What did Donald Trump do today?

He succeeded in helping accused rapists and sex traffickers flee from justice.

Andrew Tate is a social media influencer whose brand revolves around ultra-right-wing politics, attacks on women and Jews, and multi-level marketing scams. Tate built his audience using shock-jock techniques, proudly adopting the label "misogynist" and telling his young male audience that women are responsible if they are raped. 

In 2023, Tate and his brother Tristan were charged by Romanian authorities with rape and human trafficking. Prosecutors there described how the brothers lured women from several countries to Romania, then used intimidation and control over their finances to rape them and force them to appear in pornography. Most of what is contained in the charges are acts that the Tates had already admitted to on social media.

Some of their victims were children.

Since taking office, the Trump administration has been lobbying the Romanian government to allow the Tate brothers to travel outside of the European Union pending the start of their trial—and, in all likelihood, to permanently flee the charges. Trump's diplomatic pressure succeeded in getting the Romanian government to return their passports. This morning, Andrew and Tristan Tate boarded a plane for Florida.

The White House has refused to comment on why the full weight of American diplomacy was put in service to helping someone accused of sex trafficking children, although the political implications are clear enough—something that even some of Trump's staunchest supporters expressed disgust over today.

Trump, himself a convicted felon, was found liable for rape in a recent civil trial. 

Why does this matter?

• Being politically useful to the president shouldn't get you off the hook for sex trafficking of minors.