A legal victory was in the cards for casino magnate Steve Wynn, who cannot be forced to register as a foreign agent of China by the Department of Justice, a federal judge ruled Wednesday in Washington D.C.
Wynn cannot be compelled to register as a foreign agent since any relationship between Wynn and the Chinese government ended in 2017, meaning the statue of limitations had lapsed, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled.
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“Wynn’s obligation to file a registration statement has years since passed, and the government cannot now compel him to register,” Boasberg said, according to Bloomberg.
The DOJ sued Wynn earlier this year for not registering as a foreign agent when allegedly lobbying former President Donald Trump and his administration on behalf of China. The DOJ said Wynn owned and operated casinos in Macao, a special administrative region of China, during his alleged lobbying efforts and acted to protect his business interests in the region. The department claimed it asked Wynn to comply voluntarily with the Foreign Agents Registration Act before the lawsuit was filed. Wynn’s lawyers have denied the allegations.
“Mr. Wynn never acted as an agent of the Chinese government and never lobbied on its behalf,” Wynn’s attorneys, Reid Weingarten and Robert Luskin, said in a statement obtained by the outlet. “This is a claim that should never have been filed, and the Court agreed.”
The judge said he was not determining whether Wynn actually did lobby on China’s behalf, but rather whether he could be forced to register as a foreign agent. He also said the DOJ could have pursued criminal sanctions against Wynn for failing to disclose the alleged lobbying if the statute of limitations had not passed. Because FARA does not specifically outline its own statue of limitations, FARA prosecutions are governed by the general five-year statute.
Officials say Wynn urged Trump’s administration “to cancel the visa or otherwise remove from the United States” a Chinese businessman wanted by security officials in his home country, and that he made the pitch “at the request of” former Chinese Ministry of Public Security Vice-Minister Sun Lijun, who first mentioned the idea to former Republican National Committee Finance Chairman Elliott Broidy, who pleaded guilty to FARA related charges in 2020.
The renowned Las Vegas casino magnate and hotelier allegedly spoke to Trump over dinner, in White House meetings, and by phone from Broidy’s yacht, which was off the coast of Italy at the time.
China defended Wynn in May, claiming that the allegations were hearsay and that the country was not interfering with domestic affairs in the United States.
“The U.S. move is based on nothing but hearsay to deliberately hype up the ‘China-threat’ theory,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said. “China always develops relations with other countries based on such principles as mutual respect and non-interference in each other’s domestic affairs. We hope the U.S. will discard the Cold War and zero-sum mentality and stop making an issue of China at every turn.”
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Wynn was the CEO and chairman of the board for Wynn Resorts from 2002 until 2018, resigning after a flurry of negative press that stemmed from sexual misconduct allegations. Wynn Resorts operates several of the most prominent casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, including the Mirage, Treasure Island, the Wynn resort, and Bellagio. Wynn also served as the finance chairman for the Republican National Committee but resigned after the allegations.
