Steve Bannon threatened to ruin the life of a former Donald Trump political advisor if he didn't help protect a fugitive Chinese billionaire from rape charges, according to a new report.
Bannon in 2018 threatened Sam Nunberg with a lawsuit from his boss Guo Wengui, also known as Ho Wan Kwok, unless he appeared in a video alongside the mogul denouncing allegations levied against him, the former Trump campaign aide told Mother Jones in an article published Thursday.
“You have to cooperate, and this can be dropped,” Bannon said, according to Nunberg. “Otherwise Kwok is going to bankrupt you and ruin your life.”
Nunberg refused and Guo filed a defamation lawsuit against him days later, court records show.
Neither Guo nor Bannon, who is currently serving four months in federal prison on contempt of Congress charges, responded to Mother Jones' requests for comment.
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Guo was accused of rape by a former personal assistant, who also filed suit in New York City in 2017, court records show.
The personal assistant said she'd been held prisoner and subjected to verbal abuse and physical attacks for two years until she escaped, Mother Jones reported.
Guo, who denies the charges, was convicted by a New York jury in July on federal charges that he stole hundreds of millions of dollars from an anti-Chinese Communist Party political movement that was launched by himself and Bannon, Mother Jones reported.
Bannon was named as a co-conspirator in the case but not charged, according to Mother Jones.
"Bannon’s alleged threat to Nunberg highlights how deeply enmeshed in Guo’s operations the former Trump campaign chief was," the report notes.
"Bannon was infamously arrested on Guo’s yacht in 2020 as part of an unrelated case, but his role in helping to launch Guo’s political and financial operations in the United States exceeds what is generally known or what Bannon has publicly acknowledged."
