Senior White House aide Sebastian Gorka has pointed to his years working on counterterrorism issues for the British army reserves to bolster his expertise in the counterterrorism field. Though the Ministry of Defence confirmed to TPM that he served, significant questions linger about what exactly his assignment entailed.
The issue of Gorka’s British army service has arisen anew because of an exhaustive investigation by Jezebel’s Anna Merlan, which found multiple wildly different characterizations of Gorka’s duties in Unit 22 of the Territorial Army, now known as the Army Reserve.
Gorka told a Hungarian newspaper in 2002 that he was in a “uniformed anti-terrorist unit” for three years, evaluating “the possible threats terrorists could cause.” Several press reports say he focused on intelligence-gathering in Northern Ireland, and another, in the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sunday Times, reports that he was collecting “evidence for the war crimes tribunal set up after the collapse of Yugoslavia,” as Jezebel reported.
The Ministry of Defence refused to even confirm or deny to Jezebel whether Gorka served in the reserve unit, let alone provide information about what his duties entailed.
But a British army spokesman did confirm to TPM – back in February – that Gorka served for three years, though also declined to offer further details. Gorka would have been in his early 20s at the time.
“Sebastian Gorka did serve in the British Army Reserve in 22 Company, 2 Military Intelligence Battalion, for three years, around 1990-1993,” Bayard Barron, a lieutenant colonel in the Defence Directorate of Communications wrote in a Feb 15 email to TPM.
Gorka and the White House both declined to respond to Jezebel’s multiple requests for clarification.
Though Gorka is billed as an expert on counterterrorism issues and is tasked with developing White House policy in this area, counterterrorism experts from across the ideological spectrum told TPM he was little known or respected in the field.
His experience amounts to several think tank positions on counterterrorism issues, several of which were co-founded by him and his wife, Katherine, as well as teaching positions at U.S. military institutions. His chair at the Marine Corps University was funded by major Republican Party donor and Heritage Foundation chairman Thomas Saunders III. Gorka parlayed these positions into roles as a counterterrorism expert on Fox News and national security editor for Breitbart News. He also wrote the 2016 bestseller “Defeating Jihad.”
