miles kwok guo

---

see gettr jizz vxr grift

merri ok

---

Organizations tied to Steve Bannon listed in new superseding indictment of longtime associate Miles Guo | Media Matters for America

Multiple organizations tied to former Trump adviser Steve Bannon were listed for the first time in a superseding indictment against his longtime associate Miles Guo, a Chinese businessman facing a litany of charges in the Southern District of New York.

The ties between Guo and Bannon have long been known, but the new court document provides additional clarity about Guo’s alleged conspiracy, which the indictment says defrauded victims of approximately $1 billion. It could also signal increased legal exposure for Bannon, who has been financially intertwined with Guo since at least 2018.

The updated indictment alleges that Guo — also known as Guo Wengui and Ho Wan Kwok — used social media company Gettr, media outlet G News, the supposed government-in-exile New Federal State of China in a conspiracy to defraud his victims and furnish his lavish lifestyle.

Bannon is linked with each of these organizations, none of which were listed as directly implicated entities in the original indictment.

Most significantly, Bannon has long been a champion of Gettr, a far-right competitor to X (formerly known as Twitter). The Washington Post reported that Bannon’s War Room podcast had received $50,000 from Gettr as late as December 2022.

“One of the things about Miles, in my time of knowing him — just the, you know, the music, the fashion, G News, GTV, association with Gettr, all these things you see popping off has been such successes really in such a short period of time,” Bannon said in a November 17, 2021, interview on Guo’s GTV.

Video file

Video Player

00:00

03:59

CitationFrom GTV's Weekly Interview With Mr Bannon, aired November 17, 2021, available on Rumble

That was just one of many instances where Bannon hyped Guo’s G News and its related media property GTV.

“G News and GTV, great article today, comes out that GTV, Miles Guo, Steve Bannon, saving western civilization,” Bannon said. “Hey, I don’t know if I’d go that far but let’s say this: I’m so proud of G News and GTV for stepping up.”

Video file

Video Player

00:00

00:27

CitationFrom the October 26, 2020 edition of War Room: Pandemic

Their alliance extended beyond media ventures and into the realm of political organizing. In June 2020, Guo and Bannon jointly launched the New Federal State of China, billed as an initiative to counter the Chinese government. As Media Matters reported following Guo’s initial indictment, Bannon praised the New Federal State of China and other Guo properties in a joint panel appearance the following year.

“The New Federal State, the whistleblower movement, the Rule of Law Society and Foundation, Gettr, G Fashion, all this — what the world is seeing is a new China and a new Chinese,” Bannon said.

Video file

Video Player

00:00

03:36

CitationFrom a panel on the New Federal State of China held on September 15, 2021, and available on YouTube

Following the announcement of the initial indictment, Media Matters reported that Bannon promoted Guo’s cryptocoin and exchange platform, which the SDNY alleges were central to the Chinese businessman’s scheme.

Bannon also served on the board of the nonprofit Rule of Law Society — founded by Guo — but left at some point in the summer of 2020, and agreed to serve as chairman of Guo’s Rule of Law Fund. Like the New Federal State of China, both initiatives were aimed at undermining the Chinese government.

In August 2020 Bannon was arrested on Guo’s superyacht by the U.S. Postal Service for alleged fraud connected to a scheme to build a wall at the U.S. southern border. The trial is set for May of this year in New York state court. (As one of former President Donald Trump’s last acts in office, he pardoned Bannon on related federal charges.)

---

brink bannon doc

---

https://www.mediamatters.org/steve-bannon/steve-bannon-reportedly-gave-vital-assistance-miles-guos-allegedly-fraudulent-schemes

---

no lnx

https://www.alternet.org/news-politics/steve-bannon-2659601759/

the U.S. Dept. of Justice has announced a twelve-count indictment charging Ho Wan Kwok with crimes including wire fraud, securities fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering in what it alleges is a more than “$1 Billion Dollar Fraud Conspiracy.” Kwok, who uses numerous alias including Guo Wengui, was arrested Wednesday morning.

Last year The Daily Beast referred to Kwok as Steve Bannon’s “Sugar Daddy,” reporting the Chinese businessman would “have to pay massive contempt fines for moving the yacht where federal agents busted Steve Bannon in 2020.”

“The financier famed for bankrolling some of Steve Bannon’s best-known ventures, as well as the far-right strategist’s jet-setting lifestyle, is in deep trouble for steering a $28 million yacht—the same boat where federal agents arrested Bannon in 2020—out of American waters.”

Bannon is Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign chairman, who later became his White House Chief Strategist, and was named Senior Counselor to the President. After his exit from the Trump White House Bannon returned to the far-right wing website Breitbart, which he infamously once bragged was “the platform for the alt-right.” Today, Bannon runs the far-right extremist podcast, Bannon’s War Room.

The New Yorker last year published an article on Kwok titled, “How a Tycoon Linked to Chinese Intelligence Became a Darling of Trump Republicans.” It mentions Bannon 38 times.

READ MORE: George Santos: Drag Queen, Congressman, Yacht Broker – FBI Investigating Role in $19 Million Sale Between Donors

According to The Daily Beast, that best-known venture is the “supposed consulate for the ‘New Federal State of China,’ declared by ex-White House strategist Stephen Bannon and his flamboyant Chinese patron, fugitive businessman Guo Wengui,” also known as Ho Wan Kwok.

“Since 2017,” The Daily Beast adds, Kwok “has lived in luxury, setting up residence in a $68 million Central Park penthouse and underwriting numerous right-wing projects, from nonprofits with Bannon to dodgy media operations to bogus COVID-19 studies to would-be Twitter competitor GETTR.”

ABC News adds that “Bannon is currently being prosecuted by the Manhattan district attorney for defrauding donors to the We Build the Wall online fundraising campaign.”

Last year NewsNation profiled Kwok in a segment about “Billionaires pulling the strings in US elections.”

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

How long could Steve Bannon's prison sentence be if he is convicted on all charges in New York State? ›

Watch: Steve Bannon says Republicans will teach Democrats a lesson 'by bayonet' ›

Marjorie Taylor Greene tells Steve Bannon she plans to impeach Joe Biden over renewable energy ›

MORE FROM THE SERIES

Trump Tourism: Access for Sale

The Miami Herald is investigating how U.S. President Donald J. Trump has become a favorite target of a little-known Chinese industry peddling access to the rich and powerful. At the center of this “Trump Tourism” is Cindy Yang, a former Asian day spa owner, who sold access to Mar-a-Lago and the White House, raising concerns about national security. Read more:

EXPAND ALL]

A high-profile Chinese fugitive — who belongs to President Donald Trump’s exclusive South Florida club, Mar-a-Lago, and has railed against China’s communist government — is accused of being a spy for that very regime, according to new documents filed in a federal court case in New York.

Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, who also goes by Miles Kwok, fled to the United States four years ago after learning an associate had been arrested on corruption charges. He is now one of China’s most-wanted, accused of myriad crimes by the Chinese government, including paying bribes and sexual assault. He maintains his innocence, saying the charges are politically motivated.

:{:{}:

Guo, who made his money in real estate, has long promoted himself as a dissident being hunted by the Chinese government for his opposition to the ruling Chinese Communist Party. He is currently seeking political asylum in the United States, where he reportedly avoided deportation by the Trump administration after the president learned Guo was a member of Mar-a-Lago.

Now, filings in a civil case, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, suggest Guo may not be the dissident he claims. “Instead, Guo Wengui was, and is, a dissident-hunter, propagandist, and agent in the service of the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party,” according to federal court papers filed on Friday.

