Sweden’s never heard of its ‘national security adviser’

WASHINGTON: A man described as a Swedish defence and national security adviser appeared on Fox News last week to defend US President Donald Trump’s claim that criminal immigrants are wreaking havoc in Sweden. But according to court records and Swedish officials, the man, identified as Nils Bildt, has a criminal record in the US and no ties to Sweden’s security establishment.

In fact, he may not even be named Nils Bildt.

“We don’t know this guy,” said Mikael Abramsson, a spokesman for the Swedish military. “We have never heard of him in the Swedish armed forces, and he cannot speak on our behalf.”

That sentiment was echoed by Rasmus Eljanskog, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who said no one by the name of Nils Bildt worked there. Magnus Ranstorp, the head of terrorism research at the Swedish Defence University in Stockholm, went one step further. “There isn’t any Nils Bildt,” he said.

According to public records, Mr Bildt was born Nils Tolling, the son of the chairman of the Swedish Equestrian Federation, and went by that name as recently as May, when he registered a business, Modus World West, in Montana.

But the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet reported on Sunday Mr Tolling was going by Nils Bildt as early as 2013, when he tried to use that surname — which is also the surname of former Prime Minister Carl Bildt — to start a career as a far-right politician.

Carl Bildt told The Washington Post that he was not related to Nils Bildt and accused him of “trying to use the name to gain favours”. Attempts to reach Nils Bildt by email and phone on Sunday were unsuccessful. It is not clear when or why he changed his name.

Mr Ranstorp said it was impossible for Mr Bildt to be a defence and national security adviser in Sweden. “There is no such position in the Swedish hierarchy,” he said. “And he’s not even on the radar in Swedish security circles. And everyone knows everyone.”

Mr Bildt’s time in the spotlight began on Thursday, when he appeared on The O’Reilly Factor to argue that immigrants were the cause of a violent crime wave in Sweden. Mr O’Reilly said that claim was based on “hard news facts”.

“There is a problem with socially deviant activity, there is a problem with crime, there is a problem with areas or hot spots of crime,” Mr Bildt said. He added, “These things are not being openly and honestly discussed,” because Swedish politics is too “liberal”.

That argument has been heard on Fox News before, perhaps most famously during a segment on Feb 17 that inspired Mr Trump to add a line to his speech at a rally the next day that falsely suggested that there had been a terrorist attack in Sweden the night before.

The president’s remark caused an unusual international incident between the US and a mild-mannered ally. (Carl Bildt mocked Mr Trump on Twitter the next day, asking: “What has he been smoking?”)

Since then, the president has insisted that any report suggesting that immigrants were not causing problems in Sweden was “fake news”.

Nils Bildt may not be a Swedish defence and national security adviser, but crime is a topic he may know a thing or two about.

Prosecutors in Virginia charged him in 2014 with public drunkenness and obstruction of justice, both misdemeanours, as well as one felony count of assaulting a police officer, according to court records. He was convicted of misdemeanour assault in November 2014 and sentenced to 12 months in prison, although his sentence was partly suspended. It is not clear how much time he spent in prison, if at all, or where he was held.

David Tabacoff, the executive producer of The O’Reilly Factor, defended the decision to invite Mr Bildt on the show.

“Our booker made numerous inquiries and spoke to people who recommended Nils Bildt,” he said in a statement, “and after pre-interviewing him and reviewing his bio, we agreed that he would make a good guest for the topic that evening.”

Another Swedish newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, reported Mr Bildt told the paper he was “unaware” of the charges. He also said the title “Swedish defence and national security adviser” was made up by a Fox News editor. “I had no personal control over what title they chose,” he wrote. “I am an independent analyst based in the USA.”

Before his turn as a self-styled expert on Swedish immigration, Mr Bildt pursued a graduate degree in war studies at King’s College London before dropping out in the first year, according to Robert Egnell, a classmate who now teaches at the Swedish Defence University.

“I think he started or worked for all kinds of smaller thinktanks/security companies,” Mr Egnell wrote in an email. “We quickly lost contact.”

Public records indicate Mr Bildt registered three companies in Connecticut in 2010. Two of them appeared to be in the field of political intelligence and one was a gun and sporting goods store that was quickly sued by its former owner.

Mr Bildt was ordered to pay him more than $1.4 million in 2016. That May, as Nils Tolling, he started a company in Montana that also appeared to work in political intelligence.

It is not clear how many of those companies remain active, however. On Saturday the URL for one of his companies in Connecticut, Corporate and Transportation Security Solutions, had been redirected to an English-language article in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter that described him as a “fake Sweden expert.”