John Bolton rips into Trump's pick for counter-terrorism chief Sebastian Gorka

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: The Guardian

Sat 23 Nov 2024 15.44 EST
Last modified on Sat 23 Nov 2024 19.50 EST


Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton has laid into Sebastian Gorka, the president-elect’s pick for counter-terrorism chief, as a “conman” whose selection is not “going to bode well for counter-terrorism efforts when the [national security council’s] senior director is somebody like that”. Trump praised Gorka, an immigrant from Hungary, as a “tireless advocate for the America First Agenda and the MAGA Movement”.

But Bolton came out swinging at Gorka on Friday. The arch-conservative, who served in the Reagan, George W Bush and first Trump administrations, has set out his stall against many of Trump’s picks, including former Democrat and Iraq veteran Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, and told CNN that he “wouldn’t have him in any US government”.

Earlier this week, Bolton told NewsNation’s The Hill that up until Gorka was nominated by Trump as a deputy assistant to the president and the senior director for counter-terrorism, he would have said that Gabbard’s nomination “was the worst cabinet appointment in recent American history”. Bolton’s not alone in his criticism. Democratic National Committee spokesperson Alex Floyd called Gorka “a far-right extremist who is as dangerous as he is unqualified to lead America’s counter-terrorism strategy”.

Gorka is outspokenly pro-Israel and supportive of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and has faced allegations of Islamophobia for supporting Trump’s 2017 Muslim travel ban that barred travel to the US for 90 days for visitors from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/23/john-bolton-sebastian-gorka-counter-terrorism-chief

[sop]

1. "The worst cabinet appointment in recent American history"?

It's early yet, wait till Trump nominates Rudy Giuliani.

[Lovie777]

2. The so called Christian's will do the...

worse. They only want one religion in the USA.

[Wonder Why]

3. Bolton is worthless garbage. I hope he's first on trump's revenge list.

[ancianita]

4. Y'all are criticizing the wrong guy. It's GORKA everyone should be worried about.

If you hate Bolton that much, does it mean you approve of whoever he warns about? COME ON. THINK.

GORKA is a national security threat, just like trump himself. But he's exponentially more a national threat than the rest of the cabinet because he's had so much more exposure to counterintelligence that even trump, Bondi or whoever's the head of the Dept of Defense.

Gorka's mostly done adjunct university work, but this country let him in, where he went on to teach topics related to counterintelligence. He's been fascist leaning all along, and has worked for Steve Bannon.

Various national security scholars in academic and policymaking circles have characterized Gorka as fringe. Some critics have challenged his academic cedentials, his views on Islam and radicalization, and his motives for identifying with the Order of Vitéz and supporting Magyar Gárda, a paramilitary organization banned by the European Union...

In 1998, Gorka served as an adviser to Viktor Orbán.[26] In 2002, he entered the political science doctoral program at Corvinus University where he obtained his Ph.D. degree in 2007.[7][27] Gorka is a naturalized American citizen...

2004, Gorka became an adjunct to USSOCOM's Joint Special Operations University, MacDill Air Force Base.
He and his family relocated to the United States in 2008.
He was hired as administrative dean at the National Defense University, Fort McNair, Washington D.C.
2006, he began to lecture part-time for the ASD(SO/LIC)-funded Masters Program in Irregular Warfare and Counterterrorism as part of the Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program but remained in a largely administrative role.[32]
Between 2009 and 2011 Gorka wrote for the Hudson Institute of New York (now Gatestone Institute).[33] Between 2011 and 2013, Gorka was an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy.[15]
In 2014 Gorka assumed the privately endowed Major General Matthew C. Horner Distinguished Chair of Military Theory at the Marine Corps University Foundation.[8]
From 2014 to 2016, Gorka was an editor for national security affairs for Breitbart News,[34] where he worked for Steve Bannon.[35]
In August 2016, he joined The Institute of World Politics, a private institution, on a full-time basis as Professor of Strategy and Irregular Warfare and Vice President for National Security Support.[36...

2017, Gorka was appointed Deputy Assistant to the President and Strategist in the Trump White House.[26][38] He was a member of a White House team known as the Strategic Initiatives Group, set up by White House advisors Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner.[38] The Strategic Initiatives Group never got off the ground, and Gorka failed to obtain the security clearance necessary for work on national security issues.

...Gorka was detained January 31, 2016, at the Ronald Reagan Airport in Washington D.C. for attempting to board a plane with a 9 mm handgun in his luggage...
Hungarian police had issued an arrest warrant for Gorka for "firearm or ammunition abuse" on September 17, 2016

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Gorka

To this day, Gorka has never obtained ANY security clearance, whether in the U.S. OR Hungary.
But he KNOWS what intel to serve up to our enemies, and must be kept under close surveillance by U.S. intelligence as much as trump must be.

[Hugin]

5. Yeah...

Part of listening is listening to everything.

[ancianita]

6. And

just because we don't like Bolton's right wing policy hawkish stances since Reagan days, doesn't mean
Bolton doesn't know what he's talking about when he criticizes Sebastian Gorka.
Gorka, so-called "nationalized citizen," is no friend of democratic republics and is never to be trusted any more than trump.

[cab67]

7. Big difference between Bolton and Gorka

Bolton isn't hawkish, as actual hawks are far more peace-minded. More like fire-ant-ish. But one gets the very strong sense he at least keeps up with current events (however his brain filters them) and can read a map.

Gorka is little more than a national security wanna-be. His hawkishness (which at least equals Bolton's) is combined with what appears to be willful ignorance of anything not within his own eyeshot.

Not a fan of Bolton, but I'm with him on this.

[Evolve Dammit]

11. Bolton was bussed down from DC (along with Stone) to stop the recount in 2000. He was and remains an asshole.

The fact that he now has concerns is troubling, but almost laughable, like Karma biting your ass. The "Unitary Executive" Bush/Cheney years created this monster, and they have zero control. They are spineless, as is all the GOP. Reap what you sow baby.

[JoseBalow]

8. I don't need this asshole to tell me that asshole is an asshole

Bolton is completely irrelevant, why am I hearing from him... is he selling another book?

[LetMyPeopleVote]

9. Gorka is a NAZI

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[Evolve Dammit]

12. Yes he is.

[Grins]

10. A man I hate says, "That guy is worse!!!!"

Great.

[ancianita]

13. The main thing is to learn more about BOTH, not just have some uninformed judgment about either.

If media don't report what secures or endangers our freedoms, then WE have to do better to help ourselves and each other, by actually making the effort of getting information and mutually sharing it. Or what's the purpose of an underground -- to be some judgy mcjudge echo chamber?

In the next four years, facts and truth will be hard enough to get from this administration's stupidity and lies, and its oligarch media manipulations, so let's try harder to expand our efforts toward facts and truth here.