The Chinese spy allegations against Guo surfaced last week in a contract dispute — rife with international and political intrigue — between a Hong Kong-based company, Eastern Profit Corporation Limited, and an Arlington, Va., research firm, Strategic Vision US, LLC

:{:{}:

[A photo shows Guo Wengui walking his dog outside Mar-a-Lago in late December 2018as anti-Trump protesters pulled up in a boat behind him. COURTESY CLAUDE TAYLOR]

Strategic filed a counterclaim not only against Eastern Profit but also against Guo, alleging he is actually a Chinese government spy whose “origin story is untrue.”

In the counterclaim, Strategic Vision called Guo a “representative” of Eastern Profit, and accused the billionaire of giving the research firm a thumb drive loaded with malware. Strategic claimed Guo was seeking sensitive information on Chinese nationals who were actually assisting the U.S. government’s counterintelligence efforts.

“Strategic Vision proved its counterclaim with mountains of publicly available information,” said the research firm’s attorney, Edward Greim, in a statement provided to the Miami Herald.

“[The evidence] showed that Mr. Guo was detained in China on the date he claims to have arrived in the U.S. in early 2015, that he sent hundreds of millions of dollars back and forth between China and the U.S. for years after Chinese authorities supposedly starting seizing his assets, and that he’s used scores of lawsuits to engage in seemingly sham disputes against Chinese regime-connected entities while simultaneously filing very real lawsuits against legitimate Chinese dissidents to destroy their reputations and drain their finances.”

The allegations against Guo — that he’s some sort of double agent uncovering real dissidents for the Chinese government — come as the FBI continues to investigate possible Chinese espionage at Mar-a-Lago. The ongoing federal probe gained new momentum when, on March 30, Yujing Zhang, a 33-year-old Chinese national, was arrested and charged with trespassing and lying to a federal agent after she tried to enter Mar-a-Lago with various cover stories.

According to authorities, she was carrying a trove of electronics, including a thumb drive authorities claimed was infested with malware. Recent secret filings in the Zhang case suggest federal authorities have information about Zhang that could endanger national security, should anyone but the judge view it.

Zhang had initially bought a ticket to an event at Mar-a-Lago that was being promoted by South Florida massage parlor entrepreneur Li “Cindy” Yang. The event was canceled after the Herald revealed Yang was selling access to the president and his family through Mar-a-Lago events that she promoted on Chinese social media. Zhang was aware of the cancellation before arriving in Florida. Now, both Zhang and Yang are at the center of the broader federal counterintelligence effort in South Florida. Yang is also the focus of a separate campaign finance investigation by the Department of Justice.

[Gu_fitted.jpeg

Guo Wengui poses for a photo inside Mar-a-Lago, the president’s club, where he is reportedly a member. CLAUDE TAYLOR]

It is unclear whether Guo is in any way involved in the counterintelligence investigation.

Top Senate Democrats are renewing calls for federal authorities to assess potential security risks posed by Mar-a-Lago’s status as a club where $200,000 buys a membership with nearly unlimited access to the president’s South Florida home.

“I do not know the guy at all,” longtime Mar-a-Lago member George Lombardi told the Miami Herald. “But I can say that the events that took place in Mar-a-Lago months ago reflect the fact that there are a few individuals that may live in the USA but they have pledged their alliance to other countries.” Still, Lombardi said he was not worried by the news.

The Trump Organization, which runs Mar-a-Lago, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Guo was photographed at Mar-a-Lago in December 2018, walking his beloved tiny white dog around the grounds. At the time, the president’s wife, Melania, and other members of the family were popping in and out of the club to attend various holiday events. President Trump was in Washington at the time due to the government shutdown.

The picture of Guo, his dog, and an unidentified female companion was snapped by Claude Taylor, an anti-Trump activist, who was driving a boat up the Intracoastal Waterway. On board Taylor’s boat was a large inflatable rat, with hair and suit that made it look like Donald Trump.

“We were just having fun, creating mischief,” Taylor told the Herald.

As he blasted a classic rock song — “I Fought the Law” by the Clash — Taylor saw Guo and the female companion walking the dog near the club’s seawall. While Taylor snapped photos of Guo, the billionaire started taking pictures of the boat.

Taylor logged onto Mar-a-Lago’s unsecured guest Wi-Fi, and a while later was contacted by someone inside the club. He didn’t know who it was. The contact sent one photo of Guo inside Mar-a-Lago reading a newspaper, and another with Guo standing with Taylor’s rat boat behind him. Taylor assumed the latter was taken by Guo’s female companion.

“He wants as many people as possible to know he is a member in good standing,” Taylor remembers thinking at the time. “He’s a fugitive from justice who has asylum claims and he’s using as leverage his association with Mar-a-Lago to bolster his asylum claim.”

[IMG_5007.jpeg

Chinese fugitive billionaire Guo Wengui was photographed by activist Claude Taylor as Guo walked his dog outside Mar-a-Lago in late December 2018. CLAUDE TAYLOR]

“Mr. Guo is the most wanted dissident worldwide by the Chinese Communist Party and has been their most outspoken and vitriolic critic since his arrival in the United States,” according to Guo’s attorney, Podhaskie.

The Chinese government has apparently gone to considerable lengths to try to bring Guo back to mainland China.

On May 24, 2017, several Chinese officials went to Guo’s home — a $67 million Manhattan penthouse — in an effort to persuade him to drop his activism and return to China, according to an audio recording of the meeting reported by the Wall Street Journal. The officials were traveling in the United States on visas that did not permit official business, prompting a behind-the-scenes skirmish between the FBI and State Department on whether to arrest them as they left the country, according to the Journal. In the end, the State Department’s fears of sparking an international incident won out, and the Chinese officials left the country without incident.

Around the same time, Republican National Committee Finance Chairman Steve Wynn, a casino magnate and longtime associate of Trump’s with business interests in Macau, a special administrative region of China, reportedly hand-delivered a letter to the president on behalf of the Chinese government. It requested that the United States deport Guo back to China. (Wynn denied the story through his lawyer, when asked for comment by the Journal.) Trump appeared ready to grant China’s request until his aides dissuaded him by telling him that Guo was a member of Mar-a-Lago, according to the Journal.

Guo is known to be one of China’s most eccentric billionaires and has spent his life mired in controversy. Guo’s official Facebook page is filled with videos of himself demonstrating his various workout routines and anti-Chinese Communist Party content — like one recent video in which he interviews former senior Trump advisor Steve Bannon on U.S.-Chinese relations over dinner.

The unlikely duo met while Bannon worked in the White House as Trump’s chief strategist, according to Bannon, who spoke at a news conference last year where he announced he was joining Guo’s effort to expose Chinese corruption around the globe.

During the news conference, Guo and Bannon alleged that the Chinese government was involved in the death of another Chinese billionaire, Wang Jian, former chairman of the HNA Group, who fell to his death on July 4, 2018, while vacationing in the south of France. French officials ruled the death an accident and claimed there was no evidence pointing to suicide.

However, Guo said at the news conference that he had commissioned a private investigation into Wang’s fall that turned up several anomalies, including how his bodyguards reacted bygiving the dying man facial acupuncture.

Together, Guo and Bannon launched the Rule of Law Foundation, which they said would collect evidence in cases of deaths like Wang’s, according to the South China Morning Post.

“Mr. Guo has consistently emphasized his one goal: to take down the CCP [Chinese Communist Party]. As such, he has put all of his available resources to that end — to take down this murderous dictatorship and free his fellow countrymen in China,” Guo’s lawyer told the Herald.

