Could Trump get the same treatment as the Tate brothers?
Yesterday afternoon, shortly before the IBA Bare Knuckle 6 boxing event was set to begin in Miami, Florida, U.S. Marshals shocked everyone in attendance when they arrested the event’s co-host, Andrew Tate, along with his brother, Tristan, outside the James L. Knight Center. In front of cameras and spectators, both men were handcuffed, and the backs of their ears were searched. They were then hauled away to begin the process of extradition to the United Kingdom, where they face dozens of criminal charges, including allegations of human trafficking, rape, assault, and organized exploitation.
This comes after the Tate brothers have spent years facing allegations of violence against women and running an organization built around exploitation. The brothers, who hold both American and British citizenship, moved to Romania in 2016, where Andrew built his following as one of the most polarizing figures on the internet, promoting hypermasculinity, misogyny, and what he openly described as male dominance. In December of 2022, Romanian prosecutors arrested both brothers and accused them of forming a criminal organization to sexually exploit women, luring them through false promises of relationships and then forcing them into producing pornographic content. They spent months under house arrest near Bucharest. Andrew also faced separate charges of rape. The brothers denied everything. The prosecution stalled after Romanian courts found procedural defects in the case, and a Romanian court eventually dropped the last of its judicial control measures against them in April of 2026, though investigators kept the file open. Separately, British authorities had been building their own case for years, with Bedfordshire Police compiling evidence of alleged crimes committed in England between 2010 and 2017. And now, with fifty-nine charges authorized, the Crown Prosecution Service wants them extradited to stand trial.
But nothing is as straightforward as it seems these days. In February of 2025, while the Romanian charges were still active and the brothers were still under judicial supervision, Richard Grenell, one of Donald Trump’s special envoys, personally approached Romania’s Foreign Minister on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference and pushed for the brothers to be released. No one else in the Trump administration was notified. A senior White House source later told the New York Post, “We learned about the Tate brothers after the fact.” Shortly after that, they boarded a private jet and landed in Fort Lauderdale. Whether that was incompetence, plausible deniability, or something worse, one thing became clear: these men were welcomed onto American soil.
Once back on American soil, the Tate brothers were not just tolerated by the Trump administration; they were embraced. Paolo Zampolli, Trump’s Special Envoy for Global Partnerships, hosted the brothers at his Washington, D.C. home this past month. He threw a party for them and brought them to a D.C. venue.
If Paolo Zampolli’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he is the man widely credited with introducing Melania Trump to Donald Trump in 1998. He founded ID Model Management and ran in the same circles as the most powerful men in New York for decades. And in an interview with Italian state broadcaster RAI 3 that aired on April 19, 2026, Zampolli admitted on camera that he knew Jeffrey Epstein had underage girls around him. His lawyers tried to block the broadcast and failed. In the early 2000s, Zampolli and Epstein discussed buying a modeling agency together. Zampolli was a named partner in the TerraMar Project, the now-defunct ocean charity founded by Ghislaine Maxwell. His former partner of nearly two decades, Amanda Ungaro, has said she flew on a private jet linked to Epstein at the age of seventeen in 2002. She has offered to testify before the House Oversight Committee. And this man holds an official diplomatic title in the Trump administration.
One thing I keep going back to over and over again as I am writing these nightly pieces is just how connected everything is in the Trump administration. Trump’s envoy pressured Romania to release two men facing rape and trafficking charges. Trump’s envoy with deep and documented ties to Jeffrey Epstein hosted those same men and connected them to a sitting member of Congress. And when accountability finally came, it did not come from the United States. It came from the United Kingdom, from Bedfordshire Police and the Crown Prosecution Service, which spent years building a case our government still has never attempted.
And there is a broader truth in what happened outside that boxing venue in Miami. Justice has a strange way of working itself out. It is rarely fast enough. It almost never arrives the way we want it to. But it does arrive. The Tate brothers spent years moving between countries, dodging investigations, and surrounding themselves with powerful people who were willing to look the other way. And on a Saturday evening in Miami, it caught up with them anyway. That should be a warning to everyone in Trump’s orbit, and to Trump himself. Because we still have allies in the world who are doing the work. The United Kingdom is not just prosecuting the Tate brothers. It is confronting the Epstein legacy head-on. Keir Starmer’s government collapsed after the scandal surrounding Peter Mandelson’s ties to Epstein, including $75,000 in documented payments. Mandelson was arrested in London on suspicion of misconduct in public office. The British are pulling at the same threads we are, and they are following them wherever they lead. Maybe they will be the ones who crack the Epstein files wide open. Maybe they will be the ones who issue the warrants that our own government refuses to pursue. And those warrants could reach anyone, including a president, once he is out of office. That is something Donald Trump must think about often. It would explain why he never wants to leave. It would explain why his administration is working so aggressively to dismantle the International Criminal Court. And it would explain what he did next.
And that same refusal to hold its own people accountable is not limited to the people in Trump’s inner circle. It is becoming the policy of the United States government itself. Because on Thursday, FBI managers received written guidance directing the bureau to no longer investigate confrontations involving ICE agents. Multiple sources with direct knowledge of the directive told the New York Times and other outlets that agents around the country were informed of the change by their FBI counterparts. The Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security issued a joint statement denying any policy change, claiming the relationship between the two agencies “has not changed.” But the denial contradicts what agents were told internally.
