{"id":10164,"date":"2026-04-21T15:02:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T15:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/the-counterterrorism-czar-without-a-counterterrorism-plan\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T15:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T15:02:08","slug":"the-counterterrorism-czar-without-a-counterterrorism-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/the-counterterrorism-czar-without-a-counterterrorism-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"The counterterrorism czar without a counterterrorism plan"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

March unfolded like a stress test for U.S. counterterrorism authorities.<\/p>\n

The month opened with\u00a0a gunman in an Iranian-flag shirt\u00a0killing three people at a bar in Texas. Then, an attack with homemade explosives outside the mayor\u2019s mansion in New York City. Next came a deadly shooting March 12 on a Virginia college campus and, the same afternoon, a car-ramming at a Michigan synagogue. Days later, agents arrested a man charged with threatening a mass shooting at an Ohio mosque.<\/p>\n

To current and former national security officials, these were omens, signs of the dangers they predicted last year when President Donald Trump began redirecting counterterrorism resources toward his mass deportation campaign.<\/p>\n

They had warned of a diminished ability to respond should major global events inflame threats at home and abroad. Now, they say, the war in Iran has locked the Trump administration into a showdown with a sophisticated state sponsor of terrorism at a time when U.S. security agencies have hemorrhaged expertise and leadership is in flux.<\/p>\n

The urgency of the moment has trained a spotlight on Sebastian Gorka, the White House counterterrorism adviser tasked with drafting a blueprint for fighting homegrown and international threats. Nearly a year ago, Gorka declared a national counterterrorism strategy \u201cimminent.\u201d By July, he was \u201con the cusp\u201d of unveiling the plan \u2014 a phrase he repeated three months later in October. And again in January.<\/p>\n

To date, no strategy has appeared, and no explanation for the delay. When it is finally released, current and former counterterrorism personnel say, they expect a document rooted in politics rather than intelligence, with little detail on how to combat threats after a year of deep cuts across national security agencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cStrategies are only worth the amount of resources you put into them,\u201d said a former senior official who served in the first Trump administration. \u201cWe\u2019re entering very dangerous territory.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shifting promises are unsurprising to colleagues familiar with the brash, quick-tempered Gorka, a gate crasher in Washington\u2019s buttoned-up defense establishment. His threats and boasts are laced with grandiose language and delivered in a booming, British-accented voice.<\/p>\n

ProPublica interviewed more than two dozen national security specialists across party lines to trace Gorka\u2019s path to one of the most sensitive jobs in government. Nearly all spoke on condition of anonymity because of the\u00a0Trump administration\u2019s record of retaliation.<\/p>\n

His ascent, they said, tells the story of a startling transformation of the U.S. counterterrorism agenda in Trump\u2019s second term. Eye-rolling over Gorka\u2019s bombast has given way to anxiety about the administration\u2019s preparedness to identify and stop major plots.<\/p>\n

In the first Trump administration, Gorka lasted just seven months before being forced out by the \u201cadults in the room,\u201d as some staffers referred to the more moderate gatekeepers then around the president. In that brief stint, he reportedly struggled to obtain\u00a0security clearance\u00a0and faced an outcry over ties \u2014 which he denies \u2014 to a far-right group in Hungary.<\/p>\n

After the exit, he hosted a right-wing podcast and\u00a0popped up in ads\u00a0selling fish-oil pills for pain relief. Then his fortunes changed again with the 2024 election that swept Trump back to power, this time with a more conspiratorially minded wing of the Make America Great Again movement. Gorka\u2019s loyalty paid off with a phoenixlike return to the White House in a role sometimes called \u201ccounterterrorism czar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been waiting 25 years for this job,\u201d he confided on his podcast before taking office.<\/p>\n

The first year of Trump\u2019s second term was so frenzied that even the colorful Gorka faded into the background as the administration dismantled federal agencies and created a secretive, sometimes deadly immigration force. Now, however, the counterterrorism director\u2019s role is coming back to light as hostilities roil the Middle East and heighten the risk of attacks in the United States or against American interests or allies overseas.<\/p>\n

