The English far-right activist Tommy Robinson, who was repeatedly denied entry to the United States in the past, and was jailed by British authorities in 2013 for using a passport in someone else’s name to travel to the United States from Britain, spent Thursday in Washington DC, meeting with a series of people close to Donald Trump, according to images and video posted on his social media accounts.

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, organized of the mass, far-right “Unite the Kingdom” rally in London last year.

On Thursday, he posted images of himself meeting Kari Lake, Trump’s administrator of the United States Agency for Global Media, Mike Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, and Patrick Byrne, a multimillionaire election denier. Robinson said he and Byrne discussed “covid, the vaccine, Antifa and the stolen 2020 election.”

In 2010, when members of Robinson’s English Defence League protested in New York against plans for an Islamic cultural centre and mosque near Ground Zero, he was refused entry at JFK airport, taken into custody and flown straight back to the UK.

Sky Roberts, the brother of the late Virginia Giuffre, who claimed she was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein to have sex with the former prince Andrew in 2001 at the age of 17, told CNN that she would feel vindicated by his arrest on Thursday.

Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested and held for hours by British police on suspicion of misconduct in public office over allegations he shared confidential material while he was UK trade envoy with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Mountbatten-Windsor has always denied any wrongdoing or accusations against him.

Roberts went on to say that “it’s a shame” that Donald Trump won’t acknowledge the suffering of the survivors of Epstein’s abuse. “It’s a shame that he continues to deflect. We would expect more from. the president of the United States,” Roberts said.

“I think we have a lot of work to do here in the United States,” he added. “We sat three feet from Pam Bondi,” he added, in reference to her testimony in Congress last week.

“It was disgraceful the fact that she couldn’t even look behind and acknowledge us because if they did that, then they would admit some sort of wrongdoing,” Roberts said.

“Our president can’t do that right now. And the reason is, is because he is potentially implicated in these files and he has to come to terms with that, and he may have to answer some questions himself,” Roberts added. “The reality is the UK is doing far more. I think that the king can hold his head high when he comes here saying: I am doing the most that I can. While here in the United States, our president has yet to even do even remotely the same. And survivors and I believe the people are very disappointed”.

Trump reacts

Donald Trump, who is definitely not mad that his more popular predecessor Barack Obama got a lot of attention for saying last weekend that aliens “are real, but I haven’t seen them”, announced on Thursday that he is directing the Defence Department and other agencies to release whatever files they have on the search for alien life.

In a post on his social media platform, Trump said that he will ask the defense secretary and others “to begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs).”

Obama’s comments came in response to a question from a podcaster who asked, in a lightening round, “Are aliens real?”

“They’re real, but I haven’t seen them,” the former president said. “And they’re not being kept in, what is it? Area 51. There’s no underground facility, unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States.”

“What was the first question you wanted answered when you became president?” the host asked next.

“Uh, where are the aliens?” Obama replied and broke out laughing.

After his comments generated huge interest, Obama shared the video on social media with this caveat: “I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there. “But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”

Trump’s decision to release more government information on UFOs came after he was asked about Obama’s comments, earlier on Thursday, by a Fox News correspondent.

In reply, Trump claimed Obama “gave classified information; he’s not supposed to be doing that.”

When the Fox correspondent pointed put that the president can declassify information, Trump said, “maybe I’ll get him out of trouble; I may get him out of trouble by declassifying.”

FBI Director Kash Patel has jetted off to Italy to watch the men’s ice hockey medal matches, sticking taxpayers with a bill as high as $75,000, according to multiple reports.

FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson disputed the reports, saying that the trip was “planned months ago” and that Patel will meet with Italian law enforcement, security officials and Ambassador Tilman Fertitta.

Patel has repeatedly faced criticism for his use of the FBI’s Gulfstream passenger jet, which he has flown on to see his country musician girlfriend perform, to attend sporting events and to hunt a private ranch in Texas. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee began investigating Patel’s use of the jet December.

Jeffrey Epstein abuse survivor Haley Robson will attend the state of the union address on Tuesday as a guest of California Democrat Ro Khanna.

Khanna and fellow congressman Thomas Massie co-wrote the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which compelled the justice department to release files from the federal investigation into Epstein, the late sex offender Donald Trump socialized with for more than 15 years.

“Haley’s courageous fight is proof that this isn’t about politics, it’s about exposing America’s two-tiered system of justice and bringing accountability to the Epstein class involved in the horrific abuse of young girls,” Khanna said in a statement. “She and her fellow survivors’ bravery was the catalyst for changing a rotten system and finally standing up for humanity and American values.”

Robson, a registered Republican, lobbied for the legislation that led to the release of the Epstein files and criticised the Trump administration for slow-walking the process and over-redacting documents.