Play VideoDuration 1:20

Chinese woman arrested at Mar-a-Lago is accused of lying

Yujing Zhang, the Chinese woman arrested on March 30, 2019, trying to enter President Donald Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, is charged with making false statements to federal agents and illegally entering a restricted area. BY META VIERS

FOLLOW MORE OF OUR REPORTING ON TRUMP TOURISM: ACCESS FOR SALE

FLORIDA

‘Who is Mar-a-Lago?’ Arrested Chinese woman appears confused after intrusion at Trump club

DECEMBER 19, 2019 9:24 AM

SOUTH FLORIDA

Cagey Chinese spy or fawning Trump fan? Mar-a-Lago intruder’s trial may offer up clues

SEPTEMBER 06, 2019 9:00 AM

---

ref

https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-hunt-for-guo-wengui-a-fugitive-businessman-kicks-off-manhattan-caper-worthy-of-spy-thriller-1508717977

The Wall Street Journal

China’s Pursuit of Fugitive Businessman Guo Wengui Kicks Off Manhattan Caper Worthy of Spy Thriller

Pressure from Beijing officials seeking Mr. Guo’s return sparks frantic response from Trump administration—and Penn Station, JFK airport standoffs

By Kate O’Keeffe, Aruna Viswanatha and Cezary Podkul

Updated Oct. 22, 2017

Guo Wengui, a wealthy Chinese businessman, sat in the sun room of his apartment on the 18th-floor of the Sherry-Netherland Hotel on New York’s Fifth Avenue. With him were four officials from China’s Ministry of State Security, whom Mr. Guo had agreed to meet.

For many months, Mr. Guo, from his self-imposed exile, had been using Twitter to make allegations of corruption against senior Chinese officials and tycoons. During the hourslong conversation, the officials urged him to quit his activism and return home, after which...

---

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-uses-coronavirus-fears-to-advance-bannons-far-right-agenda/

When President Donald J. Trump delivered his latest market-rattling remarks on the coronavirus pandemic from the Oval Office on Wednesday night, political reporters collectively scratched their heads over the president’s announcement of a ban on travelers from Europe and cargo coming from the continent. (The cargo ban was later walked back.)

But anyone paying attention to the rise of the global right knew what Trump was up to: using well-founded fears of the virus’s spread in the U.S. to strengthen the hand of Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s erstwhile chief White House strategist, in the former’s quest to weaken the European Union.

In his remarks, Trump blamed European travelers for “seeding” the “foreign virus”—first identified in China—on American shores, and blamed Europe for the spread of the new coronavirus, because, he said, the E.U. had not banned travel from China as the U.S. has. “And taking early intense action, we have seen dramatically fewer cases of the virus in the United States than are now present in Europe,” Trump said, conveniently omitting the fact that Europe has a viable testing regimen, while it’s still impossible for most people in the U.S. to obtain a test for COVID-19, as the new coronavirus is formally known. Consequently, no one knows just how many people in the land of the free are freely walking around, spreading the virus. Nor do we know how many deaths from respiratory failure are due to the new virus.

While a number of claims made by Trump in the remarks he delivered from the Resolute Desk have since been walked back by various government agencies, it is notable that a clarification from the Department of Homeland Security says that the European countries affected by the executive order signed by Trump include only those in the Schengen area, which means those that are party to a multi-nation agreement to maintain open borders among them. Most of those 22 nations are members of the E.U.

In other words, this is an ideological and punitive action against those nations for daring to act in coalition—and for having demonstrated, since 1985, the value of such a compact.

Since before his ouster from the White House (for saying mean things about Trump’s son, Don Jr., daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner that were reported in the Michael Wolff book, “Fire and Fury”), Bannon has been working on growing the right-wing nationalist parties in Europe, Brazil and elsewhere, with a foremost goal of busting up the E.U. While he served as an executive at Cambridge Analytica, Bannon helped fuel the Brexit referendum that has led to the United Kingdom’s departure from the E.U.

In his Wednesday-night remarks, Trump said that the U.K. would be exempt from his European travel ban—never mind that confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.K. leapt by more than 20 percent since Trump spoke to the American people yesterday from the Oval Office, now standing at 596, with 20 deaths reported. “However,” according to the BBC, “the actual number of people infected could be between 5,000 and 10,000, the government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said.”

Politico notes that the parameters of his European travel ban functionally exempt travelers from Trump’s own properties in Scotland and Ireland.

In addition, Trump’s framing of COVID-19 as a “foreign virus” fits neatly into one of Bannon’s newer projects, a group he calls Committee on the Present Danger: China, whose major donor, Guo Wengui, appears to be Bannon’s latest sugar daddy, now that he’s said to have been abandoned by his former patrons, Robert and Rebekah Mercer.

While Trump and Bannon may have their personal differences, it is clear that they’re working in tandem. The constellation of right-wing actors that forms the alliance colloquially known as Bannon World are firmly on team Trump, as was obvious at last month’s Conservative Political Action Conference, which has become, for all intents and purposes, an arm of the Trump campaign. (The conference is run by Matt Schlapp, whose wife Mercedes works for the Trump campaign. Matt Schlapp and his roster of speakers at the four-day conference almost all effusively praised the president, with many urging his reelection.) Bannon World speakers at CPAC included former White House adviser Sebastian Gorka, Brexit Party Chairman Nigel Farage, Brazilian politician Eduardo Bolsonaro and China critic Gordon Chang.

The American Conservative Union, which stages CPAC, reported last week that one this year’s CPAC attendees—revealed today to be the Republican donor Alan Berger—tested positive for the virus after attending the conference.

Tags: Donald J. Trump Donald Trump Jr.Eduardo Bolsonaro Gordon Chang Guo Wengui Ivanka Trump Jared Kushner Matt Schlapp Mercedes Schlapp Michael Wolff Miles Kwok Nigel Farage Rebekah Mercer Robert Mercer Sebastian Gorka Steve Bannon Bannon World Coronavirus European travel ban global far-right American Conservative Union BBC Committee on the Present Danger: China Department of Homeland Security European Union Politico

---

bannon

:{:{}:

https://www.mediamatters.org/steve-bannon/steve-bannon-pushing-debunked-claims-about-coronavirus-are-linked-his-billionaire

many lnx vids (see bak)

Steve Bannon is pushing debunked claims about the coronavirus that are linked to his billionaire benefactor

WRITTEN BY MADELINE PELTZ

PUBLISHED 02/06/20 11:04 AM EST

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon has pushed a debunked theory about the origins of the coronavirus in Wuhan, China on his daily radio broadcast War Room: Pandemic. The claim echoesfake news pushed by G News, a website that has reportedly paid him at least $1 million for consulting and offered him a position as senior editor.

War Room: Pandemic launched on January 25 as a spin-off to War Room:

Impeachment, Bannon’s rapid response operation defending President Donald Trump during his Senate impeachment trial. Since the new show began, Bannon has repeatedly pushed the false narrative that the coronavirus was leaked from a covert biological weapons program at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which includes a secure research facility where scientists study highly contagious and infectious diseases.

The unfounded narrative that the coronavirus was engineered and leaked from the lab has been wholly rejected by experts, with The Washington Post labeling it a “fringe theory,” PolitiFact calling the claim made in the G News article “false,” and Foreign Policy describing it as “an outbreak of nonsense.” Rutgers University professor of chemical biology Richard Ebright told the Post that “based on the virus genome and properties there is no indication whatsoever that it was an engineered virus.”

But evidence is no object when Bannon is on a mission to propagandize. On the podcast, Bannon has repeatedly cited stories by Bill Gertz in the Washington Times that suggest, based on speculations from a single source, that the Wuhan Institute of Virology is researching biowarfare, and that the coronavirus was engineered and leaked from there. Bannon kicked off the show’s inaugural episode by interviewing Gertz to promote his flimsy reporting.

