Look Under Rocks And You Will Find Steve Bannon, The Evil Puppeteer
Look through all the dark, dank, evil corners of the trumpaverse (are there any other kinds of trump corners) and you will likely find Steve Bannon, the famously unshaven, former top trump strategist, far right podcaster and subpoena defier.
For months, Bannon has been stirring the cauldron to entice trumpers to action to fight against what Bannon, trump and others claim was widespread fraud in the 2021 presidential election. No fraud has been uncovered but Bannon and trump have been undaunted. The two creeps would be neck and neck for the title of lowest of the low.
Two nights before the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack by trump loyalists, Bannon worked to raise bail to free Enrique Tarrioget, head of the far right Proud Boys, who figured prominently in the Jan. 6 assault. Tarrio had been arrested for burning a church’s Black Lives Matter banner during a demonstration the month before. Bannon later decided against trying to collect bail. And the night before the insurrection, Bannon told listeners to his podcast that “starting tomorrow, it is going to be wild.”
That was more than enough to warrant a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection. Bannon, however, blew off the subpoena and his trial was expected to begin today after he was indicted for refusing to comply with a subpoena to testify and provide documents. The refusal to testify says volumes about Bannon. His fingerprints are all over the days leading up to the attempted coup d’etat.
The bombastic, self-aggrandizing, 68-year-old Bannon managed to avoid jail in the waning days of the trump reign when the former president pardoned Bannon for possible charges related to a scheme by Bannon and three others to defraud investors of money to install trump’s cherished wall on the southern border of the United States. The fact that trump pardoned Bannon says volumes about what trump doesn’t want Bannon to talk about.
But plenty of skullduggery has already gone down involving Bannon, who was chairman of trump’s election campaign for part of 2016, is a former executive chairman of the right wing, conspiracy spreader, Breitbart News; and is a self-avowed, “populist nationalist” who claimed he would create a “platform for the alt-right.” Bannon also served as vice president of the board of Cambridge Analytica, a data-analytics firm which allegedly used illegal tactics to target American voters in the 2016 election.
And for anyone who thinks that Bannon’s star has lost its shine, his right wing podcast, which he began after the Jan. 6 riot, remains one of the country’s most popular on Apple’s platform, with more than 200 million total downloads. Bannon also has toured Europe to speak at events with various far-right political parties in a bid to build a network of right-wing populist-nationalist parties. Among other places, Bannon visited the Dutch Party for Freedom, the Freedom Party of Austria, Hungary’s Fidesz and the Israeli Likud.
Bannon and three others were charged by federal prosecutors with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering as they solicited donations for a fundraising campaign called “We Build the Wall.” Despite making claims that they would take no compensation as part of the campaign, prosecutors alleged that Bannon received more than $1 million through a nonprofit entity he controlled and sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to another organizer, Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage.
“We Build the Wall” advisors also included Kris Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state who had close ties to the trump administration; Erik Prince, a conservative activist and defense contractor close to Bannon; former Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.; and former Major League Baseball star Curt Schilling.
Trump only pardoned Bannon who had pleaded not guilty and was free on bond awaiting trial.
Bannon also has been involved in a scheme with a Chinese billionaire that involved possible fraud, efforts to get trump to approve asylum for the Chinese national in the United States and payments made so a Playboy model would not talk about how she got pregnant and had an abortion as a result of her affair with a top trump fundraiser.
The FBI has been investigating investors’ claims that they were defrauded when they paid into a new social media company involving Bannon and Chinese billionaire businessman Guo Wengui. Guo has said he raised $300 million from investors. In 2017, Guo loaned Bannon $150,000 shortly after he left the White House, and a Guo-linked company entered into a $1 million consulting contract with Bannon, beginning in August 2018. No one has been charged with any crimes. Bannon, who was chairman of the board of the social media company, was relaxing on Guo’s 150-foot yacht when he was arrested by federal agents last August for refusing the house subpoena.
Guo also promoted Dr. Li-Meng Yan’s account of COVID-19, who claimed the virus was artificially made .
The G News network, operated by Guo and Bannon, has pushed false stories and conspiracy theories during and before the 2020 presidential election, including spreading disinformation about Hunter Biden, the brother of President Biden. Mother Jones reported that Guo spent more than $400,000 to provide transportation to hundreds of trump supporters to attend a Nov. 14, 2020, rally promoting false claims of election fraud. Bannon also arranged for the company to donate $100,000 to the Fightback Foundation, an organization run by prominent pro-trump attorney Lin Wood, who has been a leading figure in the big lie about voter fraud.
Guo became a central figure in a federal probe after Republican fundraiser Elliot Broidy was hired in 2020 by the former deputy head of China’s Ministry of Public Security, to lobby the trump administration to extradite Guo.
Broidy helped raise trump campaign funds from major donors and after the election, he was appointed as a deputy chairman for the Republican National Committee (RNC). In April, Broidy resigned from his RNC position after published reports that he had paid former Playboy Playmate Shera Bechard, $1.6 million in exchange for her silence about a sexual affair in which she became pregnant and had an abortion. The deal was organized by former trump lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen. According to published reports, the names used in the $1.6 million deal were David Dennison and Peggy Peterson, the same names that were used in the trump/Stormy Daniels agreement. In that agreement, also negotiated by Cohen, the porn star was paid $130,000 in hush money to silence her about an affair she says she had with trump in 2006. The Playboy model has denied any relationship with trump. Uh huh.
Coincidentally, Broidy won a $600 million consulting contract with the United Arab Emirates plus another deal worth $1 billion that he was pitching to Saudi Arabia. Then, after Broidy admitted to the affair, he won a pardon from trump on charges that he illegally lobbied the U.S. government in attempt to have it drop an investigation into embezzlement in Malaysia.
Now we get to the Bannon-Roger Stone connections. Stone, a former trump advisor, longtime Republican operative and associate of the Proud Boys, admitted in federal court in 2018 that he had spread false information online about Guo.
Guo sued for defamation after Stone used the far right conspiracy site, InfoWars,to accuse Guo of making illegal political donations to Hillary Clinton, financing a presidential run, by none other than, Steve Bannon and claimed wrongly that Guo had been convicted of financial crimes. In a settlement, Stone retracted the information and apologized to Guo and published it all in ads in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post.
The thrice married and divorced Bannon also was a key witness in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Bannon testified as a prosecution witness against trump confidant Roger Stone, who was convicted by a jury and also pardoned.