When ICE agents were involved in violent encounters, including fatal shootings, the FBI opened what is known as an “assault on federal officer” investigation. That investigation created a federal record. It generated evidence under oath. It produced witness testimony that could be reviewed by independent investigators. And critically, the evidence gathered in those cases could later form the basis for civil rights investigations or criminal prosecutions of agents who used excessive force. The Department of Homeland Security does not have jurisdiction to investigate civil rights violations. Without the FBI, oversight of ICE falls to Homeland Security Investigations, which is a division of DHS itself. ICE investigating ICE. That is a closed loop designed to produce silence and ensure impunity. The timing is not coincidental. It came less than four months before the midterm elections.
Without FBI oversight, ICE agents can act knowing that the only people who will ever review their conduct are colleagues within their own department, people who report to the same chain of command, and people who answer to the same political appointees.
ICE has already been deployed in cities and communities that have openly challenged this administration. We’ve watched raids become media spectacles. We’ve watched federal agents show up in places where the political message was almost impossible to ignore. And we’ve even seen a sitting member of Congress pepper-sprayed during one of those operations.
Now imagine what that looks like in the months leading up to November. Imagine heavily armed federal agents conducting high-profile operations in swing districts or neighborhoods where elections are decided by a few thousand votes. They don’t have to stand outside polling places to influence an election. They don’t have to tell anyone not to vote. If people become afraid to leave their homes, afraid to gather, or afraid that any interaction with law enforcement could put them or someone they love at risk, the damage is already done.
That’s why oversight matters. That’s why independent accountability matters. Because when the same people carrying out these operations are no longer subject to meaningful outside review, we’re simply being asked to trust that power will never be abused. History tells us that’s not a gamble democracies should ever make.
And for the people who speak out, the journalists, the organizers, the writers, the people sharing the truth online, the threshold for being targeted drops the moment FBI scrutiny disappears. They do not need a legal justification that would survive outside review. They need a name, a list, and the confidence that no one outside DHS will ever examine what happened.
This is how authoritarian governments have always operated. They don’t rely solely on the military, because the military has its own chain of command, its own traditions, and at least some institutional checks. Instead, they build parallel forces that answer directly to the people in power and operate with fewer restraints. Nazi Germany had the SA. Mussolini had the Blackshirts. They were both presented as forces that existed to keep order and protect the public. But their real purpose was to intimidate political opponents and make people afraid to challenge those in power. And they were able to do it because there was little or no independent oversight of what they did.
That’s why this matters. It’s not because ICE suddenly becomes the SA or the Blackshirts overnight. History doesn’t repeat itself that neatly. It’s because removing independent oversight from an armed federal force creates the same dangerous incentive structure we’ve seen before. That’s the direction we’re moving in, and it’s happening here in the United States.
But here is what this administration keeps forgetting: this won’t stop the states from investigating and prosecuting. State investigators can build cases on their own terms, using their own jurisdiction. And if crimes are committed and convictions are made, Donald Trump cannot pardon state crimes. And the reason they are building this infrastructure of impunity is visible in everything else that happened this past week. The walls are closing in. And he knows it. Every move he is making right now is the move of a man who can feel the ground shifting under him and is preparing to use everything available to him, including force, to hold his position or unchecked power.
On Friday, Senator Lisa Murkowski published a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled, “Why I’m Voting Against the SAVE America Act.” “While I support the bill’s core tenets—ensuring that only American citizens vote and requiring identification when voting—I remain opposed to it.” she wrote. She explained that the bill would force more than 25,000 Alaskans into just six regional offices to register in person, and that for many rural and Native communities, making that trip could cost $1,000 or more. When members of his own party start publicly dismantling one of his signature efforts to reshape elections, it’s a sign that the cracks are starting to show again.
That doesn’t mean he’s going to back down. If anything, history tells us the opposite. Leaders who see their grip on power slipping often become more reckless, not less. As the midterms get closer, we should expect more attempts to intimidate, distract, and divide us. But we should also expect something else. More Republicans willing to speak up. More institutions refusing to bend. More Americans recognizing what’s happening and deciding they’ve had enough.
That’s what losing power looks like. A steady erosion of the fear and unquestioning loyalty that once held everything together. And we are already seeing it. This is why I still have hope for America. And you should too.
I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather
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This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.
Picture of the day: Saw another great sticker today.
Sources:
https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/18/us/tate-brothers-arrested-miami
https://www.npr.org/2026/07/18/g-s1-134475/tate-brothers-arrested-miami
https://www.npr.org/2025/02/27/nx-s1-5311621/andrew-tate-brothers-romania-florida
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/paolo-zampolli-epstein-underage-girls-interview-1792917
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-other-man-who-links-melania-directly-to-epstein/
https://prospect.org/2026/04/23/diplomat-fashion-channel-jeffrey-epstein-paolo-zampolli/
https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/23/uk/peter-mandelson-arrested-gbr-intl
Hi Heather, well done for all you’re doing. Check out the article in The Guardian “Trump administration to grant $12m to groups founded by UK conservatives Jacob Rees-Mogg and Toby Young”. It’s about Trump funding right wing groups to interfere in UK elections. Doing exactly what he’s claiming is being done to him.
This is your second post I am reading tonight. It gives me more hope. Thanks, because it’s hard to sleep when your mind is so full of hatred and anger that hope—“the thing with feathers”—flies away.