Terror Czar Gorka Responds
VIDEO: Trump advisor takes back suggestion to arrest Democrats for supporting deportees
Following my story detailing Sebastian Gorka’s suggestion that critics of Trump’s immigration policy could be arrested for “aiding and abetting” terrorists, in a new interview, Gorka was asked directly if he thought any laws were actually being broken.
“You have to ask yourself, are they technically aiding and abetting them? Because aiding and abetting criminals and terrorists is a crime in federal statute,” Gorka first told Newsmax on Wednesday.
Trump’s executive order has formally designated cartels and other transnational criminal organizations as terrorists, potentially opening figures like Maryland Sen. Chris van Hollen to legal charges, Gorka suggests, for providing them with “material support.”
I’ve been following Gorka closely for months now. The man once fired from his position in Trump’s first administration has now risen to be the top counter-terrorism official at the White House. Social media influencer when he’s not bloviating on TV, he still constantly appears on his old Newsmax show to opine.
But this time I noticed in his response something I’ve never seen before: he walked back his remarks. Gorka was no longer threatening supporters of Kilmar Abrego Garcia with arrest. Now, he was just saying that if one gave money to terrorist groups, they could be arrested. Wow, thanks for that sparkling insight!
To my amazement, the media has barely paid any attention to Gorka, despite his being the country’s top counterterrorism official (he’s currently rewriting the national strategy to counter domestic terrorism!)
Well, they’re paying attention now.
My original story triggered a media firestorm, including the following articles:
Trump Adviser Suggests Critics of Deportations Are Committing a Crime (Newsweek)
White House Counterterrorism Official Suggests Critics of Mass Deportations Are ‘Aiding and Abetting Terrorism’ (Mediaite)
Trump Adviser Has Bone-Chilling Threat For Americans Who Oppose Deportations (HuffPost)
Trump Adviser Says Opposing Deportations Is Basically Terrorism (The New Republic)
Top Trump Official Claims Defending Due Process Is ‘Aiding’ Terrorists (The Daily Beast)
Trump Advisor Suggests Deportation Critics Are Breaking The Law By ‘Aiding and Abetting Terrorism’ (Forbes)
In an interview yesterday following the backlash from my article, Newsmax host David Harris Jr. pressed Gorka on the issue. The question took place during a discussion about Garcia’s deportation for supposedly being a member of the MS-13 street gang and Senator Van Hollen’s decision to visit him in El Salvador.
Here Gorka is his usual flamboyant self, declaring, in a booming tone, that “a Democrat senator is on the side of the terrorists.”
GORKA: Let's be clear. This is an MS-13 member. I am the senior director for counterterrorism. President Trump designated six cartels and two gangs as terrorist organizations. This is an illegal alien, and he's a terrorist; but a Democrat senator is on the side of the terrorists.
Then comes the question: did Van Hollen break the law? And here, for the first time I’ve ever seen, the normally provocative Gorka prevaricates. Clearly mindful of the backlash, he shrinks away and says he assumes the Senator didn’t go that far.
HARRIS: Did he violate any laws, potentially by going to another country to try to rally on behalf of a non-U.S. citizen and speak to a foreign government? What might that look like for the Senator?
GORKA: Well, there are very stiff laws against aiding and abetting, and it's called material support to terrorism. So, if he were to be foolish enough to, oh I don't know, give money to the terrorist organization for which this individual is a member, he could be prosecuted for aiding and abetting, for material support to terrorism. I presume he's not that unstable or that much of an individual who exists in contravention of the U.S. Constitution.But yes, there are very, very simple laws on the statute books about not supporting terrorists. It's not complicated, my friend.
The unstable one here is a man sitting at the right hand of the President.
— Edited by William M. Arkin
This and other similar radically authoritarian suggestions by high Trump Administration crazies are making the "red scare" McCarthyism of the 1940s and 1950s seem almost moderate and thoughtful.
Since the president can declassify document by just thinking about it, I’m sure it applies to classify terrorists organizations. I’ll admit I’ve been aiding and abetting habit for humanity for years.