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sebastian gorka
Trump Counterterrorism Strategy Puts 'Anti-Fascists' on Par With ISIS, Al-Qaeda
"The global War on Terror has come home."
May 06, 2026
The Trump administration on Wednesday released an official counterterrorism strategy that puts "anti-fascist" organizations on par with terrorist organizations such as Islamic State and al-Qaeda.
In outlining its strategy, the document argues that the US faces three "major type" of terrorist threats: "Legacy Islamiast Terrorists," such as al-Qaeda and ISIS; "Narcoterrorists" that sell illegal drugs; and "Violent Left-Wing Extremists, including Anarchists and Anti-Fascists."
When it comes to the purported domestic left-wing threats, the document says the administration will "prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist."
"We will use all the tools constitutionally available to us to map them at home," the document adds, "identify their membership, map their ties to international organizations like Antifa, and use law enforcement tools to cripple them operationally before they can maim or kill the innocent."
The document makes no mention of the threat posed by members of right-wing groups such as the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, many of whom received pardons from President Donald Trump in 2025 for their role in violently storming the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021.
A report published last year by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that, while left-wing political violence has grown since Trump's first election in 2016, it "remains much lower than historical levels of violence carried out by right-wing and jihadist attackers."
Journalist Ken Klippenstein reported on Wednesday that the strategy "is the brainchild of White House counterterrorism czar Sebastian Gorka, an eccentric figure I have reported on, who last year hinted at terrorism charges being levied for political opponents of the administration."
Digging into the details of the document, Klippenstein said it was essentially a strategy for prosecuting "pre-crime," which he noted "aims to build cases against people for what they might do, most ominously based on speech or beliefs."
At the end of his analysis, Klippenstein warned that the document makes clear "the global War on Terror has come home."
The counterterrorism strategy document builds on the framework established by National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7), a directive signed by Trump in September that demanded a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.”
Rights groups have for months been sounding the alarm about the implications of NSPM-7, which they said could be used to initiative a widespread crackdown against the Trump administration’s critics.
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Trump Adviser Says Those Who Oppose Abrego Garcia Detention May Be 'Aiding and Abetting' Terrorism
"Americans are increasingly coming into the crosshairs" as the Trump administration wages attacks on dissenters, said journalist Ken Kippenstein.
Apr 17, 2025
Rights advocates who have expressed outrage in recent weeks over the Trump administration's expulsion of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and other migrants have based their criticism on core tenets of the U.S. Constitution—particularly the right to due process—but President Donald Trump's top counterterrorism adviser on Tuesday night suggested that defenders of basic constitutional rights are actually "aiding and abetting" terrorists.
As independent journalist Ken Klippenstein reported, White House Senior Director for Counterterrorism Sebastian Gorka said in an interview with Newsmax that the divide between the Trump administration, which has sent hundreds of people to a notorious foreign prison without trial and disobeyed a Supreme Court order, and those who oppose its actions boils down to a disagreement between those who "love America" and those who "hate America."
Those committed to abandoning constitutional rights guaranteed to anyone on U.S. soil, according to Gorka, are in the former camp.
"We have people who love America, like the president, like his Cabinet, like the directors of his agencies, who want to protect Americans," said Gorka. "And then there is the other side, that is on the side of the cartel members, on the side of the illegal aliens, on the side of the terrorists."
"And you have to ask yourself, are they technically aiding and abetting them?" Gorka said. "Because aiding and abetting criminals and terrorists is a crime in federal statute."
White House 'counterterrorism czar' Sebastian Gorka says Americans who criticize deportations like that of Abrego Garcia are 'aiding and abetting terrorists' — a criminal offense. pic.twitter.com/ZdjahFyvmG
— Molly Ploofkins (@Mollyploofkins) April 17, 2025
In his newsletter, Klippenstein analyzed whether "Gorka's intensely partisan worldview be turned into government practice," noting that his comments came the day before Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) traveled to El Salvador to speak to top government officials about releasing Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident who has been repeatedly accused by the Trump administration of being a "convicted" member of the gang MS-13 despite having no criminal record.
"The Trump administration has already taken the unprecedented step of formally designating a variety of 'transnational criminal organizations,' gangs and drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations," said Klippenstein. "With that in place, all the administration would have to do to turn Gorka's rhetoric into reality would be to claim that critics of Trump's immigration and deportation policies are providing them with 'material support.'"
