THE TIGHTENING NOOSE:

A wild fight has erupted within the sprawling finance and propaganda apparatus former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon co-founded with a fugitive Chinese billionaire.

The battle involves an organization Bannon inaugurated at the Statue of Liberty last year with Guo Wengui, a Chinese disinformation kingpin, and hostilities broke out even before the SEC this month charged companies linked to Guo with unregistered stock and cryptocurrency sales. But a federal probe into the dealings had been underway for months, and a key contention in a new lawsuit is that money intended to bankroll the duo's vision of a vast anti-Beijing network instead went toward paying back irate investors in illicit transactions.

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