BuzzFeed recently reported on Bannon's ties to G News, a digital media outlet launched by Chinese billionaire-in-exile Guo Wenguithat has also published two false stories about how the coronavirus was first introduced to residents of Wuhan. One G News story falsely alleged that the Chinese government would imminently confess that the virus was genetically engineered and leaked from a lab near the densely populated city. The other included a document purporting to validate a conspiracy theory that the Chinese military spread the disease on purpose.

Bannon’s contracts with the project were first reported in October by Axios, which showed that he had signed on to serve as a consultant for one year starting in August 2018 and was to be compensated at least $1 million. Axios also reported on a second, unsigned contract that specified Bannon would serve as a senior editor for G News starting in August 2019. According to BuzzFeed, “Guo and Bannon frequently appear together in videos on G News that attack the Chinese government.” (According to The New York Times, Guo described his connection to Bannon in a 2018 interview: “We both naturally despise the Chinese Communist Party. That’s why we’ve become partners.”) Episodes of War Room: Pandemic are also cross-posted to the G News website.

Video file

CitationFrom the January 25, 2020, edition of War Room: Pandemic

STEVE BANNON (HOST): Bill Gertz from the Washington Times, Bill Gertz had an amazing piece in the Washington Times about the biological labs that happen to be in Wuhan.

The episode also featured J. Kyle Bass, a China critic and hedge fund investor with connections to G News owner Guo, on the same day that Bass tweeted out a CBC article from July 2019, falsely claiming that “a husband and wife Chinese spy team” smuggled viral samples out of a Candian research facility to Wuhan. “Pizzagate” conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, who tweeted the CBC link that day with the same unsubstantiated claim, was also a guest on the episode.

Later in the show, Gertz and Bannon delved further into the thinly sourced theory. Despite admitting that “we have no evidence that this current coronavirus leaked from that institute,” Gertz speculated that “it’s certainly possible that this outbreak of this animal virus could have come from one of their biological weapons labs.” The U.S. Department of State has raised concerns regarding China’s compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention, but has not affirmatively identified the existence of such a program.

Video file

CitationFrom the January 25, 2020, edition of War Room: Pandemic

STEVE BANNON (HOST): Bill, can you briefly summarize the article that you did yesterday? Talk about these biological labs that are in Wuhan and what aspect do you think they may have in this crisis?

BILL GERTZ: Sure, yeah, good to be on the show, Steve. This is a significant development in the sense that what I’ve identified is the sole declared facility in China capable of handling deadly viruses. In other words, this is the place where they do all of their civilian research. And I spoke with a former Israeli military intelligence officer who studied the Chinese biological warfare program and he says that this institute is clearly linked to this covert Chinese biological warfare program. Now, we have no evidence that this current coronavirus leaked from that institute, but in China and the way secrecy works and the lack of controls, it’s certainly possible that this outbreak of this animal virus could have come from one of their biological weapons labs.

There’s also a second facility in Wuhan that’s also linked to the biological weapons program.Again, that’s a secret program that last year the State Department in it’s annual report on arms compliance stated fairly bluntly that they believe that China is engaged in a covert offensive biological weapons program.

Gertz returned to the show on January 27, claiming, “Obviously, the question of their covert biological weapons program should come into play here.” Bannon replied, “Your point is that there are no coincidences” related to the coronavirus, and the lab facility raises “certain suspicions.”

Video file

CitationFrom the January 27, 2020, edition of War Room: Pandemic

BILL GERTZ: Obviously, the question of their covert biological weapons program should come into play here because, you know, there is only one declared hospital, research center, laboratory in Wuhan -- in all of China -- and it’s in Wuhan, capable of dealing with this level 4 of infectious diseases. And then you have then --

STEVE BANNON (HOST): Your point is there are no coincidences, if the level 4 [facility] that was built by the French for them in 2007 is in Wuhan, then that leads to certain suspicions.

GERTZ: Absolutely. This has, you know, the Chinese have to respond to this.

Bannon’s guest Dr. Steven Hatfill, an expert who previously worked at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, told the host repeatedly that the theory about coronavirus leaked out of an infectious disease research facility was incorrect, adding, “You know, I'm sitting in an SL4 laboratory right now, and there is no way you could get anything out of here. There’s no way a bad guy could get in.” From the January 29 edition of War Room: Pandemic:

Video file

CitationFrom the January 29, 2020, edition of War Room: Pandemic

STEVE BANNON (HOST): Today, The Washington Post is out there, mocking and ridiculing The Washington Times, Bill Gertz, one of our colleagues reporting about the Wuhan level 4 laboratory, saying it’s a fringe theory, that anything could have come out of that laboratory, et cetera. We’re not trying to make an assertion that they were building a biological weapon. But given the fact that there’s now no direct link at least as shown today between patient zero and the market, it maybe some that’s later. How do you think this thing started?

DR. STEVEN HATFILL: I think it was natural. You know, I'm sitting in an SL4 laboratory right now, and there is no way you could get anything out of here. There’s no way a bad guy can get in. The people around me are of the highest professional caliber, both mentally, technically, emotionally, and every other consideration. I'm sorry but I kind of downplay the fact that this came out of a BW laboratories.

BANNON: Well, I think that’s fantastic. I think people need to hear that. I think that’s great. And why do you come to this conclusion?

After this exchange, Bannon ignored Hatfill’s expertise and returned to his irresponsible speculation, declaring that “there are no coincidences.”

Video file

CitationFrom the January 29, 2020, edition of War Room: Pandemic

STEVE BANNON (HOST): Now, people will tell you that’s also where biological warfare are done, those types of places. That’s why there’s so much focus -- Bill Gertz’s articles in the Washington Times focus very much on this level four lab that is in Wuhan, right. And I’m not a believer, as you know, I’m not a conspiracy guy, I always tell you it’s out there in plain daylight. The party at Davos, the way they roll is right up in your grill and there are no coincidences.

On February 1, Bannon again asked Hatfill about the theory, and again Hatfill rejected it:

Video file

CitationFrom the February 1, 2020, edition of War Room: Pandemic

STEVE BANNON (HOST): Also Zero Hedge, who I'm a huge fan of, Zero Hedge has had this analysis of what the Chinese lab and the two Chinese -- the Canadian lab in I think Winnipeg, that there are now issues -- one of the Chinese scientists took some of the viruses back to Wuhan. I'm not a conspiracy theory guy, not a deep state guy, never have been because I say it’s all up there in your face, the party at Davos, the way the whole thing rolls is in your grill you just have to see it. But there are no coincidences.

...

These are the elite institutions in the world the french built one from the ground up for the Chinese, it just randomly happened to be in Wuhan, right? And relatively in geospatial terms relatively close to the market, a mile or two. There’s been tons of things, they’re using HIV serum to cure people there. This report comes out and it’s been tweeted out all over. Bill Gertz, Washington Times, done some good reporting. The Post calls it a fringe kook theory Miles Guo put something up, said he had a report from inside the CCP and Politifact saying he’s lying so it’s all over the map.

But in your assessment, at what you see in [INAUDIBLE], I asked you to look overnight at this, where do you think we stand as people know the information today? Is this something that’s naturally occurred? Do you think there’s a possibility in what you read so far that it gives you even a scintilla that this could be some sort of weaponization thing gone wrong that somehow got out of the lab.

DR. STEVEN HATFILL: From what I’ve looked at I think the authors of these papers are overreaching a bit. Now that said this is an odd virus its genome. It’s got a very, very, long, very different from the other SARS virus.

