Trump Advisor Likens Mangione Sympathizers to Terrorists
Incoming counterterrorism advisor sees threat in CEO shooter's sympathizers
Donald Trump’s counterterrorism czar wasted no time labeling the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson “the very definition of terrorism” and likening the outpouring of support for accused gunman Luigi Mangione to a movement reminiscent of Vietnam War era radicalism.
“This case looks already to be a peculiar concatenation of what we saw in the 70s with the rich white kids of the SDS [Students for a Democratic Society] turning into a terrorist organization,” Trump’s incoming deputy national security advisor, Sebastian Gorka, told Newsmax. “We've seen this pattern before many, many times,” Gorka added, saying that “the entitled, those who see a certain target within society and say, okay, I can use violence against that target.
Trump has appointed Gorka to be deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism, making him the president’s top advisor and head of the interagency deliberations regarding counterterror strategy and operations across the entire government, including the CIA, FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. It is a White House position that does not require Senate confirmation.
Gorka is yet another media personality popular in the right wing media, where he appears on the Salem Radio Network and Newsmax. He served in the first Trump administration as an assistant to Steve Bannon for seven months. Born in the United Kingdom to Hungarian parents, he lived in Hungary from the end of the Cold War until 2008.
Gorka has been a lifelong military wannabe, serving as an intelligence volunteer in the British Territorial Army, a fellow at the NATO Defense College, and a consultant with the Hungarian Ministry of Defense, where he was once denied a security clearance because of accusations of being a British spy. After teaching at a U.S. Army school for Russian studies, at something called the Joint Special Operations University, and then the National Defense University in Washington, he became an American citizen. His social media profile often features Gorka with a variety of guns and as a wing-tipped tough guy, despite the fact that he has never really served in any military.
Gorka was reportedly again denied a security clearance in 2017, and left the White House a week after Steve Bannon departed. There are no shortage of red flags adorning Gorka’s career, but in the clown car of Trump national security appointments, he has so far slipped through the cracks.
“Dr. Gorka has spent years working with America's special operators as well as the Department of Defense on counterterrorism efforts,” Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security advisor said on X, applauding his appointment. “I look forward to working with him to stay on offense against terrorism!”
In the interview with Newsmax last Tuesday, Gorka compared Luigi Mangione to the Vietnam-era Weather Underground, which was targeted by the FBI as a domestic terror group. The Bureau’s focus on the group was part of its infamous COINTELPRO crackdown on the American left and labeled subversives, including everyone from Vietnam war protesters, to Martin Luther King, Jr., to Chicanos, Native American activists and even feminists.
Gorka’s statement last week came just days before Briana Boston, a Florida mother of three, was charged by local police with “threats to conduct a mass shooting or an act of terrorism” against a health insurance company. After having had an insurance claim denied, Boston allegedly told Blue Cross Blue Shield “delay, deny, depose” and that “you people are next.” Media coverage of the incident overlooked the revelation, buried in the charge sheet, that the FBI had tipped off local law enforcement about the incident, providing them a transcript of Boston’s remarks, as I reported this week.
Today the Manhattan district attorney charged Luigi Mangione for the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, with prosecutors arguing that Mangione’s actions constituted an act of terrorism. Gorka will be coming into the White House amid an atmosphere of panic about domestic terrorism.
On his social media platforms, the goateed Doctor Gorka promotes “Patriot Mobile” cell phones. On his website, he sells Trump swag, an FBI T-shirt that calls the Bureau “Fascist” and the labels “Bureau of Intimidation,” and “Dr Sebastian Gorka Theodore Roosevelt” cigars ($225). He once hawked fish oil (literally) in his mini-Trump campaign to profit from patriotism. If this is the man who is going to formulate and direct a domestic counterterror strategy, his position at the top is far more dangerous than just being a fish oil salesman.
— Edited by William M. Arkin
Ok sure. If Brianna Boston is a terrorist for quoting Luigi, then Nick Fuentes and all the troglodytes on Twitter threatening women online with “your body, my choice” ought to be arrested ASAP. What a crock of shit, as my dad used to say. . Sebby G is another delulu amateur mob boss with a touchy ego and an axe to grind. I’d love to ask him if the Jan 6 mob were terrorists too. I bet I know the answer he’d give.
Doctor Gorka is baaaaack!
Weather Underground and SDS were organizations; Mangione so far as we know acted alone.
That's an important difference that will probably be lost in the rush to invent threats to the status quo.