The Justice Department sued the former casino mogul Stephen Wynn on Tuesday, saying he had made repeated requests on behalf of the Chinese government to Donald J. Trump when he was president and seeking to force Mr. Wynn to register as a foreign agent.
In 2017, Mr. Wynn pushed Mr. Trump to deport a Chinese businessman who had sought asylum in the United States, according to the lawsuit. At the time, Mr. Wynn was the finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, a role he had been handpicked for by Mr. Trump.
The suit accuses Mr. Wynn of broaching the topic several times, including at a dinner with Mr. Trump and other administration officials in late June 2017, when he passed along passport photos of the individual to Mr. Trump’s secretary; during unscheduled meetings with Mr. Trump in August of that year; and by phone while aboard a yacht off the coast of Italy. Mr. Trump told Mr. Wynn he would look into the matter, according to the suit.
The Chinese businessman is not named in the suit, but he matches the description of Guo Wengui, a billionaire real estate magnate and an outspoken critic of Chinese government self-dealing who formed an alliance with Stephen K. Bannon, a former White House strategist for Mr. Trump. Mr. Guo fled China in 2014 in anticipation of corruption charges that he said were retaliatory. The effort to have him returned to China was ultimately unsuccessful, according to the lawsuit.
The suit also paints Mr. Wynn as furthering his own interests in Macau, a region of China known for its casinos that was critical for Mr. Wynn’s business. Mr. Wynn resigned as chairman and chief executive of his company, Wynn Resorts, in 2018 after being accused of sexual misconduct. He also stepped down as finance chairman of the R.N.C.
The Justice Department said that it had asked Mr. Wynn to register himself as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act in 2018, 2021 and April of this year, but that he had refused.
“Obviously, I…