Now, the unsubstantiated theory is being repeated by U.S. government officials in a position of power to take action. According to a report from Business Insider, during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) pointed out the proximity of the outbreak to “China’s only bio-safety level four ‘superlaboratory’ that works with the world’s most deadly pathogens to include, yes, coronavirus.”

bannon

:{:{}:

https://www.mediamatters.org/steve-bannon/steve-bannon-pushing-debunked-claims-about-coronavirus-are-linked-his-billionaire

many lnx vids (see bak)

Steve Bannon is pushing debunked claims about the coronavirus that are linked to his billionaire benefactor

WRITTEN BY MADELINE PELTZ

PUBLISHED 02/06/20 11:04 AM EST

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon has pushed a debunked theory about the origins of the coronavirus in Wuhan, China on his daily radio broadcast War Room: Pandemic. The claim echoes fake news pushed by G News, a website that has reportedly paid him at least $1 million for consulting and offered him a position as senior editor.

War Room: Pandemic launched on January 25 as a spin-off to War Room:

The unfounded narrative that the coronavirus was engineered and leaked from the lab has been wholly rejected by experts, with The Washington Post labeling it a “fringe theory,” PolitiFact calling the claim made in the G News article “false,” and Foreign Policy describing it as “an outbreak of nonsense.” Rutgers University professor of chemical biology Richard Ebright told the Post that “based on the virus genome and properties there is no indication whatsoever that it was an engineered virus.”

Bannon’s contracts with the project were first reported in October by Axios, which showed that he had signed on to serve as a consultant for one year starting in August 2018 and was to be compensated at least $1 million. Axios also reported on a second, unsigned contract that specified Bannon would serve as a senior editor for G News starting in August 2019. According to BuzzFeed, “Guo and Bannon frequently appear together in videos on G News that attack the Chinese government.” (According to The New York Times, Guo described his connection to Bannon in a 2018 interview: “We both naturally despise the Chinese Communist Party. That’s why we’ve become partners.”) Episodes of War Room: Pandemic are also cross-posted to the G News website.

Video file

CitationFrom the January 25, 2020, edition of War Room: Pandemic

STEVE BANNON (HOST): Bill Gertz from the Washington Times, Bill Gertz had an amazing piece in the Washington Times about the biological labs that happen to be in Wuhan.

Video file

CitationFrom the January 25, 2020, edition of War Room: Pandemic

STEVE BANNON (HOST): Bill, can you briefly summarize the article that you did yesterday? Talk about these biological labs that are in Wuhan and what aspect do you think they may have in this crisis?

Video file

CitationFrom the January 27, 2020, edition of War Room: Pandemic

STEVE BANNON (HOST): Your point is there are no coincidences, if the level 4 [facility] that was built by the French for them in 2007 is in Wuhan, then that leads to certain suspicions.

GERTZ: Absolutely. This has, you know, the Chinese have to respond to this.

Video file

CitationFrom the January 29, 2020, edition of War Room: Pandemic

BANNON: Well, I think that’s fantastic. I think people need to hear that. I think that’s great. And why do you come to this conclusion?

After this exchange, Bannon ignored Hatfill’s expertise and returned to his irresponsible speculation, declaring that “there are no coincidences.”

Video file

CitationFrom the January 29, 2020, edition of War Room: Pandemic

On February 1, Bannon again asked Hatfill about the theory, and again Hatfill rejected it:

Video file

CitationFrom the February 1, 2020, edition of War Room: Pandemic

...

https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/steve-bannons-use-of-private-jet-linked-to-chinese-businessman-could-violate-campaign-finance-law/

no lnx

Steve Bannon’s use of private jet linked to Chinese businessman could violate campaign finance law

Written by Justin Elliott / ProPublica February 26, 2020

Former Donald Trump campaign CEO and chief strategist Steve Bannon used a private jet apparently owned by a wealthy Chinese businessman to fly to events to promote Republican congressional candidates in 2018.

The previously unreported flights could run afoul of a campaign finance law that bars foreign money from U.S. elections, according to campaign finance experts, though it depends on several factors that are not known. One of the unknowns is whether Bannon paid Guo Wengui — the Chinese businessman, who is a vocal critic of the Chinese regime, and with whom he has other reported financial ties — for the use of the jet.

Bannon flew on the jet, a Bombardier Global Express that can seat up to 13 people, to 2018 events supporting Republican candidates in New Mexico and Arizona. He also flew on it to Mexico City and New York, and possibly to other cities. The flights were confirmed by footage taken for “The Brink,” a 2019 documentary about Bannon, and by videos of Guo on the plane, interviews and FAA flight records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

“The foreign-national prohibition is the broadest prohibition in the Federal Election Campaign Act,” said Brett Kappel, a government affairs partner at the Akerman law firm, speaking generally. “It prohibits foreign nationals from making any contribution or donation in connection with any election in the United States. It also precludes foreign nationals from making in-kind contributions, such as paying for campaign-related travel.”

The same law also prohibits receiving such a donation. Bannon’s one-way trip from New York to New Mexico alone would be worth around $35,000, according to public jet charter rates.

Lawyers for Bannon and Guo (who is also known as Miles Kwok) did not dispute that Bannon used the Chinese businessman’s plane for trips. But Cleta Mitchell, an attorney representing Bannon’s nonprofit, Citizens of the American Republic, wrote in an email, “The meetings and rallies hosted by COAR in 2018 were to promote thefilm, Trump\@War, and to encourage Trump supporters to vote in 2018. These were not candidate or campaign rallies.” Guo’s attorney said in a statement that “Mr. Guo has not participated in or supported, directly or indirectly, any political activity or party in the United States or elsewhere. To the contrary, Mr. Guo has consistently emphasized that he has no desire to participate in politics anywhere.”

Nothing about the trips appears to have been disclosed to the Federal Election Commission, either by Bannon or the congressional candidates he traveled to support.

Guo told Vice in 2017 that he owns two private jets. Han Lianchao, a Guo associate, told ProPublica, “I know he allowed Steve to use his private jet from time to time.” Han said he did not know the specifics of their arrangement. A Bannon aide also told Alison Klayman, the filmmaker who made “The Brink” and flew on the jet, that it belonged to Guo, Klayman told ProPublica.

In one scene in the film, Bannon is shown on the plane praising Guo’s analysis of Chinese politics while on a flight from New York to Dallas in October 2018.

Official records don’t identify the ultimate owner of the jet, which bears the tail number T7-GQM. The jet is registered in the tiny Republic of San Marino to Whitecroft Shore Limited. That, in turn, is incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, an offshore dominion known for secrecy. There are multiple videos online of Guo that appear to be taken on the plane that match independent photos of the interior and exterior of the jet with the same tail number. Other articles link the jet to Guo.

Bannon left the Trump White House in the summer of 2017 and has spent the past couple of years jetting around the country and the globe to promote right-wing causes, candidates and his own brand. It is a continuing mystery who is supporting his efforts. His use of the Guo plane helps fill out the picture.

The unlikely relationship between Bannon and Guo is one of the defining features of Bannon’s post-White House career. It continues through the present, with Bannon and Guo frequently appearing together on Bannon’s podcast and Guo’s news site commenting on Trump, China and the coronavirus, among other topics.

