Ex-WH Adviser Gorka Landed Speaking Contract With Heritage Foundation

Former White House adviser Sebastian Gorka found a new venue for his pro-MAGA message: the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank.

The foundation confirmed to TPM Tuesday that the onetime Trump adviser has entered into a contract to give a series of five foreign policy speeches to its audiences, the fourth of which will be delivered at its D.C. headquarters in mid-December.

But this does not mean he has formally joined the think tank, as the Washington Examiner suggested in an article that first reported Gorka’s association with Heritage.

“Dr. Gorka is an independent contractor,” John Cooper, Senior Communications Manager for Heritage’s Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, told TPM in an email. “He is solely responsible for the content of his speeches and other statements, and his views are not necessarily those of Heritage or any of its personnel.”

Gorka’s LinkedIn profile lists him as a “consultant” for the foundation as of October 2017.

The self-proclaimed counterterrorism expert, who came under scrutiny for his ties to a Hungarian knightly order originally founded by a Nazi collaborator, departed the administration this summer under uncertain terms. Though the White House said he was forced from his position, Gorka called that claim “disappointing” and insisted he resigned.

He has since rejoined Fox News as a national security strategist, and served as chief strategist for the MAGA Coalition, a little-known pro-Trump organization. Per his LinkedIn, he left that position in November. A MAGA Coalition spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation.