Marjorie Taylor Greene has weighed in on the recent arrest of a high-level Israeli official over alleged involvement in child sex crimes, adding to the Trump administration’s headaches as it attempts to navigate the growing scandal.
Tom Artiom Alexandrovich, a man who has been identified as a high-ranking member of Israel’s National Cyber Directorate, was arrested recently in a sting operation in Las Vegas. The sting operation, which was jointly run by the FBI and local police, targeted child sex predators.
New details about Alexandrovich’s arrest have been reported over the past day. CBS affiliate KLAS has reported that Alexandrovich was in Las Vegas for the cybersecurity conference Blackhat, and that, during that time, he is alleged to have chatted online with a “decoy”—an undercover cop posing as a 15-year-old girl—according to documents viewed by the news outlet. Using the dating app Pure, the two discussed meeting up for “sexual contact,” the outlet says. Police told KLAS: “The sexual contact included bringing a condom and taking the decoy to [a] ‘Cirque du Soleil’” show.
According to the report, Alexandrovich told police that he “believed the girl he was chatting with was 18.”
Identification of a high-level Israeli official ensnared in the operation has been bad enough, but things grew more complicated when Alexandrovich reportedly managed to get on a plane and fly back to Israel.
On Tuesday, Greene blasted the U.S. State Department and seemed to insinuate that the government had not done enough to ensure that Alexandrovich was prosecuted. “Would it be antisemitic to drag Netanyahu’s Cyber Executive Director back and prosecute this pos to the full extent of the law and at the same time let Palestinian kids who had their limbs and bodies blown apart receive surgeries in America,” Green asked.
Greene has been critical of the Israeli government, as well as critical of the U.S.’s support for Israel.
Green went on:
The most concerning question is when and how did America become so subservient to Israel that we immediately release a CHILD SEX PREDATOR after arrest, with a 100% locked up case with evidence, and let him off to fly back home to Israel?? Would we do that with a Mexican child sex predator? Chinese child sex predator? Any other country’s child sex predator?
There have been unsubstantiated internet rumors that the Trump administration intervened on behalf of Alexandrovich to allow him safe passage back to Israel. The government has denied these allegations. “The Department of State is aware that Tom Artiom Alexandrovich, an Israeli citizen, was arrested in Las Vegas and given a court date for charges related to soliciting sex electronically from a minor,” the agency’s Near East Division recently stated. “He did not claim diplomatic immunity and was released by a state judge pending a court date. Any claims that the U.S. government intervened are false.”
Greene’s stances on Israel are representative of a broader fissure in the MAGA base that the Trump administration doesn’t seem to know how to mend. MAGA has been pissed about a lot of things lately: the Jeffrey Epstein files (which, some people believe, are also Israel-related), the economy, and, now, the administration’s undying support for the Netanyahu government as it destroys the Gazan population. It’s unclear what will abate the anger. One thing is for sure, the administration’s ongoing attempts to throw focus on some old scandal or a manufactured moral panic don’t seem to be bearing much fruit.
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