President-elect Donald Trump has nominated controversial radio commentator Sebastian Gorka to a spot in his second administration, around six years after Gorka was forced out of Trump’s first administration over his far-right views.
Gorka will serve as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism, Trump said in a Friday statement.
Trump touted him as “a legal immigrant to the United States, with more than 30 years of National Security experience.”
Gorka was born in London to Hungarian parents, and spent years in Hungary working at the country’s defense ministry before moving to the United States, where he has instructed U.S. Marines on counterterrorism topics.
He gained notoriety in the first Trump administration for comments describing Islam as not a religion but a violent ideology, and for dismissing the threat of white nationalism in the United States, arguing instead that Islamist extremists were the country’s biggest threat.
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Gorka’s alleged ties to the Nazi-aligned Hungarian political group Vitézi Rend, whose insignia he wore at Trump’s first inaugural ball, also raised alarm bells in the first Trump White House.
The original Vitézi Rend collaborated with Nazis during World War II, and reformed after the fall of Hungary’s communist government in 1989. The Forward, a Jewish publication, reported in March 2017 that Gorka was a sworn member of the hate group.
Gorka has said that the medals he wore belonged to his father, who was supposedly given them as “a declaration for his resistance to [Communist] dictatorship,” as Gorka told Breitbart.
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In response to the Forward allegation, Rep. Jerry Nadler wrote to Trump asking him to determine whether Gorka was indeed a member of Vitézi Rend, and whether he had omitted any such link in his paperwork to become a naturalized American citizen. Gorka left the White House five months later.
Then-White House Chief of Staff John Kelly — who has since warned that Trump would rule like a dictator if given a second term — reportedly revoked Gorka’s security clearance, making it impossible for Gorka to do his job.
Gorka’s wife, Katharine Gorka, continued on in her post in the first Trump White House past her husband’s tenure, reportedly helping to end funding for a group that fights white supremacy in the lead-up to the deadly 2017 Charlottesville rally.
Former Trump-era national security adviser John Bolton slammed Gorka as a “con man” during an appearance on CNN Friday night.