Trump’s Counterterrorism Deputy Is an Avowed Neo-Nazi

By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News

21 March 17

ne of the great things about writing a column or an op-ed is the ability to simply speak freely. Friends have told me over the years that I have never seen a bridge that I didn’t want to burn. That can sometimes be true. It’s fun – and maybe even therapeutic – to vent in writing for all the world to see. But every once in awhile, a story will hit the press that doesn’t seem to get the attention it deserves. It’s up to us to spread the word. It’s important.

Sebastian Gorka is one of those cases. He is President Donald Trump’s deputy assistant for counterterrorism, the National Security Council’s “Terrorism Czar.” He is also, apparently, a sworn member of Hungary’s neo-Nazi Vitezi Rend, or “Order of Heroes,” a group that the State Department says was “under the direction of the Nazi Government of Germany during World War II” and which continues to be neo-Nazi in its orientation. Gorka only became an American citizen in 2012, and membership should have disqualified him not only from citizenship, but even from entering the United States in the first place.

A Jewish newspaper, The Forward, initially broke the news of Gorka’s membership in Vitezi Rend. It said that the group’s own leaders confirm that Gorka took a “lifelong oath of loyalty.” Gorka has ignored multiple email requests for comment. Bruce Einhorn, a retired immigration judge and current professor of nationality law at Pepperdine University, told The Forward that Gorka’s “silence speaks volumes.” Einhorn continued that Gorka’s “failure to disclose a material fact,” his membership in a racist organization that promotes violence, could undermine the validity of both his immigration status and his claim to U.S. citizenship. No statute of limitations exists for such a violation.

To make matters even more revolting, according to The Forward, men who have sworn allegiance to the Vitezi Rend are permitted to take a lowercase “v” as a middle initial and as a secret symbol of brotherhood. Gorka used the “v,” signing his name in both his 2008 doctoral thesis and in his testimony before Congress in 2011, as “Sebastian L. v. Gorka.”

Americans have put up with a lot of nonsense during Donald Trump’s first 60 days in the White House. His first National Security Advisor, Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, lasted only 30 days because of his previously undisclosed conversations with Russian diplomats. Trump seemingly can’t stop himself from tweeting treasonous allegations against former President Barack Obama. And even Republican members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees have said publicly that much of what the president says is simply untrue.

But let’s not lose sight of the more immediate issue here. Gorka is a monster. He has to be stopped. In the not-too-distant past, when Bill Clinton’s first two choices for Attorney General disclosed that they had inadvertently hired illegal aliens to work in their homes, the press went crazy, the public demanded a head, and the nominees withdrew from the process.

Have we become so desensitized to scandal that we’re now willing to have an avowed neo-Nazi in charge of American counterterrorist operations? Are we so politicized in this country that one side cries foul when the other side points out that the likes of Gorka shouldn’t have a seat in the White House Situation Room? What has become of our country? We can’t blame everything on 9/11.

Trump could do the right thing here by firing Gorka posthaste and calling for an investigation. He won’t. It’s up to the rest of us. We have to put our foot down on this. A Nazi is, by definition, the enemy of the United States and the enemy of the American way of life. We can’t let this stand. Gorka has to go.

John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act - a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's torture program.

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