The Washington Post - USA (2020-09-14

(Antfer) #1

A 12 EZ RE the washington post.monday, september 14 , 2020


Xi felt so strongly about the Unit-
ed States returning Guo to China,
handing the president two pic-
tures of Guo, The Post previously
reported.
Reid Weingarten, an attorney
for Wynn, has declined to com-
ment but said his client has been
cooperating with investigators.
Trump initially appeared per-
suaded, telling aides in an Oval
Office meeting that he supported
the plan, according to a former
administration official familiar
with his views.
But the Justice Department,
the National Security Council and
then-White House Counsel Don-
ald McGahn did not think the
move was appropriate, people fa-
miliar with the discussions said.
A White House spokesman re-
ferred questions about the epi-
sode to the NSC. An NSC spokes-
man declined to comment and
referred questions to the Justice
Department, which also declined
to comment.
In a statement, Guo said he
helped the FBI expose the scheme
and called it “only the tip of a
far-ranging campaign the CCP
has undertaken utilizing corrupt
lawyers, prominent U.S. business-
men, government officials, and
so-called lobbyists and political
consultants to influence the U.S.
government at the highest levels
to take action against me.”
The FBI declined to comment.
Bannon has told others that he
personally shielded the billion-
aire in his role as chief White
House strategist.
“I was the protector,” he told
the Wire China in an interview
conducted with the publication
before his arrest. “When I was
inside the White House, I took the
files and put them in my office
and said, ‘Whoever wants this
guy, this guy is a pretty valuable
hombre.’ ”

A shared ideology
Since his ouster from the White
House in August 2017, Bannon
has been focused intensely on
what he describes as the rising
threat from China.
Bannon told the Wire China
that a visit to Beijing during the
2008 Olympics deeply shaped his
view of the country. “It was very
obvious that these guys want to
be a hegemonic power,” he said.
“They need total control.”
During his trip, Bannon said,

September, he formally applied
for asylum in the United States.
In a statement to The Post, the
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Af-
fairs declined to comment on
Bannon or Guo other than to note
Interpol’s filing of the notice
against “the criminal suspect Guo
Wengui.”
China made it clear to the
United States that it wanted Guo
turned over. People familiar with
the efforts who spoke on the
condition of anonymity to de-
scribe internal government dis-
cussions said top Chinese officials
personally lobbied then-Secre-
tary of State Rex Tillerson and
other U.S. officials.
Behind the scenes, the Chinese
government was working other
avenues, as well, according to
court documents filed in connec-
tion with the guilty plea of consul-
tant Nickie Mali Lum Davis.
In her guilty plea, Davis ac-
knowledged that she met with a
Chinese government minister to
discuss Guo in May 2017. Accord-
ing to a charging document filed
in her case, Davis admitted she
aided and abetted the efforts of
two others involved in the influ-
ence campaigns, identified only
as Person A and Person B. People
familiar with the matter identi-
fied them as former Fugees rap-
per Pras Michel and Broidy, then
serving as deputy finance chair-
man of the RNC.
Michel has denied wrongdo-
ing. His attorney has declined to
comment.
According to court documents,
Broidy allegedly lobbied to have
Guo removed from the United
States at the request of a Chinese
government official and Low
Taek Jho, a Malaysian financier
who has since been indicted on
separate charges of conspiring to
launder money and bribe foreign
officials.
As part of the effort, prosecu-
tors say in court filings, the per-
son identified as Broidy contact-
ed several top Trump aides and
enlisted RNC Finance Chairman
Steve Wynn, who operated a casi-
no in the Chinese gambling en-
clave of Macao.
In text messages quoted in
court filings, Broidy described
how Wynn assured him that he
had taken the issue straight to
Trump.
In a private meeting around
June 2017, Wynn told Trump why

land hotel overlooking Central
Park.
From New York, he has used a
YouTube channel to tell sensa-
tional tales of money, violence
and sex among the Communist
Party elite that he claimed to have
gleaned from his time as an insid-
er. Many of the allegations, often
centered on Xi’s confidant and
anti-corruption czar, Wang
­Qishan, cannot be substantiated.
“If they weren’t so corrupt,
they wouldn’t be scared of me,”
Guo told the New York Times in
2017 as he began to speak out.
Guo, who said he joined
Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago Club
in Florida in 2015, can be Trump-
like in his boasts about his wealth
and power to take down his en-
emies, said people who have en-
countered him.
One guest who visited his New
York penthouse and spoke on the
condition of anonymity to avoid
attracting Guo’s ire said Guo
served a rare tea he claimed was
worth $1 million a kilogram and
gave an impromptu fashion show
in which he modeled bright red
and yellow alligator-skin jackets.
The centerpiece of Guo’s ornate
living room, the person said, was
a giant model of London’s Tower
Bridge constructed out of Legos.
As Guo became more vocal,
Interpol issued a “red notice” in
April 2017 declaring him a fugi-
tive wanted on charges of bribery,
kidnapping, money laundering,
fraud and rape and pressed to
have him returned to Beijing.
Guo denied the charges. That

But, she added, “if you want to
change the world, that kind of
money, you have endless needs.”
Bannon, who said he parted
ways with Gong after losing trust
in her, said his partnership with
Guo is driven by a strong belief
that his work is essential.

