Ghosts That We Knew: The Curious Case of Trump Nominee Sebastian Gorka

Counterterrorism "expert" Sebastian Gorka rejoins Trump's Halloween Parade.

Sebastian Gorka: “pythonesque Alice in Wonderland”

(The following is an updated report on one I wrote on Gorka during Trump’s first administration.)

Back in my wayward youth, fresh out of college, on a drunken bet with a pal, I signed up for a year-long course in the Hungarian language. The wager centered on which of us would quit first, utterly defeated by the complexities of this difficult Finno-Ugric language. Well, we both took to it and stuck it out, even excelled. The wager was a draw. Study of the language opened a window for me into Hungary’s rich history, culture, politics and cuisine, which stay with me to this day.

Hungarian-British-American Sebastian Gorka is one of the latest figures to join Donald Trump’s Halloween Parade of nominees to high government positions. A “special deputy assistant to the president” for counterterrorism in the first Trump administration, Gorka was fired after seven months by then National Security Advisor Gen. H.R. McMaster. He is returning to the same position after spending the last five years expounding on his militant views of current events over right-wing rant radio and TV.

Gorka is a controversial figure in a forming administration piled to the rafters with them. He is often described as a “fringe figure” because of his sharply anti-Islam views, his dubious Ph.D., questionable credentials and his association with far-right groups both here and in Europe. He was Breibart’s “national security correspondent” prior to being tapped by Steve Bannon in Trump 1.0.

Gorka came under fire for his association with the Hungarian chivalric organization, Vitezi Rend, or, Order of the Valiant. Critics assert the order is Nazi-affiliated and antisemitic and therefore so is Mr. Gorka. Fifty-five members of Congress signed a letter to President Trump in 2017 calling for Gorka’s immediate dismissal. Some among the White House’s viperous staff leaked to the media that Gorka would soon be shunted off to one of the agencies, or even let go altogether. President Trump reportedly had personally intervened to quell the rumors and assure Gorka that his job was secure, a promise he didn’t keep.

Amid all of the misinformation that has been circulating, it is important to step back and take a closer look before dispatching Mr. Gorka to the political gallows for allegedly being a racist.

Gorka’s parents fled Hungary in 1956, ultimately settling in the UK, where he was born and raised. He arrived in the U.S. in 2008 and naturalized as an American citizen in 2012. He retains his mellifluous English accent. Quite a journey, from citizen to presidential advisor in a mere five years. The American Dream come true.

Vitezi Rend was founded in 1920 by Hungary’s future controversial World War II leader Miklos Horthy. It was established as a means of honoring military veterans. Disbanded by Hungary’s post-war communist government, the order had gotten caught up in that nation’s turbulent mid-century history. Of a Christian/conservative bent, Vitezi’s members were largely, but not exclusively, of the aristocratic caste, many of whom held antisemitic attitudes. Some served Nazi interests during the war, including assisting in the rounding up of hundreds of thousands of Jews for extermination in Hitler’s death camps. Others, however, took up arms against the Nazi occupiers, sacrificing their lives in doing so. The order never had antisemitism has part of its mission; in fact, a number of prominent Jewish citizens supported it. But because of the role of many of its members in the Holocaust, the U.S. State Department placed Vitezi Rend on its list of “Organizations Under the Direction of the Nazi Government of Germany” for visa adjudication purposes.

It is important to make two key points here: 1) the State Department also placed broad brush on its list the entire police forces of France, the Baltic states, Norway, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania; and 2) U.S. immigration law renders ineligible for a visa those in these organizations who participated in persecution “during the period from March 23, 1933, to May 8, 1945” under the direction of Nazi Germany. What the press is missing is that Vitezi Rend, as with the present day police forces of the aforementioned countries, is not a proscribed organization. Incidentally, Vitezi Rend has not been formally reconstituted, though there are several splinter groups by that name.

Gorka has often inserted the Vitezi honorific “v.” in his name, and likes to sport a Vitezi medal, claiming he does so in order to honor his late father, a Hungarian patriot, though it is unclear whether he was a Vitezi member. In face of the attacks, Gorka has insisted he himself is not a member.

Nothing has surfaced indicting Gorka as an antisemite and he strenuously denies he is. I therefore give him a pass on this particular charge.

I’ll even give him a pass on his qualifications to be a presidential advisor. If I had a forint for every nincompoop past presidents have appointed to senior White House positions, I’d be living it up at the Budapest Four Seasons Hotel and guzzling Egri Bikaver at the elegant Halaszbastya with my old drunken bets pal. That Trump’s second administration, as did his first, resembles a Three Stooges set more than the seat of executive power is the prerogative of our so-called commander-in-chief-to-be.

A White House source told the Washington Post before Gorka was fired in 2017 that his role was unclear and that he never actually had national security issues in his portfolio. “This guy has always been a big mystery to me,” the source said. Gorka’s only known duties were being a talking head on TV about counterterrorism, “giving White House tours and peeling out in his Mustang.”

A notable comment by Sebastian Gorka in a panel discussion:

“We find ourselves in a pythonesque Alice in Wonderland where we’re doing something but we’re not doing it, where we’re half pregnant.”

I see (actually, no).

Trump’s penultimate National Security Advisor John Bolton told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins yesterday that he regarded Gorka to be a “conman” who warranted a “full-field FBI background investigation” into his dubious claims of his achievements. “He [Trump] doesn’t want Gorka’s opinions, he wants Gorka to say ‘yes, sir’, and I’m fully confident that’s exactly what will happen no matter what it is Trump says,” Bolton added.

So, here’s my beef with Sebastian Gorka. He brings the ghosts of the Old World to the New World. His and Bannon’s brand of ethno-nationalism is downright un-American, pythonesque or otherwise. The Founding Fathers would be upchucking their syllabub hearing these guys blathering on about how “Fear is a good thing. Fear is going to lead you to take action” and the West is “fighting a ‘global existential war’ with Islam” and “I want to bring everything crashing down and destroy all of today’s establishment.”

Born a Brit, having for years dabbled in Hungarian politics and government, recently landing on these shores to try his hand at American politics, Sebastian Gorka strikes me as an opportunist, changing nationalities as often as he does his European medals and uniforms. His hoary worldview is Old World, tribally dark rather than New World idealistic. This is why many of our ancestors left those shores for these. Or, as Edith Wharton observed, “It seems stupid to have discovered America only to make it into a copy of another country.”

The opinions and characterizations in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent official positions of the U.S. government.