Gorka suggested that actions such as Van Hollen's trip to El Salvador, during which he tried but was unable to make contact with Abrego Garcia, who is being detained at President Nayib Bukele's Terrorism Confinement Center, could eventually be the basis of felony charges against the senator.
The counterterrorism czar lambasted Democrats for expressing concern about "the rights of this individual," referring to Abrego Garcia.
"You mean the terrorist who came here illegally?" he said, echoing Bukele's baseless suggestion in the Oval Office of the White House earlier this week that the Maryland resident has been proven to be a terrorist.
Klippenstein warned that while Gorka's statements appeared to display a "wingnut" legal theory, the counterterrorism adviser is "much more powerful than he was in Trump's first term," when he was briefly a deputy assistant to the president and was largely dismissed as a fringe figure in Trump's orbit.
Gorka is now leading Trump's counterterrorism strategy, including the government's shift in focus toward anti-Trump protests like those that have taken place at Tesla dealerships.
"So-called Tesla terrorism and potential anti-Trump violence is driving new articulations of the threat," a senior intelligence official told Klippenstein.
Klippenstein wrote on Wednesday that Gorka's comments reveal the Trump administration's plan to cast "a wider and wider net in its new domestic war on terrorism," potentially targeting anyone who opposes Trump's flouting of court orders and his anti-immigration operation.
"While the media's focus is understandably on migrants and deportees," said Klippenstein, "Americans are increasingly coming into the crosshairs."
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Trump Move to Bring White Nationalist Sebastian Gorka Back to White House Blasted as 'Sanctioning Discrimination'
"Trump and Gorka are spreading fear and division that leads to violence and harassment targeting Jews, Muslims, immigrants, Asian American Pacific Islanders, and all people of color."
Jul 16, 2020
Rights activists and anti-racism advocates decried news from the White House this week that President Donald Trump is appointing notorious white nationalist Sebastian Gorka to the National Security Education Board, calling the decision a "slap in the face" to Jewish Americans and other marginalized communities around the country.
"President Trump's decision to rehire Sebastian Gorka, who holds close ties to white nationalist and antisemitic groups, is yet another slap in the face to Jewish Americans," Bend the Arc: Jewish Action CEO Stosh Cotler said in a statement Wednesday responding to the appointment. "White nationalists and their allies should have no place in our government."
"Gorka's reappointment continues a pattern of shameful behavior by Trump and his allies of claiming to defend Jewish people from antisemitism while actively putting our lives in danger," Cotler added. "From enabling a growing white nationalist movement, to governing with an agenda rooted in bigotry, to popularizing dangerous conspiracy theories, Trump and Gorka are spreading fear and division that leads to violence and harassment targeting Jews, Muslims, immigrants, Asian American Pacific Islanders, and all people of color."
A self-described national security expert, Gorka has a long history of inflammatory comments and alliances with white supremacist groups, including Vitezi Rend, an extreme-right Hungarian group that critics say is antisemitic and racist.
As CNN reported, Gorka's credentials are at best questionable:
In 2017, CNN interviewed a dozen international security and terrorism experts and scholars who said Gorka's experience in their field is limited. They pointed out that Gorka does not speak Arabic, has done very little traveling in Muslim countries and has never worked in any official leadership or management role in foreign policy, intelligence or the military.
Nonetheless, Gorka has remained close to the White House even after leaving the administration, where he previously served as a deputy assistant to the president, in August 2017. His appointment to the National Security Education Board will give the right-wing commentator power on a panel that delivers scholarships and aid to students in the national security field and has oversight over the National Security Education Program (NSEP).
The appointment of someone with Gorka's views to the board sends a message, Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund president and CEO Margaret Huang said in a statement.
"The NSEP is supposed to help provide a broad pool of civil servants who understand different cultures and speak critically needed languages to work for the United States government," said Huang. "By placing someone like Gorka on the board that oversees this critical program, President Trump is sanctioning discrimination and exclusion of individuals who hold these skills that are gravely needed."
On Tuesday, the Jewish Democratic Council of America tied the appointment to Trump's nationalist agenda and increasingly racist re-election campaign.
"In the past few weeks, Trump has amplified calls for 'white power,' advertised on Facebook using Nazi images, and sold campaign shirts with the Nazi Eagle," the group said. "Now, Trump is bringing a medal-donning Nazi-sympathizer back to the White House, where he'll be in good company alongside the team driving Trump's vile 'four more years of hate' re-election campaign."
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