Guo, who has described himself as a successful real estate developer and investor, left China for the U.S. in 2015 and is reportedly seeking asylum. He is a critic of Chinese leaders, churning out a stream of online videos commenting on the news of the day, from the coronavirus to his “crusade against communism.” The Chinese government has, in turn, sought Guo’s arrest on corruption allegations, which he has denied. Guo frequently appears in videos with Bannon, who has predicted a war between the U.S. and China and says he is currently producing a “takedown” film about Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The New York Times recently reported that Bannon’s relationship with Guo began with a $150,000 loan to Bannon shortly after his 2017 departure from the Trump administration. Axios reported that a company linked to Guo had contracted with Bannon for at least $1 million for “strategic consulting services,” beginning in August 2018. (A Guo spokesman told Axios that the contract was for media investment and other consulting, and that Guo “had no involvement in [Bannon] being retained.”)

In fall 2018, Bannon and his dark money organization, Citizens of the American Republic, were pushing to keep Republican control of Congress during the midterm elections. A Bannon aide told ABC at the time that the group had an election war room focused on “explaining that a vote for any House Republican is a vote to stop the Democrats.”

Bannon made the trips to promote GOP candidates on the Bombardier jet in October 2018, under the aegis of Citizens of the American Republic. (The organization raised a total of $4.5 million in 2018 from a handful of donors, according to its filing with the IRS. But as a “social welfare” nonprofit organized under section 501(c)4 of the Internal Revenue Code, it is not required to reveal its donors.)

One of the trips was to Arizona in support of congressional candidate Wendy Rogers. Bannon told the Arizona Daily Star at the time: “If she can beat [Rep. Tom] O’Halleran, we’ll hold the House. We’ll hold the House by one or two seats. And that’s why it’s so important, and that’s why I wanted to come down here.”

Rogers, who ultimately lost the race, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The trip to Roswell, New Mexico, featured U.S. Senate candidate Mick Richand a screening of Bannon’s film “Trump\@War.” According to video from the Roswell event viewed by ProPublica, Bannon and Rich strategized about the campaign before Bannon’s public remarks. “Tell me about this race,” Bannon said in the video. “How are we going to win this thing? I’ll come back here as many times as — ” Rich interjected: “Getting you out here is number one.” Rich also asked if Bannon could get President Trump to tweet about the race, and Bannon said he would try.

During the public event, Rich introduced Bannon, who in turn praised the Senate candidate as a “real populist.” Bannon urged the audience members to vote for pro-Trump candidates.

Rich lost the 2018 race and is running again this year. A spokesman told ProPublica in a statement that “Mick and his campaign had no knowledge of Bannon’s transportation to or from the event. Mick and his campaign had no coordination of any kind with Steve Bannon or any Steve Bannon group before, during, or after this event.”

Craig Holman, a campaign finance expert at Public Citizen, said that the New Mexico event “could well implicate Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui for violating the law that prohibits foreign nationals from paying for campaign activities,” if the Federal Election Commission deemed the event to be an “independent expenditure” by Bannon’s group, or a Rich campaign event.

The FEC doesn’t currently have a quorum and it, along with the IRS, have historically done little to scrutinize political nonprofits like Bannon’s.

Apart from the use of the jet, there’s also the question of whether the event would run afoul of the rules barring an outside group like Bannon’s from coordinating with the candidate, Rich.

Adav Noti of the Campaign Legal Center said political nonprofits are operating in a grey area because of the FEC’s failure to outline rules for what sort of contact they are permitted to have with a candidate. “To any rational person that looks at this, of course it’s a campaign event. But it might be allowed, which is the scandal.”

In a March 2018 filing in an unrelated lawsuit, an attorney for Guo noted the prohibition on Guo making expenditures in connection with U.S. elections. He wrote that “Because Plaintiff Guo is a foreign national, he is prohibited, by 52 U.S.C. 30121, from making any contributions, monetary donations or expenditures in connection with any federal, state or local election in the United States.”

---

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/bannon-schweizer-and-the-mercers-team-up-to-advance-conspiracy-theory-targeting-biden/

When President Donald Trump yesterday urged China to investigate the business dealings of the political opponent Trump apparently fears most—former Vice President Joe Biden—his purpose was likely as much to inject some disinformation into the presidential campaign as it was a request for back-up material for his claim. Which is not to suggest that China might not have some incentive to come up with some disinformation to please Trump; he is, after all, conducting a trade war against the superpower to the East. And besides, it makes for a great diversion from all of that impeachment nonsense.

Trump’s attempts to prove that his opponent (who does not own hotels frequented by foreign leaders looking to do business with the United States) to be corrupt follows a script familiar to those who remember the Uranium One non-scandal with which pro-Trump players sought to tar Trump’s 2016 presidential opponent, Hillary Clinton.In fact, the allegations against Biden and his son, Hunter, are being advanced by the same crew that crafted and pushed the Uranium One narrative: Steve Bannon and Peter Schweizer.

This part of the formula has been tried and tested: Schweizer, employed by the Bannon-founded Government Accountability Institute, writes a book full of cherry-picked facts that, without context, paint a damning portrait of Trump’s opponent.

With such explosive claims made, mainstream outlets feel compelled to report, if not on the claims themselves, then on the fact that the allegations were stated by some person of note.

Bannon has been publicly shunned by his former patrons, Robert and Rebekah Mercer, ever since he turned up in Michael Wolff’s book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” saying unflattering things about the first family. So Bannon found a new source in Miles Kwok (Guo Wengui), a fugitive Chinese billionaire, who is said to have created a $100 million fund for Bannon’s latest enterprise, Committee for the Present Danger: China, which Bannon leads with professional Islam-hater Frank Gaffney.

...

---

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/07/guo-wengui-chinese-billionaire-1356594

POLITICO

LEGAL

How a renegade Chinese billionaire became a center of D.C. intrigue

Guo Wengui allegedly offered a pair of conservative operatives $9 million for dirt on his enemies’ porn habits and out-of-wedlock children. Now he’s suing.

By BEN SCHRECKINGER 06/07/2019 05:06 AM EDT

A billionaire at the center of U.S.-China tensions is waging a mysterious legal battle against two D.C. conservatives over a private espionage deal gone bad. The fight touches on a pair of think tanks, a senator’s widow and the capital’s tight-knit group of China hardliners, adding a new chapter to an international saga that has divided the Trump administration and the president’s external allies.

It began when a firm tied to the billionaire, real estate magnate Guo Wengui, allegedly hired a private intelligence firm to dig up dirt on Chinese nationals — including their bank records, porn habits and any illegitimate children — then sued, saying the firm failed to deliver. In turn, the intelligence firm has claimed Guo’s side gave it a thumb drive loaded with sophisticated malware and that he sought information on people whose records were deemed sensitive by the U.S. government.

The ongoing suit, the details of which are reported here for the first time, deepens the already considerable mystique surrounding the billionaire businessman. An ally of Steve Bannon’s and a fugitive from Chinese authorities,Guo now lives in New York. His presence in the U.S. has exacerbated tensions between China’s ruling Communist Party and the administration of President Donald Trump.

The case also offers a rare behind-the-curtain glimpse at the tactics of 21st century geopolitical intrigue, where it is increasingly common for deep-pocketed clients with political agendas to pay firms with government contacts and cyber know-how to obtain people’s sensitive private information — and then use it to destroy them.

***

The details of the suit, which is being waged in federal court in the Southern District of New York, read more like a spy novel than a dry legal document.

Guo, who goes by Miles Kwok in the U.S., built a sizable fortune in real estate in China before apparently running afoul of the country’s government and fleeing in 2014. A year later, he came to the U.S., where he is seeking asylum while he lives in an opulent Manhattan apartment and publicizes claims of corruption against Chinese government officials. Since Guo fled to the U.S., the Chinese government has accused him of a raft of crimes, and a former assistant has accused him of rape. Guo has denied the allegations against him, calling them politically motivated.

