Sebastian Gorka leaving White House as soon as ‘this summer’

by Rebecca Savransky - 04/30/17 4:41 PM ET

A senior White House official confirmed to The Hill on Sunday that Sebastian Gorka, a deputy assistant to the president, will be departing that role as soon as “this summer.”

The same official said that Gorka, 46, was brought in to the Trump administration to initially provide big picture, counter-terrorism expertise.

“To defeat extreme Islamic terrorism, you can’t kill your way out of the problem. A plan is needed to defeat the ideology the same way Nazism was defeated” the official, who asked not to be named, said.

“[Gorka] was here to provide an overall strategy in that regard.”

Gorka will take an outside position that deals with the “war of ideas” regarding radical Islamic extremism, sources told The Washington Examiner on Sunday.

He has served as both a national security adviser and on the Strategic Initiatives Group, which is an organization within the White House, according to the publication.

{mosads}The news he is accepting an outside role comes after reports raising questions about his security clearance status.

Gorka’s position in the SIG was meant as only a temporary role, a source told the Washington Examiner.

A spokesman for the National Security Council told the publication he did not “personally know” about Gorka’s future.

Last month, a Democratic lawmaker asked the White House to hand Gorka’s immigration paperwork over to the House Judiciary Committee for review.

In a letter addressed to Trump, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) cited a report in The Forward, an American Jewish news outlet, linking Gorka to a far-right group in Hungary, saying the judiciary panel needs to “be assured that he did not enter this country under false pretenses.”

The Forward reported on Thursday that Gorka was a formal member of the Historical Vitézi Rend, a Hungarian far-right group whose predecessor, the Vitézi Rend, was recognized by the State Department as under the direction of the Nazis.

Updated 9:52 p.m.

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