The more you learn about internet personalities Tristan and Andrew Tate, the harder it becomes to defend the brothers. Yet that is exactly what the White House was able to do according to a recent report.
Andrew Tate has been a magnet of controversy in his short stint on the top end of algorithms for many young men. Multiple news stories have been published about his so-called online university and his self-described misogynistic worldview. But it all looked like it was going to fall apart when he was officially accused of sex trafficking and rape and held in a Romanian prison as his case wore on.
Little did people know that he always had a trump card at the back of his pocket, pun intended. HuffPost reports that when Donald Trump was officially declared as the 47th president of the US, Andrew Tate tweeted, “The Tates will be free, Trump is the president. The good old days are back.” What could have been dismissed as facetious soon became an outright confession. But back then, most of the public had no idea just how lenient Trump could be with people who commit sex crimes because his direct ties with Jeffrey Epstein weren’t so public.
Somehow, the Tate brothers were able to secure their release and they soon traveled back to the United States, arriving via a private plane to Florida. But considering the Tate brothers remain persons of interest in very serious crimes concerning sex trafficking across three countries, the ever-zealous Trump administration’s Customs and Border Protection immediately confiscated the brothers’ electronics, including phones and laptops. This does make sense, because the American public wouldn’t want alleged sex traffickers roaming the streets and potentially placing women in danger, but that’s when something odd happened.
A few days later, the two had all their electronics returned, no questions asked. Turns out, Tate wasn’t just exaggerating — he did in fact have protection from the very top of the administration. According to reports, that order came directly from the White House through a Department of Homeland Security liaison named Paul Ingrassia.
Ingrassia used to be Tate’s personal lawyer before he moved on to serve in Trump’s administration. This is just the latest in a string of Trump 2.0 era actions where the White House has inserted itself in ongoing cases to either target or protect people depending on how much they support the president. In some cases, when there’s nothing the Justice Department can do, Trump has even gone ahead to simply pardon certain figures.
Retired assistant director for Homeland Security, John F. Tobon, revealed to the press that some members of DHS feel that the White House is overstepping its mandate, but they can’t do anything because they fear that if they speak up, they might end up losing their job. Tobon added, “I’ve never heard of anything like that in my 30 years working. For anyone to say this request is from the White House, it feels like an intimidation tactic.”
