Ex-official exits running for Trump team over Sebastian Gorka appointment

A frontrunner to be deputy national security adviser in Donald Trump’s administration reportedly withdrew from the running after learning that he would have to work with Sebastian Gorka, the president-elect’s choice as counter-terrorism adviser.

Michael Anton, a conservative speech writer and national security official in Trump’s first presidency, removed his name from contention over Gorka’s appointment against a backdrop of acrimonious past relations between the pair, the Washington Post reported.

His withdrawal graphically signifies the unease provoked by the prospective return to the White House of Gorka, a controversial figure who was forced out of Trump’s first administration, where he worked closely with Steve Bannon, within its first seven months.

His departure is believed to have been engineered by John Kelly, who became White House chief of staff in July 2017 with the task of bringing order to the chaos that characterised Trump’s first months. Kelly, who later resigned, has since turned against Trump, saying he met “the general definition of a fascist” in interviews given shortly before this month’s presidential election.

Gorka, who has worked at the National Defense University, has drawn multiple accusations of Islamophobia.

Being considered anathema by Anton – who was believed to be under consideration to become deputy to the prospective national security advisor, Mike Waltz – is all the more striking given Anton’s own hardline views on Islam, which he has called “a militant faith”. He argued that “only an insane society” would accept Muslim immigrants following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

But his opinions have paled in comparison to those of Gorka, who has depicted the religion as a threat to western civilisation and has peddled fears about America falling under sharia law.

He was a vocal supporter of the Muslim travel ban enacted against citizens of seven majority Muslim countries during Trump’s first administration. When he departed, he wrote a resignation letter lamenting the president’s failure to use the term “radical Islamic terrorism” in a speech on Afghanistan.

The Washington Post cited a source in Trump’s national security transition team as saying there was widespread dismay at the prospect of Gorka’s return, which does not need to be confirmed by Senate hearings.

“Almost universally, the entire team considers Gorka a clown,” the source said. “They are dreading working with him.”

Anton has previously written about the animosity between Gorka and himself. He recounted how Gorka called him a “coward” and scolded him in a Fox News green room.

Gorka, who first came to attention as a firebrand pundit working at the rightwing Breitbart News, declined comment, telling the Post: “I don’t comment to the fake failing news.”

Anton’s reported withdrawal follows scathing comments on Gorka’s qualifications by John Bolton, who was national security in Trump’s first term before being fired.

Speaking to CNN, he called Gorka “a conman” and said the FBI should investigate his credentials.

“I wouldn’t have him in any U.S. government,” Bolton told the network’s Kaitlan Collins. “I don’t think it will bode well for counterterrorism efforts.”

Gorka, a US-British citizen and the son of Hungarian immigrants to the UK, drew criticism when he appeared at Trump’s first inauguration ball wearing an honorary medal from the Hungarian nationalist organisation, Vitézi Rend. The World Jewish Congress has said some members of the outfit were complicit in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews in the Holocaust.

His views on Islam have been distinguished by a rejection of interpretations attributing the root causes of Islamist terrorism to poverty, repression or US foreign policy mistakes.

“This is what I completely jettison,” he told the Washington Post in 2017. “Anybody who downplays the role of religious ideology … they are deleting reality to fit their own world.”

In a video filmed after Hamas’s murderous 7 October attack on Israel last year, he said he had watched unedited footage of the episode and offered advice to Israeli leaders on how to deal with the Palestinian militant group.

“Kill every single one of them,” he said. “God bless Israel. God bless Judeo-Christian civilisation.”