Breitbart’s national security editor Sebastian Gorka received a one-time payment of $8,000 from Donald Trump’s presidential campaign last October, Federal Election Commission records show.
According to an FEC filing first reported by Buzzfeed News, the Trump campaign paid Gorka for “policy consulting” on Oct. 1, 2015. As recently as Monday, Gorka was identified as Breitbart’s “national security editor” by the news outlet itself.
Gorka, a well-respected security and intelligence expert who teaches military theory at the Marine Corps University, has not written for Breitbart since Dec. 2 — two months after he received a payment from Trump’s campaign.
He did not respond to the Washington Examiner‘s request for comment.
The newest revelation of the Trump campaign’s relationship with Breitbart News comes on the heels of several ex-employees’ claims that the right-wing media outlet has pressured its staff into favorable coverage of the Republican presidential front-runner.
“The company no longer resembles the ideals that inspired me to start writing for them three years ago,” former Breitbart National Security Correspondent Jordan Schachtel wrote in a statement announcing his resignation from the outlet last month.
“Breitbart News is no longer a journalistic enterprise, but instead, in my opinion, something resembling an unaffiliated media super PAC for the Trump campaign,” he added.
The outlet became embroiled in controversy last month when it offered a lukewarm defense of its now former reporter Michelle Fields after she accused Trump’s campaign manager of forcefully grabbing her arm during a campaign event in Florida.
Neither a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign nor Breitbart’s editor-in-chief returned the Examiner‘s request for comment.
