Sebastian Gorka, a deputy assistant to President Trump, was fired by the FBI months before he joined the White House for making anti-Muslim comments, according to a report Wednesday night.
The Daily Beast reported Gorka worked on a contract with the FBI to deliver lectures to bureau employees on counterterrorism issues.
While employed by the FBI, Gorka was a paid consultant to Trump’s 2016 campaign.
The Daily Beast says that law enforcement officials attending a Gorka-led August 2016 lecture were “disturbed” to hear Gorka say that all Muslims adhere to sharia law.
At the lecture, an introductory-level class for participants in the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces, officials told the Daily Beast that Gorka said there is no such thing as mainstream Muslims, only radicalized or soon-to-be radicalized Muslims.
The following month, a senior FBI official told colleagues Gorka would no longer work for the bureau, according to documents reviewed by The Daily Beast.
Gorka’s status in the West Wing has been the subject of speculation amid reports that the administration had weighed options to place the Breitbart editor in another role outside the White House.
The Daily Beast and others reported Trump and Steve Bannon — the White House chief strategist who worked with Gorka at Breitbart — intervened to save Gorka’s job.
Democrats and liberal activists have called for Gorka’s resignation over alleged ties to a Hungarian political party connected to Nazism. Gorka has strongly denied the accusations, and he did not provide the Daily Beast comment for its report.
