Yahoo News George Santos’ New Max Donors Have Strong Ties to Guo Wengui
After The Daily Beast reported that a bumper crop of new maximum donors to Rep. George Santos (R-NY) appeared to have links to indicted Chinese right-wing financier Guo Wengui, new evidence suggests those ties are even stronger than anyone could have guessed.
On Monday, the Hark Herald Press, an independent investigative outlet that scrutinizes Chinese political operations, reported that, according to its research, almost all of these new donors are connected to a group that Guo created with right-wing agitator and ally Steve Bannon, called the New Federal State of China (NFSC).
The Hark Herald singled out a number of these donors, almost all of whom contributed the maximum amount to Santos—$3,300 per election—despite never previously giving money to any federal candidate. The Daily Beast has now independently confirmed many of those ties.
George Santos Mysteriously Got Big Bucks From a Bunch of Newbie Donors
Last November, for instance, a Santos donor by the name of Ning Ding was named to the board of directors at the Rule of Law Society, an NFSC affiliate. A donor named Dan Wang has been cited praising Guo by the verified NFSC TV account on GETTR, Guo’s social media venture. And another Santos donor, Yue Zhou, appears directly linked to the billionaire himself, according to a May 15 filing in Guo’s federal bankruptcy case in Connecticut. The filing includes a subpoena for Zhou, and lists Zhou as one of three proposed guarantors to vouch for the bond for one of Guo’s indicted co-conspirators—a move that appears to have made the government uneasy because she was “also close to [Guo],” the document reads.
In all, these donors accounted for about $130,000 of Santos’ $162,000 haul, with most of the donations coming just days apart. In the end, $85,000 went right back into Santos’ own pockets, in the form of a loan repayment.
The campaign also appears to have at first misreported the donations, updating the numbers with even more donations after news reports had already dissected the filing. In a note attached to the amended filing, Santos’ new treasurer, Jason Boles, appeared to lay the blame on Santos. While Boles, who joined the campaign on May 20, said he did the best he could with the “historical data provided,” he apparently didn’t have all of the campaign’s fundraising information, specifically from the weeks before he was hired.
Boles later updated that data, which revealed more maxed-out mystery donors, including one who identified himself as a student at Baruch College—Santos’ fake alma mater, where he once claimed, falsely, that he had attended on a full volleyball scholarship.
The Daily Beast attempted to contact nearly 30 of these contributors on Friday. Almost all phone numbers had an automated voice message, and only one donor agreed to speak. That person confirmed they had given specifically because of Santos’ support for Guo.
Then, on Saturday, Mother Jones reported more connections between this group of donors and Guo, revealing additionally that Guo fans had at one point distributed a list to help collect donations for the embattled Republican freshman. The document said, in Chinese, “This form is for comrades who have donated to Santos to register their donation information.”
When The Daily Beast asked Santos about the contributions, he explained, “when you see a cluster of donation [sic] of a similar amount it’s safe to assume it’s a fundraiser that took place.” But Santos did not elaborate on where the fundraiser took place, or how that would explain the tens of thousands of dollars rolling into his campaign at the same time from these donors scattered across the country.
The Daily Beast was not able to immediately verify the authenticity of some of the addresses. A few maximum contributors listed their occupations as “student,” and open source information cited by the Hark Herald suggests at least one contributor may be in the country on a visa, which would make that person ineligible to donate money for federal elections.
Feds Say They Have 80,000 Pages of Evidence Against George Santos
As the legal woes continue to mount for Santos, he’s found himself increasingly beleaguered among his GOP colleagues and former donors. In recent months, Santos has gone all-in for Guo—a.k.a. Miles Guo—with no predicate or preamble for this new obsession.
After the self-professed Chinese Communist Party dissident was indicted in March on charges stemming from an alleged $1 billion fraud conspiracy, Santos—who was indicted on fraud charges two months later—has sponsored a total of 11 bills targeting the CCP. He’s also stunted for Guo on the House floor. Additionally, as Mother Jones and the Hark Herald noted, Santos has attended Guo-supporting events that could possibly explain the checks that later flowed to his campaign en masse.
Santos even blamed his own indictment on his support for Guo. After his arrest in May, Santos tweeted a fundraising pitch. “I asked questions about #MilesGuo & the DOJ indicts me 5 days later!” he wrote.
He added that he needed financial support “to keep me fighting for freedom,” and asked donors to “Chip in today!”
“I support him because he is not a talker,” the Santos donor previously told The Daily Beast in a text message. “He did what he promised. He said he will propose a #FreeMilesGuo bill, he actually did it.” The donor added that he had supported other candidates in the past, but they left him “disappointed every time.”
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