Biden’s Germany ambassador again raises eyebrows with mega payouts from Penn
- September 1, 2023
Haisten Willis, Washington Examiner
President Joe Biden’s ambassador to Germany is attracting controversy again, this time over payments she received before leaving her previous job.
Amy Gutmann served as president of the University of Pennsylvania for 18 years before becoming ambassador to Germany in February 2022. She received two substantial sums from the university before leaving the gig.
Gutmann got a $3.7 million home loan from the Ivy League school in October 2020, with an interest rate of 0.38%, as she was preparing to leave the on-campus president’s house. Biden won the presidential election in November and named her ambassador to Germany in July 2021.
Also, in 2021, Gutmann received $23 million in deferred compensation, which was earned over her 18-year tenure leading the university.
While both payments are legal and were claimed on ethics disclosures, they raise questions about priorities both within higher education and inside the Biden administration.
“Though this situation doesn’t appear to run afoul of any federal ethics laws or the Biden ethics pledge, it’s hard to see it not stirring up quite a tempest in a different administration,” said Michael Chamberlain, director of the right-leaning watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust. “For one, it certainly looks like another example of how lucrative it is to be associated with Joe Biden.”