MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
his investment in GTV is money
that was well spent. Guo “is the
only one in the world who de-
scended from heaven to eliminate
the demon that is the party,” he
said.
Guo said in his statement that
all of the funds raised for the
company are “intact,” adding that
most of GTV’s investors are satis-
fied and that the company fol-
lowed SEC rules.
He described Lu as a disgrun-
tled former employee. She said
her complaints were unrelated to
her employment, noting that af-
ter it ended, she continued to
volunteer for Guo and invested
additional money.
Guo has touted Bannon’s role
in GTV, saying in Chinese in a
video posted online in July that
the former Trump adviser had
been elected chairman of the
company. In the recording, filmed
on the deck of his yacht, Guo is
wearing a sharply tailored busi-
ness suit and aviator sunglasses.
Bannon can be seen lounging on a
banquette behind him, wearing
cargo shorts and a polo shirt,
tapping on his phone and periodi-
cally tipping his head back to
bask in the sunshine.
Guo told The Post that Bannon
had been removed from his role
as chairman of the board after his
arrest and played no part in rais-
ing funds for the company.
However, the men’s partner-
ship has continued. Bannon was
released from custody last month
on a $5 million bond while he
awaits a trial scheduled for May.
On Tuesday, Guo appeared for
nearly 30 minutes on Bannon’s
podcast, broadcasting live from
his living room to discuss their
joint goal of overthrowing the
Chinese government.
The men debuted a rock song
targeting the Chinese regime,
with the chorus: “Follow me, and
I’mma set us free! Take! Down!
The CCP!”
Bannon termed the new song
“an incredible cultural assault on
the Chinese Communist Party.” It
featured, he explained to viewers,
“the voice of the one and only,
Miles Guo.”
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]Shih reported from Taipei. Carol D.
Leonnig, Alice Crites, Felicia Sonmez
and David A. Fahrenthold in
Washington contributed to this
report.Chinese government had heard
about the dinner.
“There’s a cost to poking
around about Mr. Guo,” he said.
“Whatever he is is complicated.”Growing partnership
In August 2018, Bannon signed
a one-year deal to consult for Guo
Media, owned by a company in-
corporated in Delaware, for
$1 million. Bannon’s contract was
first reported and posted online
by Axios.
By then, Guo and Bannon both
began appearing frequently on
Guo Media’s G News website.
Bannon was also given an of-
fice at Guo Media’s New York
headquarters, which was co-lo-
cated with Guo’s offices for other
business interests in the United
States, Gong said in a deposition
for a lawsuit related to a Guo
business dispute.
Guo “pointed out an office...
on the top floors. That was Mr.
Bannon’s office,” said Gong, the
former board member at Bannon
and Guo’s charity.
Bannon also began flying fre-
quently on Guo’s private plane. In
a 2019 documentary, Bannon was
shown aboard the jet flying to
campaign events, where he en-
dorsed and promoted Republican
candidates in the midterm elec-
tions. (Guo said he “occasionally”
invited Bannon to join him when
they were traveling to a similar
destination.)
At a news conference in No-
vember 2018, Bannon and Guo
announced they were launching
two charities that would investi-
gate Chinese corruption and fi-
nancially support victims of the
regime. Bannon would lead the
nonprofit Rule of Law Society,
they said, which would be backed
by a $100 million donation from
Guo. Bannon told the New York
Times that he would take no pay.
Gong, who had interviewed
Guo the previous year as a report-
er for Voice of America, was invit-
ed to join the charity’s board the
following year, she said.
But she said she was growing
concerned that the Chinese busi-
nessman had not been honest
about his personal and business
history.
“I’m a China hawk, and my fear
is that [Guo] will harm the entire
hawk argument,” Gong said.
She said she got involved with
the group to try to guide and
protect Bannon from getting into
trouble.
“Steve Bannon has a lot ofhe also noticed the Guo-con-
structed hotel across from the
Olympic stadium. “Miles was the
man,” Bannon said. “He was the
Donald Trump of China at the
time.”
By the fall of 2017, Bannon was
lunching with Guo at the Hay-Ad-
ams hotel in Washington, intro-
duced by a mutual acquaintance.
Bannon has said in interviews
that he began meeting frequently
with Guo to discuss their shared
dim views of the Chinese govern-
ment. This year, he began featur-
ing the billionaire regularly on
his “War Room” podcast.
Their relationship, Guo said,
was rooted in their shared ideol-
ogy.
“While my pairing with Mr.
Bannon may seem a bit odd, an
enemy of my enemy is my friend,”
he told The Post in his statement.
“I believe he has been effective in
raising America’s understanding
of the severity of the CCP threat.”
