potential opposition to the insurance policies and authority of the ruling Chinese language Communist Get together (CCP). ),” in line with a 2018 report from the US-China Financial and Safety Evaluate Fee.
Later that yr, Marquardt traveled to Washington, DC, for the closing ceremony of the 2016 China-US Tourism 12 months, in line with an X-post by Andrea Tiniow, who based World Delaware, a Delaware State Division initiative created to “to assist Delaware firms develop markets overseas, entice international firms to determine operations in Delaware, and strengthen Delaware’s position as a frontrunner in company governance.”
In accordance with her Linkedin profile, she additionally served as Chief Innovation Officer and Govt Vice President of World Kompass Methods Inc., a “globally revered consulting agency” based by Marquardt. Marquardt was invited by the Chinese language Normal Chamber of Commerce (CGCC), a New York Metropolis-based group praised by high CCP leaders in Beijing, to attend the luncheon for Vice Premier Wang Yang, one of the highly effective CCP leaders in China. , in line with a Fb put up from 2016.
The occasion featured a number of high Democrats, together with former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and President Obama’s ambassador to China, Max Baucus.
In a Fb put up from 2018Marquardt posted pictures of a “follow-up assembly with the China Entrepreneur Membership in Beijing” and referred to as his assembly “productive.”
A 2014 BBC profile piece described the CEC because the “richest membership in China” made up of “46 high Chinese language enterprise leaders” and together with “politicians, teachers and different advisors,” together with a number of billionaires. In accordance with final yr’s annual report, the group now has greater than 60 members.
The membership’s honorary presidents are Jack Ma, the founding father of CCP-linked Alibaba, which reportedly helped create surveillance expertise used towards Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, and Liu Chuanzhi, who has held a number of high positions within the CCP, together with deputy of the sixteenth and seventeenth Nationwide Congress and deputy of the ninth, tenth and eleventh Nationwide Folks’s Congress, the annual report mentioned.
In a 2019 social media put up, Marquardt mentioned he traveled to Washington, DC and “loved reconnecting with outdated associates” from CGCC and the Financial institution of China on the SelectUSA Summit representing DPP. SelectUSA is a “federal authorities program housed throughout the U.S. Division of Commerce charged with selling and facilitating enterprise funding in america.”
China has performed a significant position in Delaware’s financial system and was the recipient of $498 million in exported items in 2023, in line with the US World Management Coalition.
In 2022, CGCC has posted a message about their “member firms” touring to Wilmington, Delaware, to find out about “Delaware’s financial system by means of website visits and contacts with native authorities officers,” together with a “presentation” by DPP’s Marquardt and the President and Group CEO Kurt Foreman.
“Following the go to to DPP headquarters, members loved a particular welcome dinner hosted by Governor John Carney on the historic Resort du Pont in downtown Wilmington,” the put up continued.
A 2023 Linkedin put up profiles Marquardt and contains a number of quotes about his ardour for working with international international locations trying to put money into america, together with him saying, “It at all times surprises me when somebody from one other nation is aware of so little about Delaware.”
He goes on to say that Delaware is “so extremely welcoming, whereas nonetheless shifting on the tempo that revolutionary firms want” and that he “actually enjoys educating them on why so many firms select to come back right here. “
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President Biden and Hunter Biden in the course of the Easter Egg Roll on the White Home on April 1, 2024. (Michael Reynolds/EPA/Bloomberg by way of Getty Photos)
Marquardt’s ties to Biden return greater than 20 years, when his spouse, Claire DeMatteis, was then a senator. Biden’s senior adviser, a place she held from 1994 to 2004, was present in a Fox Information Digital overview.
Final summer season, Marquardt, who was initially from West Berlin, Germany and immigrated to america within the early Nineties, posted a video of his marriage ceremony reception, marking their twentieth marriage ceremony anniversary, wherein Biden gave a toast in 2003 instead of DeMatteis’ father , who died when she was 9 years outdated.
Through the toast, Biden referred to as Marquardt a “effective man” and joked that he was solely questioning his interactions with Biden’s brother-in-law Jack Owens, who’s married to his sister Valerie Biden Owens. This reference seems to stem from the truth that Marquardt was co-founder and CEO of Mediguide, a telemedicine firm that Owens invested in within the early 2000s and would later purchase and handle. in line with an archived biography on the Mediguide web site.
Fox Information Digital beforehand reported that Owen had contacted Hunter Biden, his cousin, to ask for assist in acquiring a Chinese language enterprise license.
Marquardt, who served on Biden for President’s nationwide finance committee between 2019 and 2020, and his spouse have additionally been prolific donors to Biden PACs and campaigns starting from the Senate to the presidential stage. Between 2003 and 2024, the Delaware couple did simply that donated greater than $50,000 supporting Biden’s campaigns, in line with FEC knowledge.
Marquardt has posted a number of pictures with Biden through the years on his social media accounts and his Linkedin profile, and has promoted his ties to him on his enterprise web site. His background photograph on X, Fb and Linkedin exhibits him and his spouse with President Biden and former Presidents Obama and Clinton at a celebrity-studded fundraiser in New York Metropolis earlier this yr. He has additionally posted pictures along with his spouse on the White Home in the course of the Biden administration, together with at a Christmas get together and the Fourth of July celebration.
“I’m a enterprise advisor welcomed into boardrooms worldwide,” Marquardt’s web site reads subsequent to a photograph of him and Biden shortly after he introduced his 2019 presidential bid. “As a trusted strategist who shortly understands firm tradition and helps, I concentrate on advising American firms trying to increase into Europe or Asia and firms eager about getting into the American market.”
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President Biden speaks throughout a marketing campaign occasion in Philadelphia on April 18, 2024. (Hannah Beier/Bloomberg by way of Getty Photos)
Fox Information Digital reached out to Marquardt and the White Home for remark however didn’t obtain a response.
Andrew Mark Miller is a reporter for Fox Information. Discover him on Twitter @andymarkmiller and electronic mail tricks to [email protected].
