Trump plans to appoint controversial former aide Sebastian Gorka to national security education position

President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced his intent to appoint controversial former aide Sebastian Gorka to a board that oversees the federal government’s national security education program.

Gorka will serve a four-year term on the National Security Education Board, the White House said on Tuesday afternoon.

A White House aide for less than a year, Gorka left his role as deputy assistant to the president in acrimonious fashion in August 2017. The White House pushed back against Gorka’s claims that he resigned, and MSNBC reported at the time that Gorka was barred from the White House grounds before his resignation letter surfaced.

In the Trump administration, Gorka worked with Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner in an internal foreign policy think tank known as the Strategic Initiatives Group.

Gorka, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in the United Kingdom to Hungarian parents, is a former Breitbart contributor and currently hosts a conservative radio show. He is a national security analyst who has specialized in studying Islamic extremism and has drawn criticism for his statements that Islam is an inherently violent religion.

According to the board’s website, presidential appointments to the National Security Education Board include experts from nonprofits and academic institutions. The board oversees the National Security Education Program, which was created in 1991 to promote a pool of U.S. citizens fluent in foreign languages and skilled in international affairs.

The news drew swift condemnation from Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) on Twitter.

“A white nationalist like Gorka would have no place in any decent presidential administration,” Beyer wrote on Twitter. “For Trump racism and fascism are a feature, not a bug.”

[Politico]