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Tag: bannon
Michael Flynn

Smartmatic Subpoenas Bannon And Flynn In Lawsuit Against Fox News

Smartmatic, the voting technology company suing Fox News and Newsmax for pushing 2020 election lies, subpoenaed former President Donald Trump's ex-staffers, Michael Flynn and Steve Bannon, CNN reports.

Earlier this year, after Dominion Voting Systems settled its its defamation lawsuit with the right-wing network in for $787.5 million, The New York Times reported the company said, "Dominion's litigation exposed some of the misconduct and damage caused by Fox's disinformation campaign. Smartmatic will expose the rest."

Reuters reports:

Bannon and Flynn, both of whom have faced their own legal woes, were two of the most vocal boosters of Trump's false claims that the 2020 U.S. election was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud, and they could have information on the spread of these claims that might help Smartmatic in the litigation.

"Court filings made public last week in New York and Delaware," according to CNN, reveal the pair received the subpoenas, ordering them to "sit for depositions and answer questions under oath."

Additionally, CNN notes, "Bannon is also required to turn over subpoenaed documents to Smartmatic, including any communications with top officials from Fox News, the Trump campaign and the Trump administration about the 2020 presidential election, according to court filings."

Smartmatic, Reuters reports, "is seeking a total of $2.7 billion in damages across five cases, including against Fox, several of its hosts and former Trump lawyers."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Guo and Bannon

Bannon Repeatedly Promoted Alleged Scams By Indicted Partner Guo (VIDEO)

Several newly resurfaced videos show former Trump adviser Steve Bannon promoting allegedly fraudulent schemes perpetrated by his longtime associate and former financial backer Miles Guo, also known as Ho Wan Kwok and Guo Wengui.

Federal prosecutors arrested Guo on Wednesday on allegations that he ran a sprawling $1 billion fraud and money laundering scam, according to an unsealed indictment released the same day. Shortly after the news broke, Media Matters reported that Bannon had promoted some of the elements of Guo’s scheme that were included in the indictment.

Guo’s alleged wide-ranging conspiracy included a faux-cryptocurrency “ecosystem” called Himalaya Exchange, including a digital asset called H Coin. Unlike most cryptocurrencies, the coins in Himalaya Exchange weren’t tradable with other digital currencies unless they were first converted to U.S. dollars — requests which the platform could deny at its “discretion” — according to the indictment. Guo also ran a suite of media properties, including a broadcast service called GTV, which he used to allegedly defraud investors through selling stock in the company and pocketing the deposits, rather than investing them in the business.

The new videos raise further questions about Bannon’s potential involvement in Guo’s activities. In a video published November 17, 2021, Bannon promoted Himalaya Exchange and H Coin, shortly after the coin was publicly offered.

“I think the H Coin team and the Himalaya Exchange team is to be congratulated,” Bannon said. “I believe it’s the first time anybody's ever — in 2 weeks, we have $27 billion of market cap.”

Bannon then went on to praise a laundry list of Guo’s ventures, several of which are included in the indictment.

“One of the things about Miles, in my time of knowing him — just the, you know, the music, the fashion, GNews, GTV, association with Gettr, all these things you see popping off has been such successes really in such a short period of time,” Bannon said.

Last April, Guo allegedly illegally transferred $37 million from Himalaya Exchange to cover costs of his personal luxury yacht. Postal service agents arrested Bannon on Guo’s yacht in August 2020, for allegations of defrauding investors in the failed “We Build the Wall” scam.

Two other videos come from a panel discussion in September 2021, that included Guo, Bannon, former Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro, and former Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller. At the time of the event, Miller was CEO of Twitter competitor Gettr, another project backed by Guo. As part of the investigation against Guo, authorities seized over $2.7 million from a Gettr bank account in September 2022, according to the indictment. This February, Miller resigned from Gettr to join Trump’s 2024 campaign.

The panel discussion was in celebration of Guo and Bannon’s joint venture called the New Federal State of China, a rebranding of the so-called whistleblowers movement. Bannon hoped the NFSC would become a “government in exile” that could seize power once the Chinese Communist Party was destroyed, a goal he and Guo shared.

“No matter what the CCP does, it’s impossible to take down this movement,” Bannon said. “The whistleblower movement, the New Federal State, the Rule of Law, GTV and G News — GTV and G News are five times bigger than a year ago.”

Guo founded two nonprofits — the Rule of Law Foundation and the Rule of Law Society — both of which are named in the indictment as vehicles he used in furtherance of the conspiracy. Bannon was on the board of the Rule of Law Society but reportedly resigned at some point in the summer of 2020.

Earlier in the panel, Bannon made many of the same points about Guo’s various projects.

“The New Federal State, the whistleblower movement, the Rule of Law Society and Foundation, Gettr, G Fashion, all this — what the world is seeing is a new China and a new Chinese,” Bannon said.

Although G Fashion is not mentioned in the indictment, another similarly branded company of Guo’s called G Clubs was allegedly a central pillar in the scheme to defraud investors.

