Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan Tate, the British American online influencers, arrived in Florida on Thursday morning after a Romanian court established that they could leave the country, a development that raised questions about the fact that the Trump administration had a role in their sudden departure.
The brothers, who had been forbidden to leave Romania for more than two years for criminal investigations, embarked on a private jet in Romania at the beginning of Thursday morning, said Joseph McBride, their lawyer in the United States. They landed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood international airport shortly after 11 and left in an SUV with strong safety around 12:30
The Tate brothers have openly aligned with the Trump administration in recent weeks. Romanian officials said that the United States had not put pressure on them and that Tate Brothers’s lawyer, who has long pressure for US legislators on their behalf, said he could not comment on whether US officials had used their power to free men.
Andrew Tate refused to answer the questions of journalists on Thursday about the involvement of President Trump. However, the lawyer, Mr. McBride, said Thursday: “Make the mathematics. These guys are on the plane. “
During a meeting with Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Great Britain at the White House Thursday, Trump said he knows nothing about Tates releases from Romania. Starmer recognized that “there is an English element here” and said that “it is important that justice is made and that it is about human beings is obviously, in my opinion, a risk for safety”, adding that it will further look at the question.
Andrew Tate said he and his brother are “largely misunderstood”.
“We still have to be condemned for any crime in our life,” said Tate out of the airport. “We never have criminal records on the planet.”
The Tates repeatedly denied the accusations against them. They successfully appealed to an accusation in a Court of Bucharest, which found in December that the case did not meet the requirements for a trial, sending it to public ministries.
“A prosecutor recently decided that, since we have no active accusation in court, to let us go and return,” said Tate. “This is a democratic society, you should be innocent to prove guilty, like my brother and I are.”
The travel restrictions on the Tate brothers were revoked on Wednesday, according to the Romanian authorities. In response to the questions about the brothers, the Romanian ministries declared in a press release that were still pursuing criminal investigations against two British American citizens. They did not name the people, but they told him to be allowed to leave Romania and had to “appear before the judicial authorities every time they convened”.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania said that US officials had not intervened in their case. “In Romania, the judiciary is independent and is the only authorized authority to make decisions in an investigation in progress or in a trial,” said the ministry in a note.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a comment request.
Tates’s lawyer, Mr. McBride, had supported brothers among the legislators in Capitol Hill going up to 2023, he said. He had developed contacts to the congress largely through his legal representation of several people accused in relation to the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. But his defense for the Tates did not seem to earn much purchase until President Trump was re -elected.
In recent weeks, the brothers have expressed their support for President Trump. “Tates will be free, Trump is the president. The beautiful old days are back, “said Andrew Tate on X this month.
For more than two years, the Tate brothers have faced a prolonged legal battle with public ministries in Romania, who accused them of trafficking in human beings and formed an organized criminal group. According to Romanian ministries, the brothers have deceived several women in believing they want a relationship with them. The women were housed in a mixture near Bucharest and forced to appear in online pornographic videos, Ministries said.
Since a court of Bucharest sent the case in December, since then, public ministries have declared to investigate the brothers for other accusations of human beings and money laundering.
Andrew Tate, a former kickboxer known for his sexist opinions, has promoted a brand of masculinity linked to sumptuous performances of wealth. According to a page archived on his website that has been removed since then, Mr. Tate has described a method that said he made him rich.
“My task was to meet a girl, go to some appointments, sleep with her, test if it’s quality, make her fall in love with me where she would do anything I say, and then put her on the webcam so that you can get rich together,” he said. He said he worked with “over 75 girls” on the site.
The governor Ron Desantis of Florida on Thursday said that the Tates were not welcome in his state and that he had no involvement in the plans for the tates to travel there.
“Our attorney general, James Uthmeier, is examining which hooks and jurisdiction of the state we could have to be able to face it,” Desantis said in a press conference. “But reality is no, Florida is not a place where you are welcome with that type of conduct in the air, and I don’t know how it has come to this.”
Mr. Uthmeier declared on social media that his office was conducting a “preliminary investigation” in the Tate brothers.
“Florida has no zero tolerance for the section of human beings and violence against women,” he wrote. “If any of these alleged crimes trigger Florida’s jurisdiction, we will consider them responsible.”
The Financial Times reported this month that US officials had urged Romania to raise travel restrictions on the brothers. Richard Gnelell, a special correspondent for the United States and a close ally of Trump, mentioned the case with the country’s foreign minister, Emil Hurezeanu, at the Munich conference on Munich’s security this month, according to the report.
Mr. Gnelell said in one and -mail on Thursday that he had not discussed any problem with Mr. Hurezeanu. Mr. Hurezeanu had a “focused exchange” with Mr. Gnelell at the conference, said the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a place on X at the time. The two officials “covered the current topics of shared interest” between the two countries, said the ministry, but the post did not mention the Tate brothers.
Last week, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu declared on social media that the United States “did not make any request” of Romania on the “legal situation of well -known foreign influencers investigated by the Romanian authorities”, while recognizing a “discussion” between Mr. Grenell and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Mr. McBride, Tates’s American lawyer, said that a case of defamation that the brothers brought against a woman in Florida, who accused them of trafficking in human beings, included proof that the criminal proceeding in Romania was weak. He added that the argument of the brothers according to which they were victims of an armed judicial system in Romania resonated with officials in an administration managed by Trump, who put accusations of armed justice at the center of his political campaigns and his presidential agenda.
Also on Thursday, a Court of Bucharest pronounced in favor of an appeal by the Tate brothers, raising a kidnapping on some of their assets, according to a spokesman for Mr. Tate, Matee Petrescu. The activities included two properties, a Ferrari, a Mercedes-Benz and four other vehicles, bank accounts and shares of the company, said Mrs. Petrescu.
The brothers were also arrested in Romania in March 2024 with a separate mandate issued by the British authorities who accused them of trafficking in human beings. A pulier court had established that the brothers had to be extradited in Great Britain after the resolution of Romanian cases. On Thursday it is not clear what the result of that extradition sentence would have been.
Four British women also sued Andrew Tate in 2024, claiming to have raped them and abused them. Matthew Jury, a lawyer who represents women, said on Thursday on social media who reports that the Trump administration had put pressure on their “disgusting and dismay” release.
He invited the British government to “take immediate steps” to ensure that the brothers will face the accusations against them in Great Britain. “Any suggestion that the Tates will face justice in Romania is imaginative,” he said.
At the beginning of this month, an American woman who provided evidence to the Romanian authorities sued the brothers for having attracted her to Romania and forcing her to sexual work, the first cause presented in the United States against the Tates. The brothers had sued his first for defamation, claiming that his testimony had been manufactured.
Dani Pinter, senior vice -president of the National Center for sexual exploitation, asked the United States to investigate the Tate brothers for the sexual exploitation of minors abroad and for sex trafficking. “This is a slap in the face of all the victims of the Tate brothers, in particular the victim of the United States who is not protected by his country,” he said in a statement on Thursday.
Jenny Gross AND Remy Tumin Contributed relationships. David C. Adams Reported by Fort Lauderdale, Fla.