Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore have drawn the scrutiny of investigators looking into possible Russian interference in the 2016 referendum vote

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Two controversial backers of the Brexit movement were guests last year at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club.

Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore, known as the “bad boys of Brexit”, visited the Palm Beach club in April, according to a review by the Palm Beach Post of Instagram posts tagged at the spot.

Brexit: Macron says UK heading for no deal if MPs defy May, as PM arrives in Brussels - Politics live Read more

The two men flashed a thumbs up in several photos from inside Mar-a-Lago posted to Wigmore’s Instagram account on 11 April, where he wrote that they were scouting venues for a Royal Commonwealth Society event.

The two men are prominent Brexit supporters who have drawn the scrutiny of investigators in Britain looking into possible Russian interference in the 2016 referendum vote.

Banks, a millionaire British businessman, helped bankroll the campaign to quit the EU. He had multiple meetings with Russian embassy officials in the run-up to the vote, documents have shown. He also cultivated ties with Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon.

Congressional investigators in the US are investigating whether the Brexit leaders served as a conduit between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign.

One Instagram photo unearthed by the Palm Beach Post shows Banks and Wigmore with John Bartley Boykin, the international and federal affairs advisor to Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant. Two months earlier, a data firm owned by the two Brits signed a two year lease with the University of Mississippi Research Foundation.

Nigel Farage, the British politician who spearheaded the campaign to leave the EU, appeared at a Mississippi campaign rally with Trump during the 2016 presidential race. In his book, Banks wrote that the appearance came together after Boykin met Farage at a hotel bar during the Republican National Convention and invited him to visit Mississippi.

The Florida club where Trump frequently spends weekends charges top dollar for memberships, but people can also get in as the guest of a member or by buying a ticket to an individual event.

Access to the club – which sometimes comes with access to the president – has drawn more scrutiny since it was revealed by the Miami Herald that Cindy Yang, the former owner of a spa accused of prostitution, posed with Trump at a Super Bowl party there.

Robert Kraft, the owner of the Super Bowl-winning New England Patriots, was charged with soliciting prostitution at the spa.

Mother Jones then reported that Yang was selling access to Trump and his family and aides at Mar-a-Lago to Chinese business executives. Congressional Democrats have called for a counterintelligence investigation into Yang’s activities.