A US CONGRESSMAN has launched an investigation into Nigel Farage after he broke Covid-19 guidelines to go to Donald Trump’s poorly attended Tulsa campaign rally.
Homeland Security Committee chair Bennie G Thompson wrote to the department requesting it look into the Brexit Party leader’s trip to the states.
During the pandemic, Brits have been banned from entering the US unless they have family members who are US citizens or are “individuals who meet specific exceptions”.
Farage bragged that he had gone to support the US president at his Oklahoma campaign rally, which Trump’s team boasted that more than one million people had reserved tickets for.
However little over 6000 people actually showed up to the event – at which Trump insisted the US only has a high number of coronavirus cases because they test so many people, calling for testing to be slowed down to reduce the level of infections – and it emerged K-Pop fans and TikTok users had been encouraging each other to reserve tickets with no intention of going.
Farage was granted an 11th hour reprieve to enter the US by border officials on the grounds of it being “in the national interest”.
Democrat congressman Thompson wrote to security chief Chad Wolf calling for “all relevant” documents relating to Farage’s presence in the states to be handed over.
Thompson wrote: “The decision of the Trump administration to admit Mr Farage to the United States to enable him to attend a campaign rally at a time when most travel from the United Kingdom to the US has been suspended raises numerous troubling questions, as does the claim that such travel was in the national interest.”
The Customs and Border Protection agency confirmed the Brexit Party leader had been denied boarding while in the UK, but the decision was overturned following an internal review.
Farage has previously appeared at rallies alongside Trump during his campaigning.
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