Last June, the NFSC celebrated its second anniversary, and Bannon again promoted Guo’s ventures, praising “G Fashion and Gettr and all these different companies that have been brought together,” which also include “a news organization, … that you can stay on GNews 24 hours a day and get incredible news.”

At the same event, Guo underlined his pitch to potential investors. “Lots of investors trust us because we are in business in America,” Guo said as Bannon sat beside him. “Because they trust, believe us — we really can take down the CCP.”

The NFSC was also a big sponsor of the Conservative Political Action Conference this year after other companies, including Fox News, dropped out.

Hours after Guo was taken into custody, a fire broke out at his luxury Sherry-Netherland penthouse in Manhattan. The blaze is still under investigation.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Bannon

Bannon And Kirk Exploit China Balloon Paranoia To Boost 'Prepper' Sales

After days of nonstop coverage of a Chinese balloon crossing the continental United States, far-right influencers are now using it to sell prepper supplies for what they claim is an imminent collapse of the American economy. Right-wing media personalities Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon are hyping the recent Chinese spy balloon saga to sell prepper supplies on their shows.

Both Kirk and Bannon have plugged the preparedness company My Patriot Supply during their recent broadcasts, claiming that the balloon incident — which has been a major subject of fearmongering and conspiracy theories in conservative media — should prompt viewers to amass large quantities of food and other supplies in case of an apocalyptic disaster.

During an ad read on his February 3 radio show, Kirk mentioned the Chinese spy balloon and told his audience they are “nine meals away from anarchy,” adding, “As the Chinese Community Party takes pictures and spies on you, gets your kids addicted to fentanyl and also hooked on TikTok, at least you will be well fed when anarchy comes.”

On February 7, Bannon hosted My Patriot Supply Vice President of Sales Joe Rieck, who said that the balloon posed such a threat that “literally we were seconds away from being pushed back to the dark ages” and has sparked an increased interest from the public in his company’s products. He then plugged “Faraday bags,” “anti-radiation tablets,” and “dosimeter cards” as the items his customers are “stocking up on right now” because “we were so close to having something catastrophic happen in our borders.”

“You’ve got to get ahead of the curve here” added Bannon, advising his audience as “rational people” to purchase My Patriot Supply products.

“These are things that are going to come in handy because we’ve all seen how close we were to a huge disaster,” said Rieck. “And if they can float a balloon and it takes the government five days to take action, then who’s to say that the Chinese couldn’t have just pushed a button and ended everything three days ago.”

This type of bottom-of-the-barrel grift is par for the course for right-wing media — Bannon alone has promoted a veritable empire of scummy products.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Bannon: If States Elect MAGA Officials, Democrats 'Can't Win' Future Elections

Bannon: If States Elect MAGA Officials, Democrats 'Can't Win' Future Elections

Nevada Republican secretary of state nominee Jim Marchant and podcaster and former Trump aide Steve Bannon agreed that Democrats won’t win future elections if a pro-Trump slate of secretary of state candidates is elected. Marchant told Bannon that Democrats are spending a lot of money on those races “because they know that they can't win if we're successful,” while Bannon replied: “The game's over.”

Marchant is an election denier who has been propped up by ideologically similar right-wing media figures. He is the leader of a QAnon-aligned coalition of candidates for secretary of state, the top election officer in each state. While appearing on right-wing outlets, Marchant has claimed that Democrats and Republicans have “installed anybody they want'' in Nevada elections since 2008 and that a “deep state cabal” controls elections.

Marchant appeared on the November 1 edition of Bannon’s War Room: Pandemic, where he is a frequent guest. Bannon is a leading 2020 election denier who has attempted to disrupt the midterm elections as well.

During the program, Marchant was prompted by Bannon to talk about his coalition. He stated:

JIM MARCHANT: The coalition was set up to counter and reverse what George Soros and Harry Reid did back in 2004. And that's what we're doing. We started it last year, May 1 was our inaugural meeting, and we've had a lot of success. We’ve created a lot of momentum, and we've got some great candidates that are part of our coalition. And if we get elected, they know exactly what's in for them — you know, their power. They're going to be out of power. And that's exactly what they know. And that's why they are so afraid of what we're doing. And, you know, my opponent knows that. And, you know, every opponent, the Democratic Party knows that. George Soros knows that. That's why they're dumping in all the money that they have, not only in my race, but [Mark] Finchem in Arizona, Kristina [Karamo] in Michigan. Everywhere we have a candidate with our coalition, they're just dumping a massive amount of money because they know that they can't win if we're successful.

STEVE BANNON (HOST): The game's over. They actually kind of imply it in the article. I mean, actually, the Democrats are kind of saying that. That’s where, out to the donors, saying if these madmen win, the game’s up.

Marchant and Bannon’s remarks echo those made by Republican gubernatorial nominee Tim Michels in Wisconsin, who recently said: “Republicans will never lose another election in Wisconsin after I’m elected governor.”

On October 8, Marchant also said: “If we get all of our secretaries of state elected around the country like this, we take our country back.”

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.