The Republican Party is obsessed with sex trafficking, grooming, and pedophilia.

For years, the GOP has built its brand on a bizarre, often conspiratorial fixation with sex trafficking, invoking this trafficking panic to justify border militarization and its assault on LGBTQ adults and children.

And yet, when an actual accused rapist and alleged human trafficker comes along, Republicans rush to his defense – and lobby to bring him back to the United States.

President Donald Trump’s administration has successfully lobbied to bring Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan back to the U.S. from Romania, where Tate faces charges of human trafficking, sexual misconduct, and money laundering.

American officials first brought up Tate’s case in a call with the Romanian government last week. At an international conference, Trump’s special envoy Richard Grenell pressed Romanian authorities to lift travel restrictions on the self-described misogynist influencer, the Financial Times

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