But Jack Maxey, a former “War Room” co-host who was working to disseminate information from the laptop, said several images posted by Mr. Guo’s network had been fabricated, and only distracted from what Mr. Maxey considered far more damaging material documenting Hunter Biden’s work with a Chinese private-equity fund.
“He took fake photographs and claimed they came from Hunter’s laptop,” Mr. Maxey said of Mr. Guo.
Mr. Guo endorsed Mr. Trump’s stolen election lie, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars so proponents of his anti-C.C.P. campaign could gather in Washington for the so-called Million MAGA March that November in support of the then-president, who was refusing to concede. Mr. Guo funded a court challenge to Mr. Biden’s election victory in Georgia, reported Mother Jones magazine. Mr. Guo also funded Gettr, the social media network set up in 2021 that until recently was headed by Jason Miller, Mr. Trump’s longtime campaign adviser and spokesman.
That September, the S.E.C. filed civil charges against three companies tied to Mr. Guo, alleging that the firms had conducted unlawful securities offerings for his media company, which had attracted more than 5,000 investors. The companies, without admitting to or denying the allegations, agreed to pay more than $539 million to settle.
The S.E.C.’s suit followed lawsuits by investors who claimed they had wired money for GTV shares but received no proof of purchase, and were not given refunds they requested. Government prosecutors said this month that Mr. Guo had defrauded thousands of investors.
A 60-year-old woman in the Seattle area who asked to be identified only by her last name, Chen, said she had been drawn to Mr. Guo in 2019 because of his support for pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. She grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution, and her parents, both academics, had suffered.
Ms. Chen said she first gave $2,500 to one of Mr. Guo’s organizations, believing the money would go to help Hong Kong students escape. In May 2020, she invested $125,000 in GTV. “At the time we thought we did the right thing,” she said. When she could not get her money back, she said, she contacted the authorities and joined other aggrieved investors in suing Mr. Guo.
It was one of many civil suits against Mr. Guo since his arrival in the United States. Another, festering since 2017, would bring Mr. Despins, the bankruptcy lawyer, into his orbit.
