Guo Wengui, aka Miles Keon, is the billionaire backer behind Steve Bannon and also the right-wing social media site Gettr. However, like some others who claim to be billionaires, he isn’t. This week he declared bankruptcy after a judge ordered him to pay $134 million to a creditor for a yacht, the Lady May, which he had moved into international waters in an attempt to welsh on a debt.
It is not the first time Lady May has been in the headlines. It was the boat on which the Coast Guard had arrested Steve Bannon on charges he defrauded people who thought they were contributing to the construction of Trump’s pointless border wall. Federal prosecutors accused Bannon of receiving “over $1m from the ‘We Build the Wall’ online campaign, at least some of which he used to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal expenses.” They charged him with mail fraud and money laundering.
Bannon had used his connections to Trump - and implied the then president’s support - to generate millions of dollars in donations. But Trump himself denied he backed Bannon’s con. He told reporters, “I didn’t like that project. I thought that was a project that was being done for showboating reasons.” And if anyone knows showboating ….
But even though Bannon had made money by co-opting Trump’s signature folly, he suffered no consequences from his fraud, as his ex-boss pardoned him before his trial started. Bannon went on to repay the favor by inciting the January 6 insurrection.
Bannon was on the Lady May when the authorities arrested him because he was in business with Wengui and his enterprise Guo Media, which had contracted Bannon for at least $1 million for “strategic consulting services.”
Wengui also had legal difficulties. He was in self-imposed exile in the US after fleeing China in late 2014. He had done a runner because the Beijing authorities had issued arrest warrants for crimes including bribery, kidnapping, money laundering, fraud, and rape. Wengui claims the charges are ‘politically motivated’. Sound familiar? And any claim he makes is suspect as he has established himself as a cheat.
Wengui’s contacts with Trump’s circle go further. He also backs Gettr, a Twitter wannabe for the far right. Gettr’s CEO is Jason Miller, who had been chosen to serve as Trump’s White House Communications Director in 2017 but had to decline the role after allegations surfaced of an extramarital relationship with Trump aide A.J. Delgado, which resulted in a child. He was not done. In 2018, Miller quit his CNN gig after documents in a custody case involving Miller were filed in the Miami-Dade Circuit Court. The documents alleged Miller had an affair with another woman. And when she later found out she was pregnant, Miller “surreptitiously dosed her with an abortion pill without her knowledge,” leading to the end of the pregnancy. What a charmer.
Bearing all of this in mind, it should be no surprise that Wengui is also a member of Trump’s Mar-A-Lago club.