Trump defender Sebastian Gorka leaves White House
Sebastian Gorka, an outspoken adviser to President Donald Trump, is no longer working at the White House, a senior administration official said Friday.
The official said the president’s chief of staff, John F. Kelly, had telegraphed his lack of interest in keeping Gorka over the past week in internal discussions.
Gorka, a deputy assistant to the president, had been on vacation for at least the last two weeks, with no clear assigned duties to hand to others, the official said.
Gorka, who had advised the president on national security, demonstrated a penchant for controversy during his run in the White House. He memorably declared that “the alpha males are back” as an assertion of the distance between the Obama administration and the current one.
He has also been a vocal defender of the Trump administration’s efforts to temporarily ban travel from some predominantly Muslim countries; he has said violence is a fundamental part of Islam and emanates from the language of the Quran. His hard-line views on Islam have prompted his critics to accuse him of Islamophobia.
Gorka, 46, has also been accused of having links to far-right groups in Europe.
Gorka is a former editor at Breitbart News, a rightwing website and a friend of Stephen K. Bannon. Bannon, who was until last week Trump’s chief strategist, has since returned to Breitbart News as executive chairman.