Bannon’s financial relation-
ship with Guo began about the
same time. According to an inter-
nal memo obtained by The Post,
sometime before the end of 2017,
a company linked to Guo loaned
Bannon $150,000.
A spokesman for Guo told the
New York Times, which first re-
ported the loan, that it related to a
film project critical of the CCP.
Guo told The Post it was part of a
now-concluded consulting agree-
ment.
In 2018, Bannon invited Hud-
son Institute scholar Michael
Pillsbury to dine with him and
Guo in a suite at the Hay-Adams.
Over a feast of steak, lobster,
crab and an array of desserts,
Pillsbury, who shares Bannon’s
hard-line views on China, said the
two men worked to convince him
that Guo had valuable informa-
tion he could offer the United
States and should be embraced by
American scholars and advo-
cates.
“Bannon wanted me to vouch
for him to others,” Pillsbury said.
“It’s as if he was obligated to Mr.
Guo to deliver people who were
influential.”
Pillsbury said he came away
with the impression that Guo was
a knowledgeable businessman
but did not necessarily have ac-
cess to internal secrets of the
Chinese government. He said he
later came to regret attending the
meeting, especially after he was
given a “friendly warning” by a
Chinese Communist official dur-
ing a visit to Beijing that the
reflect her investment.
She said she has been inter-
viewed by the FBI and agents for
the Securities and Exchange
Commission three times since
June and knows of others who
have been in touch with U.S.
investigators, as well.
Among them is real estate de-
veloper Gao Yuan, who said his
father, a former developer in Chi-
na who worships Guo as an anti-
Communist Party figure, invested
$1.1 million of their family sav-
ings into GTV. Gao said he was so
concerned that he reached out to
U.S. authorities.
Gao, speaking from Thailand,
where he lives with his parents,
said he “strongly objected and
pleaded” with his father not to
invest.
But his father, he said, has
become a Guo devotee. “He can’t
fall asleep without listening to
Guo first,” he said of his father.
He said his father was im-
pressed by Bannon’s involve-
ment, too, which he said was the
subject of “incessant advertising”
on Guo’s videos. “My dad thought
Bannon had an enormous influ-
ence on President Trump and his
administration,” he said. “He was
convinced that these guys basical-
ly had influence over all U.S.
policy related to China.”
In a separate interview, Gao’s
father, Gao Baolin, said he thinks‘The only one’
Online, Guo’s influence was
growing, particularly with Chi-
nese dissidents and Chinese
Americans appalled at the coun-
try’s crackdown on Hong Kong
and China’s handling of the virus.
In April, he began soliciting
funds for a new company called
GTV Media, a social media plat-
form that he said in online videos
would be free from Chinese or
American control and a safe place
to invest should the Chinese cur-
rency collapse. Guo told The Post
he is “advisor to and sponsor of”
GTV, which his lawyer said is a
new version of Guo Media.
Jiamei Lu, a Chinese American
pastry chef and Web designer
living in Hawaii, said she and her
mother, visiting from China, be-
came entranced as they watched
Guo online.
“His word is very attractive,” Lu
said. “He said he’s the only one
who can save the world.”
Lu said she briefly got a job at
GTV, working for one week as a
Web designer before being termi-
nated as a result of disputes with
Guo. She went on to send a total of
$40,000 of her mother’s pension
savings from China to a Guo
associate, thinking she was in-
vesting in the new company. She
said she grew concerned when no
one from the company counter-
signed a document she sent toinfluence in media and the Re-
publican Party,” she said. “I
thought it was my duty to keep
reminding him what is wrong.”
Bannon said he came to believe
Gong was not supportive of the
protests in Hong Kong and was
“troubled she lacked the sense of
urgency” in taking on the Chinese
Communist Party.
She remained on the board for
only a few months before resign-
ing in September 2019. In her
deposition, Gong said that she
had seen the group’s internal fi-
nancial information and became
concerned it was not being trans-
parent with donors. “I realized
whatever money they promised
never exist,” she testified.
Guo said the organization was
formed “to help Chinese people
stand up to the criminal regime of
the CCP and educate the Western
world on how truly evil the CCP
is.” He said that he has supported
the project financially and re-
mains committed to doing so.
Guo said Gong turned on him
after he declined to give $5 mil-
lion to help produce a documen-
tary she was filming and called
her complaints “a case of sour
grapes.”
Gong disputes that, saying she
never asked Guo for funding for
her documentary, which cost less
than $600,000 and is nearly com-
plete.TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Guo Wengui in New York in 2017. He and Stephen K. Bannon look at China in the same way, Guo said.To receive a live stream reminder for thisevent, visit: washingtonpostlive.comHosted by The Post’s Robert Costa onTu esday, Sept. 15 at 8:15 a.m. ETIN PARTNERSHIP WITH