A large spike in Chinese donations to the University of Pennsylvania following the school opening its think tank named after President Joe Biden was "startling," according to a former top investigator at the Education Department.

The University of Pennsylvania pocketed at least $100 million from contributors in China between 2017 and 2022, a marked increase from its $19 million China haul during the four-year period prior, according to foreign gift records previously reported on.

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Congressional Republicans and watchdogs have raised concerns over the donations from the authoritarian country to the university behind the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, which opened in 2017.

"It was extraordinary," Paul Moore, former head investigative counsel for the department during the Trump administration, testified to Congress on Thursday.

"Not in that time frame, absolutely not," Moore said in response to Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) asking whether he is aware of other universities like the University of Pennsylvania being handed a similar amount of money from China. "It was particularly startling to see with UPenn what they had received. That was very notable."

UPenn has come under particular scrutiny after attorneys for Biden located between 25 and 30 classified documents in his old office at the Penn Biden Center from November 2022 to January 2023. The documents were from Biden's time as vice president.

The university has communicated to the public that the Penn Biden Center is backed by UPenn's general budget, and that foreign cash was not earmarked for the think tank. However, Moore testified on Thursday that its possible donations from the university's general fund could have indirectly gone to the think tank.

"Those funds were co-mingled, and certainly went to the general operations, and may have gone to the Biden Center," Moore said, also noting that his government office did not decide to investigate the China contributions since there was allegedly no proof the university was skirting federal rules.

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"Members of Congress wrote to us, urging us to open an investigation," Moore said. "It would have been a very political thing, inappropriate, frankly, for the office of general counsel."

The Penn Biden Center has served as something of an administration-in-waiting, given at least 11 of its former staffers went on to join the federal government under Joe Biden, the Washington Examiner reported. The think tank's former leaders have included the likes of Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House counselor Steve Richetti, records show.