In early 2018, the Guo-linked firm hired Strategic Vision, an obscure company led by Washington-area executive French Wallop, to dig up information on several targets, whom the suit does not name.

According to a court filing by Wallop’s firm, Guo enlisted it, "To perform research and analytics on numerous Chinese Nationals whom Mr. Guo and his undisclosed Chinese associates suspected to be engaged in activities in the United States and elsewhere that are inconsistent with their standing in the Chinese Communist Party and/or the laws of the United States."

Wallop was the third wife of Malcolm Wallop, the late Republican senator from Wyoming. In recent years, she has maintained a low profile in Washington, though in the midst of her divorce from the senator in 2000, the Washington Post’s gossip columnist obtained a sharply worded change-of-address note she sent around to friends stating, “French Wallop regrets to inform you that due to a significant indiscretion on the part of her husband of 16 years, he may now be reached at the following address.” On her LinkedIn profile, Wallop refers to Strategic Vision as a “strategic consulting firm.”

In addition to Wallop, J. Michael Waller acted as a representative of Strategic Vision, according to a letter the firm submitted to the court. Waller is a vice president at the far-right Center for Security Policy, a think tank founded by Frank Gaffney, a national security activist known for his conspiratorial hostility to Islam. Waller also served as the ghostwriter for the memoirs of Blackwater founder Erik Prince, according to his website.

By late 2017, when Guo was allegedly arranging for the contract, he also became something of a political football as Beijing sought his return to China. Earlier that year, China issued an Interpol red notice for his arrest. Then Chinese officials traveling to the U.S. on transit visas, which did not permit them to conduct government business, visited Guo at his apartment. This prompted a standoff, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, between the Justice Department, which wanted to arrest the Chinese officials, and the State Department, which successfully held the DOJ at bay.

Casino magnate Steve Wynn, a longtime Trump confidant with business interests in China, reportedly hand-delivered the president a letter from the Chinese government requesting Guo’s handover, though Wynn’s firm has denied it. Guo’s fate became a subject of heated internal debate within the administration, and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions reportedly threatened to resign if the renegade mogul was turned over to China.

According to one person who knows the people involved, it was in the context of this battle over his fate that Guo sought dirt on Chinese nationals: He wanted, this person said, to ingratiate himself with U.S. authorities by offering them intelligence, financed from his own fortune, in a bid to show he could be useful.

In January 2018, a Hong Kong firm tied to Guo, Eastern Profit, inked a contract with Strategic Vision US. It is rare for the details of private espionage agreements to see the light of day, but Strategic Vision attached its five-page agreement as an exhibit to a counterclaim it lodged in response to the suit. The contract promises $9 million in exchange for a year’s worth of snooping on 10 unnamed individuals — referred to in the document as “fish” — calling for details on everything from their movements to financial records to sensitive personal information. That includes details on a “subject's family, extramarital affairs, children born out of wedlock” as well as their “pornography” and their use of “‘dating’ or sexual services apps.”

According to the Guo-linked firm’s complaint, Strategic Vision said it had a former NSA agent on staff and said it had worked “for Republican politicians, a Middle Eastern prince and a politician belonging to the opposition party in Russia.” Guo’s side also alleged that Strategic Vision provided a “sample report, which appeared to show that Strategic Vision could enter into banking systems and find evidence of money laundering.” But, the complaint alleges, after Guo advanced Strategic Vision an initial $1 million payment, it discovered the firm did not have the capabilities it claimed.

Not long after, Eastern Profit sued Strategic Vision. The case remained under seal for several months, keeping it from public view. Though much of the court record has now been unsealed, parts of the case remain under a protective order that prevents sensitive details from being revealed.

Watch President Trump call trade war with China a 'little squabble']

In a countersuit, Strategic Vision accused Guo and his representatives of a variety of troubling actions. The firm, which denied most of Eastern Profit’s allegations, claimed that when a representative of Guo’s provided a thumb drive with information on his chosen surveillance targets — Chinese officials whom Guo allegedly suspected of wrongdoing — the thumb drive turned out to be loaded with sophisticated malware. After the firm complained, it says it received three new thumb drives from Guo’s side, one of which also contained malware.

According to the counter-claim, which has been dismissed without prejudice, Guo was introduced to Strategic Vision by Lianchao Han, a dissident activist and visiting fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute. But, it alleges, Guo later told the firm that Han could not be trusted. Instead, Guo allegedly told the firm to communicate with his assistant, whom Guo “oddly advised was a member of the Chinese Communist Party who also could not be trusted.” Han did not respond to requests for comment.

The firm also alleged that, when it began researching its targets, it discovered they “had been designated by the U.S. Department of State under the Obama administration as ‘Records Protected’ persons, meaning that information concerning their status and activities was not subject to disclosure under any circumstances. Strategic Vision learned that attempting to research subjects known to be 'Records Protected' could be a criminal activity."

It is not clear to what exactly the “Records Protected” designation refers. The State Department did not respond to questions about the term, and several former top legal advisers at State said they were not familiar with it.

“I have never heard of a State Department ‘records protected’ designation per se,” wrote Brian Egan, a partner at the law firm Steptoe who served as the department’s top legal adviser at the end of Barack Obama’s administration. “I am also having a hard time imagining a circumstance in which a private person or company could be prosecuted for merely attempting to research information about a particular individual.”

A lawyer for Eastern Profit, Zachary Grendi, forwarded a request for comment to Daniel Podhaskie, a lawyer for Guo’s family office, who declined to comment. A lawyer for Strategic Vision, Mark Berube, did not respond to requests for comment. Waller declined to comment on the record.

***

The circumstances of the lawsuit are just one of the many mysteries swirling around Guo. Many basic details of his biography, including his exact age, remain hazy.

He was born roughly 50 years ago, reportedly in the coastal Shandong Province in Eastern China — or, he has claimed, in Jilin Province in the country’s north — and made a fortune in real estate, benefiting from the construction boom around the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. There, he developed a reputation for playing hardball. After clashing with a deputy mayor of Beijing, Guo gave the police a video of the official having sex with his mistress, prompting the man’s arrest and political downfall.

Guo appears to owe his rise in part to his relationship with a top official at China’s Ministry of State Security. The official, former vice minister Ma Jian, fell out of favor and was arrested in early 2015 on corruption charges. Two months later, the Chinese outlet Caixin published an expose of Guo, highlighting his ties to the toppled intelligence official.

By that point, Guo had already fled China.

Since arriving in the U.S., Guo has constantly irritated the ruling party, spouting a steady stream of salacious allegations about corruption and other official wrongdoing.

Ensconced in New York, the renegade businessman set up Guo Media to amplify his campaign against the Communist Party and often dispenses his accusations via video livestream while going about his billionaire lifestyle — including from the deck of his $20 million yacht.

Guo accused China’s top anti-corruption official, Wang Qishan, of corruption and of having an affair with a famous actress, Fan Bingbing, whose temporary disappearance became an international mystery of its own last year. He also offered his own theory on the 2014 disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, claiming the CCP brought down the Beijing-bound plane to get rid of people who could have blown the whistle on an organ-harvesting scheme in Nanjing.

Guo’s bombastic style and real estate background have prompted comparisons to Trump.

He is even a member of Mar-a-Lago, prompting concerns that he might attempt to show up at the club during Xi’s first summit with Trump in the spring of 2017 and cause some sort of international incident.

Donald Trump

LAW AND ORDER

How Trump Could Be Prosecuted After the White House

By RENATO MARIOTTI

“I like because Donald Trump the president talks [about] fake news. This idea is really good,” Guo, whose English is rudimentary, told Vice News. “Everything [said] about me is fake.”

