An indicted Chinese businessman pumped millions of ill-gotten dollars into the bank accounts of some of the most influential figures in MAGA World—including former Trump aides Steve Bannon and Jason Miller—according to a raft of documents filed in federal court in February.
The materials represent an effort by the court-appointed trustee in the bankruptcy case of Guo Wengui, the self-styled billionaire and anti-Chinese Communist Party crusader, to recover money that Guo allegedly transferred as part of a “fraudulent scheme” to hide wealth from his creditors.
Guo has long bankrolled Bannon and Miller’s post-White House endeavors—even as critics accuse the former construction tycoon of serving as a covert double agent for Beijing—and the feds allege he swindled more than $1 billion from China’s dissident diaspora.
Guo has denied all such claims, and cast himself as a victim of elaborate conspiracies.
Among the trustee’s biggest targets is Gettr, the troubled Twitter alternative Guo launched with Miller in 2021, from which the overseer seeks to recoup a whopping $21 million.
“For years, the debtor has orchestrated a ‘shell game,’ employing a convoluted web of shell companies, nominally owned by family members and subordinates, but in reality, controlled by the debtor,” the legal filing reads. “The debtor, through his alter-ego shell company Hamilton Opportunity Fund SPC (‘Hamilton’) transferred funds in the amount of $21,000,000 after the [bankruptcy] petition date.”
This language recurs throughout the hundreds of filings the trustee submitted, with little additional detail, and with only the names and sums of money changing. Many of the defendants are mainstream firms such as FedEx and American Express, or obscure corporate entities lodged in the United Kingdom, the Cayman Islands, Italy, Japan, Hong Kong, and mainland China.
In all cases, however, the targeted parties allegedly received funds from Guo that truly belonged to the fallen magnate’s lenders, victims, and to the New York court that slapped him with $134 million in contempt penalties.
The materials also reveal abiding ties between Guo and key players on the American right. They show that Bannon Strategic Advisors, the ex-White House strategist’s longtime consulting concern, received $850,000 from two of Guo’s companies not long before the bankruptcy filing. A spokesperson for Bannon did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Miller, meanwhile, personally received $353,269.23 from Guo—while his former firm Jamestown Associates, which served the Trump campaign in 2016 and 2020, got $104,691.25. Fox News received $264,113.25.
Miller maintained that the money he took in was laid out in his formal compensation package as GETTR’s chief executive.
“This is ridiculous,” Miller said in a statement. “All monies earned in my role as GETTR CEO were specifically laid out in my contract and were for services performed. We will be opposing this witch-hunt.”
In text messages with The Daily Beast, the longtime Trump adviser asserted that Jamestown had created ads for Gettr that Fox aired.
“All services performed, all highly documented,” Miller wrote in explanation of the payments. “It’s quite ridiculous.”
Neither Fox nor Jamestown responded to requests for comment from The Daily Beast. Nor did Gettr itself, which Miller left last year to join the ex-president’s comeback bid.