Sebastian Gorka, former Breitbart writer and that guy who wears a genuine Nazi pin in the White House, claims to have resigned his position as deputy assistant to Donald Trump, though White House officials have Indicated otherwise.
Gorka is the latest White House official to leave his post, after Bannon was ousted earlier this month by Trump's chief of staff Gen. John Kelly. The resignation was first reported by The Federalist.
Gorka, a faux terrorism expert whose educational background turned out to be little more than pure fiction, was integral to tearing down programs meant to fight white supremacists. He supported anti-Semitic militia, was protected by Trump when he failed to pass a basic security clearance, and leveled false charges against against Susan Rice.
He was known for “teaching” about Islamic terrorism in a way that ignored regional and religious factions, painting all Muslims as the same and providing information that even casual students found to be uninformed and bigoted. That uninformed policy earned disdain from those with actual field experience — something that Gorka completely lacks.
In conversations with Business Insider, several national-security experts questioned Gorka's credibility in their field, saying he is often dismissed as an outspoken conservative pundit who lacks the chops to serve in the highest levels of the White House advising on national-security policy.
Naturally, Gorka’s fact-free opinions were at the base of Trump’s ideas for how to deal with terrorists, including the Muslim ban.
Gorka and his wife Katharine, who works at the Department of Homeland Security and previously served on the Trump transition team, were said to be major drivers of Trump’s foreign policy strategy focusing on Islamic terror. “Our pillow talk is the Islamic State and Al Qaeda,” he once said in a speech. Under Trump, DHS’s task force to counter violent extremism shifted to refocus specifically on Islamic terror groups while putting fewer resources towards combating far-right domestic terrorism, with the assistance of Katharine Gorka.
Whether Gorka actually resigned on his own, or was under pressure from John Kelly isn’t clear. With Steve Bannon’s recent departure and return to Breitbart, Gorka might be returning to his old post at the white nationalist site’s “expert” on Islam.
As with Donald Trump’s pardon of ex-sherriff Joe Arpaio, this information was likely released late on Friday with the hope that it would be lost in the news over Hurricane Harvey.