Sebastian Gorka, So-called Terrorism Expert

Sebastian Gorka is a deputy assistant to the President, serving as an adviser on national security. Still unknown to many Americans, Gorka gained some notoriety recently when he was found to have worn a medal associated with Miklos Horthy to an inaugural ball. Horthy led the Hungarian government from 1920 to 1944. The World Holocaust Remembrance Center, Yad Vashem, describes his government as anti-semitic, noting that it was the first government in post-World War I Europe to institute a quota on the number of Jews who could enter university. Although Horthy later resisted Hitler's more extreme measures, such as construction of ghettos, and concentration camps, he is revered by the far right Jobbik party in Hungary. The Jobbik party, which sponsored a statue of Horthy unveiled in 2013, has "stoked anti-semitism" in Hungary, "vilifying Jews and Israel in speeches in parliament," according to Reuters.

Gorka, whose specialty these days seems to be media appearances and his own celebrity, does not have the Top Secret or Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) security clearance that would normally be expected of someone leading a government unit responsible for counterterrorism intelligence. Colin Kahl, who was a national security adviser in the Obama administration, wrote recently in Foreign Policy that he was unable to confirm that Gorka had a security clearance at all.

This, according to Kahl, calls into question Gorka's "shtick," for handling media interviews. Gorka's pet peeve is "unnamed sources," whose claims he dismisses on the grounds that  "I can tell you because I’m inside the building when those decisions are being taken." Gorka criticized federal judge James Robart, who blocked Trump's travel ban, saying Robart "doesn’t have the daily presidential intelligence brief. He has no idea what the threats to America are." Of course, as Kahl noted, if Gorka lacks security clearance he might be in the building, but likely not in the room where the decisions he refers to are being made, nor would he have access to the classified information in the daily intelligence brief.

Gorka's principal achievement seems to be that he worked for Trump adviser Steve Bannon as an editor for right-wing media outlet Breitbart from 2014 to 2016.

Gorka's bio at the Institute of World Politics where he held part-time and full-time positions, describes him as having been "born in the UK to parents who escaped Communism during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956." He worked in the Hungarian Ministry of Defence during in the administration of Jozsef Antall, Hungary's first Prime Minister after the fall of Communism, and later as an adviser to Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

In 2006 Gorka tried unsuccessfully to start a new right-wing political party in Hungary called the New Democratic Coalition. Hungary Today reported in January 2017 that Gorka claimed to have no political or consulting relationships in Hungary.

Gorka holds a doctorate in political science from Corvinus University in Hungary, although, as reported by Politico, several passages of Gorka's "2007 dissertation, on the rise of radical Islam, appeared almost verbatim two years earlier in an article for the conservative journal Human Events," written by his wife.

Gorka, who religiously prepends "Dr." to his name when introducing himself, claims to be an "internationally recognized authority" on terrorism and national security. Many actual experts in the field of counterterrorism have never heard of him, however.

"When I first encountered his name during the transition, I did a triple-take," Daniel Benjamin, counterterrosim coordinator for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Politico. "I've been in counterterrorism since 1998, and I thought I knew everyone. But I'd never heard his name and couldn't recall anything he'd written or said."

Retired Col. Peter Mansoor, contributed to the recent rewrite of the Army’s counterinsurgency manual, and was a top aide to Gen. David Petraeus initially told Politico he had never met Gorka. When reminded that he had participated with Gorka on a panel discussion Mansoor said "he had forgotten about the event but ... remains critical of Gorka's recent views."

Gorka claims to have worked for four years for retired Marine Corps Col. Andrew Nichols Pratt, founder of the Program on Terrorism and Security Studies at the George C. Marshall Center in Germany. Retired Marine colonel James Howcroft, who currently heads the program told Politico that Gorka was an occasional lecturer and seminar leader.

Appearing at a Defence Intelligence Agency conference in May 2016 with Georgia State University professor Mia Bloom and Foreign Policy Research Institute fellow Clint Watts, Gorka claimed to have been invited under false pretenses and refused to answer questions that had been provided in advance. "He made it sound like he had no idea that they were going to ask us these questions," Bloom told Business Insider. Gorka used the occasion to hawk his book, Bloom and Watts said, carrying it around with him and trying to sell it to the crowd. Watts, a former army officer and FBI counterterrorism agent now at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), characterized Gorka as "the Simon Cowell of counterterrorism."

Michael S. Smith II, who has prepared counterterrorism reports for Congress, and last year was listed among Foreign Policy Magazine's "100 Leading Global Thinkers," told Business Insider that Gorka's "work is of little interest." "... [H]e has never — not that I can think of — contributed anything to the body of knowledge which informs understandings of threats posed by the Salafi-jihadist groups of interest to him," Smith said.

In late February Gorka called Smith at home and threatened legal action in apparent response to Smith's criticisms of Gorka on Twitter. Newseek obtained a recording of the call. Smith told Newsweek he suspected Gorka was "trying to conceal the call," by using his personal cell phone rather than calling from the White House or using a government-issued phone.  “Gorka asserted my tweets about him merited examination by the White House legal counsel," Smith said. "In effect, he was threatening to entangle me in a legal battle for voicing my concerns on Twitter that he does not possess expertise sufficient to assist the president of the United States with formulating and guiding national security policies."

In February 2016 Gorka tried to take a gun through a TSA checkpoint at Reagan National Airport. The gun was confiscated and Gorka charged with violating state law by carrying a gun in an airport, a misdemeanor. Writing about the incident, The Washington Post's Frederick Kunkle wondered "... how someone who is supposed to be thinking about national security could forget he had a firearm in his bag." The Wall Street Journal noted that the firearms violation would not prevent Gorka from obtaining a security clearance unless he failed to disclose it. Gorka, who also has at least two misdemeanor charges for reckless driving on his record, faced up to 12 months in jail and a $2,500 fine for the gun offense. A Viriginia judge dismissed the charge earlier this year.