One thing about Guo is clear: Since arriving in the U.S., he has embraced the country’s litigious culture. In addition to the private spying case, he is embroiled in several ongoing legal fights, including a dispute with his former attorneys at Boies Schiller Flexner, the firm founded by politically connected super lawyer David Boies. Guo also sued Republican dirty trickster Roger Stone, Trump’s longtime political adviser, last year for $100 million after Stone claimed the billionaire had illegally donated to Hillary Clinton and was funding a presidential run by Bannon. In December, Stone retracted his statements and apologized.

***

Guo’s lawsuit against Strategic Vision could prove awkward for Washington’s small community of China hardliners.

In March, several prominent China hawks launched Committee on the Present Danger, a new conservative advocacy group aimed at encouraging U.S. confrontation with China. The group, which includes former CIA director Jim Woolsey, has held events in New York and Washington, including an April roundtable on Capitol Hill that featured Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

While members of the committee are united on China, they are divided on Guo.

Both Waller, who is fighting Guo, and Bannon, the billionaire’s closest ally in the U.S., are members of the committee. The group also includes Gaffney, whose think tank employs Waller, and Han, who introduced Guo to Strategic Vision, only to have Guo allegedly turn around and badmouth Han as untrustworthy.

But as the dispute winds its way through court, the committee is presenting a united front. Gaffney said he was not aware of any internal strife the suit had caused within the group.

Bannon declined to comment on the record. He maintains warm relations with Guo, whom he calls “Miles” and has met with dozens of times. The lawsuit has done nothing to slow the pair’s crusade against Beijing.

In recent days, what appears to be the Twitter account for Guo Media has repeatedly posted a photo of Bannon and Guo hugging each other as well as a photo of Bannon photoshopped to show him aiming a double-barreled pistol with flames behind him in the background.

View image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on Twitter

GUO.MEDIA(GUOWENGUI)

@GGuowengui

? ????????????????: bitcoin:1TEfAXyeoK1JwCmSCfzbpT51MHGTzZMY7

? ????????????????:

Ether:0x80e618746F6A6eFe6ad0BD26C816B5CCc01b17E5

5:28 PM - Jun 4, 2019

34 people are talking about this

Twitter Ads info and privacy

On Sunday, Guo Media’s YouTube page posted a video of a three-hour political discussion between Bannon and Guo, who sat together at a desk in front of a Chinese landscape painting.

"The Chinese people are being suppressed and enslaved,” Bannon, dressed all in black, declared.

Guo, in a tailored blue suit, smiled and gestured expressively. On an iPad, Guo showed Bannon messages he said came from Chinese citizens.

"All of these messages are to express love to Mr. Bannon,” Guo said. “They all tell you that they love you, Mr. Bannon.”

Despite his aggressive campaign against Beijing, Guo remains a puzzle to China-watchers, with some supporting his asylum hopes and others remaining suspicious of his motives.

A Times Magazine profile of Guo last year reported that some Chinese dissidents in New York suspect him of actually being a spy for Beijing.

Others say he has already proven useful to the U.S. “I’ve interviewed him, and he has sensitive knowledge of high-level Chinese Communist politics,” said Michael Pillsbury, a fluent Mandarin speaker who spent decades as a China analyst in the federal government and now serves as a top outside adviser to Trump on the country. “I also don’t think he should be returned to China.”

As Trump and Xi head into an expected meeting later this month at the G-20 summit in Japan to hash out differences over trade policy, Guo remains in the background as a lingering wrinkle in U.S.-China relations — and a lingering mystery.

This article tagged under:

China State Department NSA New York Donald Trump Donald Trump 2020 Stephen Bannon Mar-a-Lago U.S.-China Relations

Missing out on the latest scoops? Sign up for POLITICO Playbook and get the latest news, every morning — in your inbox.

---

Steve Bannon and a Fugitive Billionaire Target a Common Enemy ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/business/stephen-bannon-guo-wengui-china.html

Dec 4, 2018 - Stephen K. Bannon, the former strategist to President Trump, and Guo Wengui, ... Miles Kwok, was living in New York City and had landed on China's most-wanted ... China's reckless behavior, he contended, is endangering the global ... Mr. Guo, 50, insists that the fund offers a way to strike back at Beijing.

Steve Bannon, Chinese Critic Create Fund to Investigate Beijing - WSJ

https://www.wsj.com/.../bannon-chinese-critic-create-fund-to-investigate-beijing-154275...

Nov 20, 2018 - Initiative is latest effort by exiled businessman Guo Wengui to expose alleged wrongdoing and corruption by China's political and business ...

Steve Bannon, cheering trade war, hopes for government to fall — in ...

https://news.yahoo.com/steve-bannon-cheering-trade-war-hopes-for-government-to-f...

May 14, 2019 - He says China's plan to supplant the United States is laid out in ... of the Rule of Law Fund started last fall by Kwok, also known as Guo Wengui, ...

How a renegade Chinese billionaire became a center of D.C. intrigue ...

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/07/guo-wengui-chinese-billionaire-1356594

Jun 7, 2019 - An ally of Steve Bannon's and a fugitive from Chinese authorities, Guo now lives in New York. His presence in the U.S. has exacerbated tensions between China's ... by Miles Kwok in the U.S., built a sizable fortune in real estate in China ... them to conduct government business, visited Guo at his apartment.

Guo Wengui and Steve Bannon join forces to imply Beijing ...

https://www.scmp.com › News › China › Politics

Nov 21, 2018 - Bannon compared Wang's death to the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the ... SUBSCRIBE TO US China Trade War ... of the hedge fund community, that the senior leaders of Chinese government have been ...

How renegade Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui became a centre of ...

https://www.scmp.com › News › China › Politics

Jun 7, 2019 - An ally of Steve Bannon's and a fugitive from Chinese authorities, Guo ... Guo, who goes by Miles Kwok in the US, built a sizeable fortune in real ... Casino magnate Steve Wynn, a long-time Trump confidant with business interests in China, .... to Hillary Clinton and was funding a presidential run by Bannon.

Steve Bannon and billionaire Guo Wengui accuse China of crimes ...

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/.../steve-bannon-billionaire-guo-wengui-accuse-china-crim...

Nov 21, 2018 - Exiled Chinese tycoon Guo Wengui and Steve Bannon Tuesday implicated China ... Steve Bannon and Guo Wengui (also known as Miles Kwok) appear at a news ... going to use a $100 million fund set up by Guo to investigate such persecutions, .... Directory of who's who in the world of business in Japan.

Guo Wengui, Steve Bannon Launch Investigation Fund – China Digital ...

https://chinadigitaltimes.net/.../guo-wengui-and-steve-bannon-launch-investigation-fu...

Nov 21, 2018 - China's embassy in Washington didn't immediately respond to a ... his alias Kwok Ho-wan through three offshore companies, the report said.

Guo Wengui - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guo_Wengui

Guo Wengui also known under the names Guo Wen Gui, Guo Haoyun (Chinese: 郭浩云), and Miles Kwok, is a Chinese ... Guo was born in Shen County, Shandong, China. ... Beijing Zenith Holdings (Chinese: 北京政泉控股) was a company owned in 2013 .... "China's HNA Discloses Shift of Ownership Stake to Foundation".

Chinese Dissident Billionaire Seeks to Expose China Govt Corruption ...

https://www.newsmax.com › Newsfront

Dec 31, 2018 - Chinese real estate billionaire Guo Wengui, also called Miles Kwok, is said to be ... a number of private businesses linked to China hit the billionaire with a ... The fund is to be administered by Steve Bannon, a former top White ...

===