Santos grabs at a global network with ties to Guo Wengui, Chinese billionaire
Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon greets fugitive Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui in 2018, in New York City. Credit: AFP via Getty Images/Don Emmert
People at the intersection of global politics and financial schemes seem to have a special network all their own.
Guo Wengui, a billionaire businessman self-exiled from China for nearly a decade, has raked in cash while billing himself as a righteous opponent of that nation’s Central Committee of the Communist Party. Steve Bannon, who became wealthy on Wall Street, bills himself as a rightist guru.
George Santos, the lie-spewing Queens-Nassau representative in Congress, famously bills himself as whatever might work before a target audience. These days he’s trying to survive criminal prosecution as well as investigation by the House Ethics Committee.
When the Justice Department busted Santos May 10 on charges of money laundering, fraud, theft of public funds, and false statements, Santos bizarrely invoked the name of Guo. Santos tweeted: “I asked questions about #MilesGuo & the DOJ indicts me 5 days later! The fight is real & I’m OVER the target, I need your support to keep me fighting for freedom. #MAGA #TrumpWasRightAboutEverything #StopTheCCP #freeMilesGuo.”
According to published reports, Santos sat May 5 for a live-streamed interview at Guo’s Mahwah, New Jersey, mansion, conducted by two of the billionaire’s aides, presumably reaching a niche audience liable to send contributions. The jailed Guo these days is fighting grift allegations of his own and suggesting a conspiracy against him.
Guo, who's also known as Miles Kwok, or Ho Wan Kwak, was charged in March in the Southern District of New York with carrying out a complex billion-dollar scam. Prosecutors say Kwok deceptively solicited investments in various entities through false representations to “hundreds of thousands of Kwok’s online followers.” More than $630 million in alleged fraud proceeds were reported seized.
At this point Santos’ fealty to Guo might well be mutual. Last week Santos disclosed that he took in about $179,000 in the most recent quarter of which $85,000 went to himself, as partial payback of loans he made to his campaign. Santos has appealed for donations on Gettr, a social media site financed by Guo, who also controls the platform, according to published reports
Two donors said Santos’ statements against China got them to contribute the maximum amount allowed.
Back in January, Santos drew some soft publicity by appearing on Bannon's "War Room" podcast.
Bannon has his own ties to Guo. Nearly three years ago, the ex-White House aide to Donald Trump was even arrested by FBI agents from the Southern District aboard Guo’s yacht off Westbrook, Connecticut. as Guo looked on.
Bannon was accused with three codefendants of defrauding donors in connection with an online crowdfunding campaign known as “We Build the Wall” that raised more than $25 million, U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said at the time.
But before leaving office in January 2021, Trump pardoned Bannon. Since then Bannon was convicted and sentenced to four months for contempt of Congress in its Jan. 6 investigation. He has also been ordered by a judge to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars he owes in legal fees to his former lawyers at the firm Davidoff, Hutcher & Citron LLP.
In the world of Guo, Bannon, and mere Santos, players raise funds from strangers, use them as they will, run afoul of the law, try their luck in court, and seek to spin the whole mess as a defiant struggle against overbearing authorities. These folks read from the same page.
Columnist Dan Janison's opinions are his own.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