‘A pretty valuable hombre’
A real estate developer and
investor, Guo for a time thrived in
Communist China, at one point
ranking as the country’s 73rd-
richest person. He built one of the
premier skyscrapers in Beijing,
next to the Bird’s Nest stadium,
entertaining the city’s business
and political elite there.
He has acknowledged in videos
he posted on YouTube that he
maintained a relationship with
officials in the state security ap-
paratus. At one point, Guo said,
he traveled to India on behalf of
the Chinese government to con-
vey messages to the Dalai Lama,
who posed for a photo with Guo
that he posted to social media.
Guo’s downfall came soon after
President Xi Jinping’s anti-cor-
ruption drive in 2014 netted one
of Guo’s close allies, senior intelli-
gence official Ma Jian, who in a
20-minute video released by the
government confessed to taking
millions in bribes from the devel-
oper and described an “alliance of
shared interests” with him.
Guo denied the charges and
fled China, resurfacing dramati-
cally in 2017 in New York, settling
in at a $67 million penthouse
apartment at the Sherry-Nether-

him, speaking on the condition of
anonymity because of the probe,
said he, too, views the allegations
against GTV as being driven by
the Chinese government, which
he thinks sees the independent
media enterprise as a threat.
Separately, Bannon has plead-
ed not guilty to the charges relat-
ed to the wall charity. The person
close to him said Bannon’s work
with Guo had no connection to
that effort.
Meanwhile, another long-run-
ning federal investigation involv-
ing Guo is gaining steam. In that
case, the billionaire has been de-
scribed as the target of a failed
attempt to lobby the Trump ad-
ministration to extradite him to
China, a complex campaign that
allegedly involved two prominent
GOP fundraisers, a former mem-
ber of the Fugees hip-hop group
and a fugitive Malaysian finan-
cier.
Late last month, a consultant
pleaded guilty to aiding and abet-
ting an unregistered agent for
China as part of the case. Prosecu-
tors are also prepared to file
charges against investor Elliott
Broidy, a former top fundraiser
for the Republican National Com-
mittee, accusing him of taking
part in the effort, The Post has
reported. They also might reach a
plea deal with him, people famil-
iar with the matter have said.
An attorney for Broidy de-
clined to comment. Broidy has
previously called claims about his
role “a fabrication.”
The parallel cases spotlight
how figures in the president’s
circle have sought to influence
the administration’s China pol-
icies on behalf of foreign inter-
ests.
Bannon’s alliance with Guo
meshes with his long-standing
nationalist message and hawkish
views on China. But people famil-
iar with his relationship with the
billionaire said they also came to
think that Bannon — one of the
chief promoters of Trump’s “drain
the swamp” message — was driv-
en by the lucrative aspects of the
partnership.
“Bannon didn’t care about
clothing or appearance — but
that’s small money,” said Sasha
Gong, a Chinese American writer
and journalist who briefly served
on the board of an anti-Commu-
nist Party charity launched in
2018 by Bannon and Guo.

media company he was launch-
ing.
Bannon, in turn, has emerged
as one of the biggest champions
of Guo, who casts himself as an
anti-communist dissident in doz-
ens of fiery videos posted online.
Even as other critics of the Chi-
nese government have grown
skeptical of Guo’s claims that he is
a political victim of Beijing, Ban-
non has said Guo has valuable
insider information that could
help take down China’s Commu-
nist Party, or CCP, and says he has
been prescient about China’s
crackdown on Hong Kong and its
handling of the novel coronavi-
rus.
“Miles Guo has been the tough-
est Chinese opponent the CCP has
ever encountered,” Bannon said
in a statement to The Washington
Post. “He has been the world’s
leading fighter exposing the lies,
the infiltration, and the malevo-
lence of the CCP.”
Bannon added that he thinks
the United States owes Guo “a
debt of gratitude for his relentless
mission against the Chinese Com-
munist Party — the existential
threat against the United States.”
But there are now signs that
federal investigators are scruti-
nizing Guo’s financial activities in
the United States and GTV Media
Group, a social media company
that Guo said raised $300 million
from investors, according to peo-
ple familiar with the investiga-
tion.
Some of those investors now
say they think they were defraud-
ed by the company and have been
interviewed repeatedly by the FBI
in recent months, according to
three people with knowledge of
the case. The Wall Street Journal
first reported the existence of the
inquiry.
The FBI declined to comment.
In a statement, Guo said the
company followed U.S. securities
laws and was guided by legal
counsel as it raised money. He
said the “overwhelming majority
of investors are fully satisfied”
and alleged that the CCP had
“proxies infiltrate the offering
and file politically motivated
complaints.”
Bannon, who until his arrest
served as a director at the compa-
ny, declined to comment on the
investigation. A person close to


bannon from A 1


Chinese billionaire’s U.S. activity appears to have drawn federal investigators


Don Emmert/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist,
hails Guo Wengui’s efforts against the Chinese Communist Party.

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