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Bannon's Remarks Closed to Media at Conference in Hong Kong

Bannon's Remarks Closed to Media at Conference in Hong Kong

(Bloomberg) -- Stephen Bannon will be speaking this afternoon at a Hong Kong conference, but the press will now be barred from listening to the media man and former White House chief strategist.

Reporters won’t be allowed to attend the almost hour-long session at the CLSA investor forum, according to an email from Simone Wheeler, a spokeswoman with the firm, which is an overseas unit of Chinese brokerage Citic Securities Co.

Wheeler had said Monday that media would be allowed to monitor Bannon’s comments via a live feed, with a subsequent moderated question-and-answer session off-limits to the press. Those plans “could change,” she said at the time.

It’s not unusual for CLSA to bar media -- former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin spoke in a closed-door session at the forum in 2009.

Bannon, who has returned to right wing news outlet Breitbart since leaving the White House in August, was recently in the news for calling President Donald Trump’s firing of FBI chief James Comey the biggest mistake in “modern political history.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Eric Lam in Hong Kong at elam87@bloomberg.net, Ting Shi in Hong Kong at tshi31@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Christopher Anstey at canstey@bloomberg.net, Emma O'Brien