Donald Trump Jr. and ex-White House trade adviser Peter Navarro appear on a list of potential defendants in a court filing Wednesday related to the sprawling bankruptcy case of a right-wing Chinese businessman accused of bilking anti-communist dissidents.
The court-appointed trustee overseeing the estate of Guo Wengui—also known as Ho Wan Kwok, Miles Guo, and Miles Kwok—identified the former first son and the conspiracy-spouting fringe economist among a large number of individuals and entities they plan to serve with legal papers under a proposed court order. Guo, who declared bankruptcy in Feb. 2022 after getting stuck with $134 million in fines related to his yacht, has long played sugar daddy to ex-White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and bankrolled the ill-starred conservative Twitter alternative Gettr.
But the putative billionaire, who has sought asylum in the U.S. after fleeing corruption allegations from Beijing, had no previously known ties to Trump Jr. and Navarro. The bankruptcy case is separate from the ongoing fraud proceeding against the businessman related to the $1 billion he allegedly misappropriated from his supporters in the diaspora.
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Legal experts The Daily Beast consulted noted that a person or company’s appearance on the list of potential defendants does not amount to an allegation of wrongdoing. Rather, it reflects the intense complexity of Guo’s vast web of bank accounts, real estate holdings, investment entities, media companies, nonprofits, and assorted flashy assets.
“They’re in such a vague state right now, some of them might just be people who just have knowledge of things,” said Neil Crane, who runs an eponymous firm in Connecticut, where the bankruptcy proceedings are underway. “The people on this list are going to include people who have information, people who could potentially have assets, people who potentially could have received assets they shouldn’t have.”
The trustee’s job, Crane noted, is to work out a fair settlement for the bankrupt person’s creditors—and this could mean clawing back payments or asset transfers deemed improper. A clawback might be appropriate if Guo turned over one of his holdings for less than its true value, or paid a family member or intimate financial associate in the year before his Chapter 11 filing, or paid a non-family member in the 90 days before he declared bankruptcy.
“Eventually there are going to be allegations against some of these entities or people,” Crane said, alluding to the 25-page list of potential defendants on which Trump Jr. and Navarro appear. “You find these people, and if you think they did something wrong, you file what's called an adversary proceeding.”
The trustee’s filing indicates that the potential defendants may have received money or valuables from one of Guo’s dozens of businesses and minions, or gotten them secondhand from another party those affiliates paid.
For now, though, the only papers Trump Jr. and Navarro would receive if the proposed order gets approved at a hearing next month would notify them that they are potential defendants in the case and that the trustee seeks to suspend certain legal deadlines to give them time to clear-up Guo’s financial morass.
Contacted by phone, Navarro denied ever receiving payment from Guo or his companies but declined to remark further without consulting his lawyer. A representative for Trump Jr. did not answer questions from The Daily Beast by publication time.
