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The White House says Trump will not intervene to stop the extradition of Andrew and Tristan Tate, who face rape and sex trafficking charges in the UK.
Some shit you should know before you dig in: US Marshals arrested the Tate brothers in Miami last week after British prosecutors hit them with a wave of new charges. The pair, who hold US and British citizenship, are central figures in the “manosphere,” a loose network of online personalities who mix fitness and get-rich-quick advice with misogynistic content. They now face 59 counts in total, 42 against Andrew and 17 against Tristan. Andrew faces seven rape counts, three assault counts and three for arranging or facilitating sex trafficking, plus 19 more tied to extreme pornography and indecent images of a child. Tristan’s list runs to three counts of arranging or facilitating sex trafficking, two of rape and one of sexual assault. UK prosecutors allege the abuse took place between 2010 and 2017. Both brothers deny the charges.
What’s going on now: Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shut the door on any intervention when asked directly at Thursday’s briefing. “No. We’ve already answered that question,” she said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who would ultimately have to sign off on any extradition if the courts clear it, distanced the administration from the case while traveling in the Philippines. “There’s no role for us to play at this moment or maybe ever in that regard,” he said, adding that he did not know the details and would not weigh in on a case still moving through the courts.
The brothers’ lawyer, Joseph McBride, pushed back on Leavitt’s remarks, arguing she does not have the final word. “Ms. Leavitt is great, but she is not the President or the Secretary of State,” he told TMZ. “There is no extradition without the Secretary of State’s signature. Until that signature exists, it’s all commentary.” McBride has called the charges “politically motivated” and “a political hit ordered by a dying empire.”
This all comes after court filings unsealed July 20 laid out what three women told British investigators. Two of them accuse Andrew over incidents in 2014 and 2015, and the third says Tristan raped and assaulted her during a relationship that started in 2012. The women allege the brothers often choked them, sometimes until they passed out, before raping them. One woman said she met Andrew on a dating app and later, when he visited her home in Manchester, he pinned her down and she feared he “was going to kill her.”
