Democrats and Obama loyalists have already latched on to their next target to undermine Trump on National Security:
FREE BEACON – Obama administration holdovers and loyalists are waging a leak-driven media campaign against a senior counter-terrorism adviser hand-picked by President Donald Trump, with the aim of undermining the Trump administration’s national security apparatus, according to multiple senior White House officials and sources close to the administration.
Sebastian Gorka, a longtime national security expert profiled by senior editor Bill Gertz in today’s Free Beacon, has been the subject of multiple leaks and negative stories portraying him as a bigot as part of a campaign similar to the one that brought down former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Senior White House officials dismissed the media narratives and said Gorka is well liked and respected by Trump’s innermost crowd. Several of these sources would only speak on background because they were not authorized to discuss internal White House workings. They also expressed growing concern about leaks from within the administration that are aimed at undermining Trump’s senior advisers.
The media’s focus on Gorka comes on the heels of a similar situation in which Obama administration holdovers and loyalists targeted Flynn by planting selective leaks of classified information in newspapers across the country. The Free Beacon first disclosed this effort a day after Flynn was forced to resign.
The most recent campaign against Gorka is being fueled by career staffers and anti-Trump insiders who fear being exiled by the current administration, according to senior White House officials familiar with the situation.
“Those who are brought in [to the White House], whether they’re detailed or direct hires, but who are there because they support Trump and the Trump agenda, those people like him,” one senior White House official told the Free Beacon. The official said the attacks were from Obama holdovers who would “have a problem with anybody who departs from their worldview. Seb is just a lightning rod.”
Senior White House staff has not lost faith in Gorka, the official said.
As part of the effort to undermine Gorka, multiple publications, including those in the Jewish world, have sought to tie him to anti-Semitic movements and leaders. While multiple insiders dismissed the claims as nonsense, they admitted that the headlines have had an impact.
The attacks on Gorka are partly aimed at muddying the Obama administration’s history of anti-Israel diplomacy, these sources said.
“This has nothing to do with Gorka and everything to do with protecting Obama’s legacy on Israel,” said one source. “Gorka understands that America and Israel face the same threats, and that many of our enemies target Israel specifically because it’s the Jewish state. The Obama administration attacked Israel and downplayed anti-Semitism, but they never admitted it, and the policies Gorka is pushing would make the gap obvious.”
The National Review wrote today refuting an article by the Washington Post that they say smeared Gorka:
Last week, the Washington Post ran a story of a type familiar to its longtime readers: the random drive-by hit on a prominent Republican national-security official. In a remarkably hostile and misleading profile (“For a Trump Adviser, an Odyssey from the Fringes of Washington to the Center of Power”), the paper portrayed White House counterterrorism adviser Sebastian Gorka as something akin to a national-security danger himself. It might be useful to reflect on what Gorka has argued, and what the policies are that he would like to see replaced.
You can read the full article here.
One of Gorka’s former colleagues took a stand for him today as well:
The coordinated smear campaign against @SebGorka needs to stop. It's baseless and cynical. My official statement on the matter is here: pic.twitter.com/PxnvqdR3Zd
— Matthew RJ Brodsky (@RJBrodsky) February 27, 2017
A strong endorsement.
If these allegations painting Gorka as a bigot and whatever are like the allegations that suggested Mike Flynn violated the Logan Act, they we know they have little merit. But given Flynn’s downfall, all of this should be taken very seriously.