Sebastian Gorka, the West Wing's Phony Foreign-Policy Guru

[riversedge]

Sebastian Gorka, the West Wing's Phony Foreign-Policy Guru

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/sebastian-gorka-the-west-wings-phony-foreign-policy-guru-w496912

Gorka's a former Breitbart editor with Islamophobic views and ties to neo-Nazi extremists – and he has the ear of the president

By Bob Dreyfuss
6 hours ago



The Breitbart News headline, back in November 2014, rang like a five-alarm fire bell: MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD OVERRUNS NATIONAL CATHEDRAL IN DC. Its author, Breitbart's national-security editor, was Dr. Sebastian L. v. Gorka, who currently occupies a top White House post as "deputy assistant" to President Donald Trump. And like just about anything Gorka has said or written, the Breitbart headline was wrong in every way. It wasn't the Muslim Brotherhood at all, and no one overran anything. Despite his characteristic hyperventilation, the event in question was a dignified, interfaith prayer service organized jointly by the leaders of Washington National Cathedral and five mainstream Muslim organizations seeking to unite "voices of moderation."



But critics charge that Gorka's hyperbole and his hands-off relationship with the truth have lately sent his stock skyrocketing with the president. Renowned for his disdain for the media and his blithe readiness to defend Trump to the last tweet, Gorka – who apparently tools around Washington in a Mustang with a license plate that reads ART [OF] WAR – has become a nearly ubiquitous presence on television and radio as a spokesman for the White House. "Did you see Gorka?" Trump reportedly said after Gorka took part in figurative fisticuffs on CNN. "So great. I mean, really, truly great!"

Gorka views himself as a "utility infielder, especially in the field of counterterrorism," and claims to provide behind-the-scenes advice to Trump on how to fight terrorism, while serving under the wing of Steve Bannon, his former boss at Breitbart. "It's surreal and quite horrifying that someone who's such an amateur has reached such heights," says David Ucko, associate professor in the Department of War and Conflict Studies at National Defense University. Adds Michael S. Smith II, a veteran terrorism analyst who's had unpleasant run-ins with Gorka, "This is not somebody who should be working anywhere near the White House." Even more bluntly, a colleague of Smith's, Cindy Storer, an ex-CIA terrorism analyst, said, "He's nuts."

It's not easy to find out exactly what Gorka does in the White House for his $155,000 salary. In terms of policy, according to The New York Times, Trump's recent pro-Saudi Arabia tilt was "driven by two advisers, Stephen K. Bannon and Sebastian Gorka." But a former top White House official tells Rolling Stone, "His only job appears to be to go on talk radio or Fox News to defend the indefensible." That he does constantly, spinning the administration's confused, roller-coaster ride of a foreign policy; slamming "the fake-news industrial complex," on CNN; supporting a Supreme Court decision as "a slap in the face" to critics of Trump's Muslim travel ban, on talk radio; and, on MSNBC, explaining Donald Trump Jr.'s secret meeting with a team of Russians peddling dirt as "a massive nothingburger."

Early this year, his wife and partner, Katharine Cornell Gorka, took up a post at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, where she is now an adviser to the department's policy office. Almost as soon as they entered the Trump administration, the Gorkas absorbed withering incoming fire from national-security experts and in a series of exposés in LobeLog.com and The Forward, a progressive Jewish periodical. By late April, White House sources told The New York Times and The Washington Post that Gorka was on the way out. Yet so far – likely thanks to support from Bannon – both Gorkas have defiantly stayed in place. According to one insider, Gorka's dubious qualifications may have saved him. "The White House tried to find him a job at another agency," says the source. But no luck: "Nobody wanted him." ........................






Gorka's a former Breitbart editor with Islamophobic views and ties to neo-Nazi extremists – and he has the ear of the president
Sebastian Gorka "is not somebody who should be working anywhere near the White House,” says terrorism analyst Michael S. Smith II. Lucy Young/eyevine/Redux

[hlthe2b]

1. His voice/mannerisms come straight out of an old B Hungarian horror movie.

He makes m skin crawl.

[Gothmog]

2. This pissed me off

Link to tweet

[aquamarina]

3. He seems to have a thing with

that whole red/black/white color scheme too.

[procon]

4. How cute! Is he mimicking Trump scowling impression of a 'bad hombre'? nt