Bannon’s acts of betrayal just can’t be ignored
- Tom Pauken II.
- 6 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Pro-Trump supporters, pro-MAGA and registered Republicans are waking up to a sudden realization that they might have gotten hoodwinked big time by a con-artist grifter and his name is Steve Bannon, a former high-level White House aide to the Trump administration. He was unceremoniously fired in 2017 by US President Donald J. Trump over concerns that he was leaking confidential information to Washington Post reporters.
Steve Bannon had captured fame with the rise of Breitbart News, a California-based conservative media outlet founded by Andrew Breitbart, who died of a heart attack when Barack Obama was President. Amid the ensuing aftermath, Bannon announced his takeover of Breitbart and self-appointed himself as the company’s CEO. Due to the trauma of Andrew Breitbart’s death and concerns that he might have died under suspicious circumstances, Bannon sought opportunity during the crisis.
Only a dark-soul psychopath would engage in such schemes to rise to power and chase after their pot of gold. Breitbart’s family and his colleagues were so shocked by their founder’s death that when Bannon declared himself the new boss, they failed to comprehend the deception until it was too late to stop that.
Such actions demonstrate a pattern and most criminals are prone to similar patterns of behaviour when they engage devilish schemes. For Bannon, he was the man who loved chaos since that sowed confusion and when people think emotionally they are likely to make poor decisions or overlook the actions by those seeking to harm them.
Only a monster would prey on the weak and vulnerable, but that’s what Bannon had done and he was planning to do it for the rest of his life. He had sought as his main targets - pro-Trump supporters, ‘America First’ idealists and fervent anti-China proponents.
He hatched a scam while coordinating with Jeffrey Epstein, a felon convicted as a pedophile and child trafficker who had deep ties to rich and powerful people. Bannon was building a grift game that could surpass all grifts in human history. But inevitably his house of cards would crumble.
Bannon sought access to power by jumping on the Trump political bandwagon before it had become popular. When Donald Trump announced his bid to run for President for 2016 US Elections, most political experts and pundits, including myself, dismissed his campaign as a meaningless marketing tactic to boost his casinos and property deals.
But Bannon thought otherwise and stayed close to Trump’s inner circle in 2016, knowing that if Trump enters the White House he could cash in. Many politicians are surrounded by such people, so we should not be shocked. Anyway, Bannon gambled on Trump and won the bet.
He was prepared to cash in by claiming he took charge of Trump’s presidential campaign and received an appointment as the White House “chief strategist” but departed from the position in August 2017.
A political grifter rakes in big bucks by showing their close proximity to circles of power. Such folks in Washington DC are common. They set up meetings with elected officials and key decision-makers to show proof they are powerful. But when they attend meetings with power brokers, they routinely engage in meaningless small talk behind closed doors, such as talking about the weather or asking each other what they had eaten for breakfast.
Such meetings are never about important topics on US domestic policies and world affairs. That’s because grifter is only seeking insider’s information to score more profitable payments from their sponsors, while the politicians have to play it carefully to avoid direct connections to such schemes.
Accordingly, Bannon was succeeding in his grift until he turned arrogant. He found himself working in the White House and fell into trap that he started to believe his own lies. He saw himself as a real power broker who could control the levers of power in Washington DC. Hence, he befriended influential reporters and they duped him into gossiping about the Trump administration.
For a few moments, Bannon might have thought himself as noble, sincere and altruistic, but a man with a criminal mindset will eventually return to his old habits and ways of thinking. Bannon just couldn’t help himself and when he was gossiping to reporters about President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and his daughter Ivanka, Trump knew that it was time to cast Bannon out.
Bannon left Washington and returned to Breitbart News, but he did not go quietly into the good night. He launched new schemes as a champion of populism, anti-China campaigner and conservative Catholics. He proclaimed himself as more MAGA than Trump and set up new media outlets and NGOs, such as “Build the Wall” and “Warroom” to beg for donations and sponsorship deals, while he had raked in hundreds of millions of US dollars.
But like all greedy men, enough was never enough. He felt a compulsive drive to chase after more money and he found his gold mine by partnering up with a Chinese con artist Miles Guo, who fled China after fleecing hordes of money from ordinary Chinese families in bogus real estate deals. A high number of his victims had committed suicide.
Guo fled China right before police officers were going to arrest him. But he claimed that he was getting persecuted by the Chinese government for his so-called pro-democracy activities. Well, there’s no proof that Guo was acting in such a manner before his criminal investigation started to tighten on him.
Guo knew that he could flush his cash out of China by pouring funds into Western NGOs and Bannon stood as his willing accomplice. The two had worked together on setting up a new company called, GTV Media Group, which would promote pro-democracy values in China.
Bannon saw Guo as his ultimate cash cow. But the two kept hatching alleged frauds after alleged frauds. They raised private funding and investments from wealthy Chinese-Americans who thought this new media would rise as the standard bearer for criticizing the Chinese government, which might spark social instability in China.
However after Guo and Bannon were arrested on a luxury yacht, documents and court testimony later disclosed that Guo was working in partnership with the Chinese government, as well as corrupt ruling-Party officials who were laundering their money into Canada.
Bannon, who hailed himself as ‘America First’ and anti-Communist, got exposed as a pro-China money broker. His claims to be a devout Catholic were also shattered when the Epstein files disclosed that he was a frequent visitor of the Epstein Island where he had allegedly engaged in wild sex practices.
Nonetheless, Bannon continues to operate a successful podcast, The Warroom, and for the time being he’s not shunned by many pro-MAGA supporters and anti-China activists. But we can’t ignore the evidence right before our eyes. He’s fooled the MAGA movement and if he doesn’t go bankrupt or in prison, he will continue on with his grift and that will be harmful to the world at large.
His treachery and betrayals should mark him as an evil man forevermore.
(Tom Pauken II., author of US vs. China: From Trade Wars to Reciprocal Deal, AFAI Senior Fellow, Geopolitical Consultant based in Beijing, China)
X: @tmcgregochina
Footnotes
Byline Times, “Jeffrey Epstein Had Access to Trump’s Inner Circle, While Working With Steve Bannon,”
Politico, “Bannon out as White House chief strategist,”
South China Morning Post, “Guo Wengui and Steve Bannon join forces to imply Beijing involvement in Wang Jian’s death,”
Huffpost, “FBI Now Probing $300 Million Media Company Deal Linked To Steve Bannon: Report,”