Trump's "cash crunch" and "mounting legal bills" have provided the impetus for an April 6 fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago that will assemble a rogue's gallery of the country's most Trump-friendly, democracy-averse billionaires, reports Axios.
As calmly noted by Axios cofounder Mike Allen, the event will be hosted by hedge fund billionaire John Paulson and co-chaired by "Las Vegas-based businessman Robert Bigelow, casino mogul Steve Wynn and New York grocery billionaire John Catsimatidis."
Yes, that Steve Wynn, a.k.a the right's Harvey Weinstein.
A serial sex predator with a Trump-like history
Now 82, Steve Wynn is a longtime Trump friend who says he has "known Trump through three wives," with the clear implication that he has long been aware of Trump's adulterous affairs and sex crimes.
The billionaire casino mogul became RNC Finance Chair in January 2017 but a year later, at the height of the Me-Too movement, he was exposed by The Wall Street Journal as a serial sexual predator.
The Journal's blockbuster January 2018 report highlighted accusations of sexual misconduct by "dozens of women," with an alleged pattern of abuse that spanned decades.
Wynn's alleged crimes included sexual harassment, coercion, indecent exposure and, reported ABC News, an alleged assault involving a manicurist who claimed Wynn forced her to have sex with him:
After the woman gave Wynn a manicure, she said he told her to lie down on the massage table after pressuring her to take her clothes off, the WSJ reported. Wynn allegedly persisted after the woman told him she was married and didn't want to have sex.
The woman ultimately removed her clothing and the pair had sex, according to the WSJ. The woman's supervisor said she filed a detailed report recounting the episode to the casino's human resources department, and Wynn later paid the manicurist a $7.5 million settlement, the Journal reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.
Wynn's alleged crimes were too disgusting for even Ronna McDaniel to tolerate. Despite the fact Mitt Romney's deplorable niece had resolutely stood by Predator-in-Chief Trump, she forced Wynn to resign from his RNC role.
Wynn stepped down as RNC Chair on January 27, 2018 and resigned as Chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts on February 6.
Amid revulsion at Wynn's decades-long sex crimes, Republicans across the board were urged to return or donate money they had received from Wynn, as prominent Democrats had done with Weinstein donations. Some actually complied.
And it didn't end there.
More allegations emerged on February 27, reported NPR, including one woman who told police, "that she felt coerced into a sexual relationship with Wynn in the 1970s and was forced to resign from her job at Wynn Resorts when she refused to continue engaging in sexual activity."
The claims of another accuser—who claimed "she was raped by Wynn in the early 1970s, became pregnant and gave birth to his child in a gas station bathroom"—have since been called into question.
Wynn denied all charges but ultimately settled with the state of Nevada in 2023, paying a $10 million fine and cutting all times with the casino industry.
But even that's not the end of the story.
Because Wynn is not just an aging pervert and serial predator in the Trump mold. He's also, like Trump, willing to engage in illegal "quid pro quos" with foreign governments to gain an upper hand on his competitors.
Wynn was also working secretly for China
In May 2022, in an article headlined, "Trump's inner circle seems to have been a corrupt, meddling pit of vipers," NBC News reported that the Justice Department had:
Dropped a bombshell allegation against one of the key figures in former President Donald Trump’s circle. According to the Justice Department, billionaire developer Steve Wynn — a man who has known Trump for years and who served as the finance chair of the Republican National Committee during Trump’s first year in office — also worked as a foreign agent on behalf of the Chinese government. As such, the Justice Department is seeking to have Wynn register as a foreign agent.
Prior to the 2016 election, NBC News reports:
The Justice Department (alleges)... the government in the Chinese city of Macau, where Wynn operates multiple casinos, moved in 2016 to restrict the number of tables and machines available to Wynn, threatening his revenue stream. A few months later, Wynn allegedly began doing Beijing’s bidding...
Wynn coordinated his activities with another Trump-friendly GOP fundraiser, the Michael Cohen-connected Playboy-bunny impregnator and the now-convicted foreign agent Elliott Broidy:
The lawsuit goes into granular detail, highlighting, for instance, multiple text messages between Broidy and Wynn’s wife it says were sent on her husband’s behalf. The fate of the unnamed dissident was a “matter of upmost importance” to Chinese President Xi Jinping, Broidy says in the texts. Wynn also spoke directly multiple times with then-vice minister Sun Lijun on the matter, with the now-former Chinese official asking directly for Wynn’s help. Broidy later texted that Sun was “extremely pleased and said that President Xi Jinping appreciates [Wynn’s] assistance.”
And Wynn worked really, really hard for his Chinese masters:
According to the lawsuit, Beijing had every reason to be happy with Wynn’s efforts. Throughout 2017, Wynn pushed Trump multiple times to place pressure on the unnamed dissident, including during “what appeared to be unscheduled meetings” with Trump. At one point, the Justice Department says Wynn called Trump from a yacht off the coast of Italy to discuss the matter. Wynn even roped in Trump’s chief of staff and senior national security council figures.
While the case against Wynn was ultimately dismissed, the DOJ is not letting the matter rest and has continued to appeal. Meanwhile, the bipartisan Retroactive Foreign Agents Registration Act (“RFARA”) was introduced in Congress in 2023 attempting to close the loophole that allows foreign agents to betray America and get away with it simply by claiming they are not doing it anymore.
Wynn now lives on Palm Beach's "Predator's Row"
Perhaps not surprisingly, Steve Wynn decided to abandon Las Vegas in 2019 and seek his next happy ending in a new 24,600 sq. ft oceanfront home "just a five-minute drive from President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort" and close to the homes of deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and fellow massage-lover Robert Kraft.
Where's the outrage?
Even before his work as an agent for China was revealed in 2022, Steve Wynn's sex crimes were too appalling for the Republican Party of 2018.
His money was too dirty for the likes of Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, Rob Portman, Jeff Flake, and others. The Republican Governors Association even returned a $100,000 contribution from Wynn Resorts and canceled its contract with the company stating it would not accept money from the company in the future.
But that was then.
In 2024, the RNC is now fully in Trump's tiny-fisted grip. That's clear. But that doesn't make it acceptable.
It's not normal that Trump is an adulterer selling $60 Bibles on Easter Sunday.
It's not normal that Trump is a self-confessed serial sex predator recently found liable by a jury for a violent sexual assault on E. Jean Carroll.
It's not normal that the news of Trump eagerly welcoming a fellow predator back into his inner circle is met with shrugs.
Steve Wynn has been credibly accused of sexual misconduct by dozens of women. His return to Trump's fundraising team is an insult to all women and all survivors of sexual abuse.
It should be bigger news—and a bigger source of outrage.
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