Days before U.S. military operations began in Iran, FBI Director Kash Patel fired a dozen personnel from a counterintelligence unit that monitored threats from Iran,\u00a0CNN reported\u00a0\u2014 part of a wider purge of some 300 agents specializing in counterterrorism.<\/p>\n

Former officials said the sudden loss of that many colleagues is devastating to the sensitive, granular work of preventing attacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think about it in raw numbers. I think about it in the wealth of expertise and knowledge that has been cut across all levels,\u201d a former senior Justice Department official said. \u201cWhat you lose is that nuance \u2014 with a smaller team, you can only go so deep.\u201d<\/p>\n

An FBI spokesperson said the bureau does not comment on personnel numbers but that agents are \u201cworking around the clock\u201d and had disrupted four alleged U.S.-based terrorist plots in December alone. \u201cThe FBI continuously assesses and realigns our resources to ensure the safety of the American people,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

ProPublica sought an interview with Gorka directly and via the White House. He did not respond to a detailed list of questions but assailed the requests in two posts on X, where he has 1.8 million followers. The first was a \u201cno,\u201d along with insults, addressed to several journalists who had asked him to comment on the strategy. In the second post, directed at ProPublica, Gorka accused the reporter of writing a \u201cputrid piece of hackery.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the criticism is we\u2019re killing too many Jihadis (759) since 20th January 2024, or rescuing more US hostages in 12 months (106) than Biden did in 4 years, I stand by our historic wins for AMERICA First,\u201d Gorka wrote, with an apparent typo. Trump took office in January 2025.<\/p>\n

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in an email that the restructuring of agencies \u201chas made the entire foreign policy apparatus even more responsive to potential threats\u201d and praised Gorka for \u201can incredible job\u201d leading interagency talks.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone attempting to smear him and the President\u2019s national security team is only revealing that they haven\u2019t been paying attention for the past year,\u201d Kelly wrote, \u201cas anyone with eyes can see that our homeland is more secure than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n
FBI Director Kash Patel, left, and counterterrorism adviser Sebastian Gorka\u00a0Photo by Brendan Smialowski\/ AFP\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
Inattention \u201ccan be deadly\u201d<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Gorka has emerged as one of the last men standing after a tumultuous stretch for U.S. counterterrorism leadership.<\/p>\n

His original boss, national security adviser Mike Waltz, was booted to the United Nations after\u00a0the Signalgate scandal, leaving the role to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was already juggling portfolios and is busier now with Iran.<\/p>\n

Another blow came when Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center,\u00a0resigned last month\u00a0in protest of the war in Iran, which he said was pushing the United States \u201cfurther toward decline and chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gorka was livid. He\u00a0told an audience\u00a0at the Council on Foreign Relations that he called Kent the day of his resignation and left a message calling him an \u201cutter disgrace\u201d for criticizing the president in wartime.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of my voicemail,\u201d Gorka recounted, \u201cI said, \u2018Good riddance to you, Joe.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Within days, Gorka was angling for Kent\u2019s old job at the counterterrorism center, the government\u2019s hub for analyzing terrorist threats, the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em> reported. Colleagues said they weren\u2019t surprised \u2014 the role brings more power \u2014 but added that Gorka would likely face a tough Senate confirmation process if nominated.<\/p>\n

The leadership disarray compounds the risks of hollowed-out counterterrorism operations, say national security analysts.<\/p>\n

At a time when hundreds of personnel typically would\u2019ve been assigned to thwarting attacks amid international conflict, the administration \u201chas gutted this capacity through firings, forced resignations, and slashed budgets,\u201d a panel of national security\u00a0analysts wrote\u00a0in the journal Lawfare.<\/p>\n

The Justice Department acknowledged in\u00a0budget proposal documents\u00a0that its National Security Division is facing \u201cunprecedented personnel constraints,\u201d struggling to keep up with increasing caseloads and a 40% drop in the number of prosecutors.<\/p>\n

At the State Department, former officials said, Iran specialists at the counterterrorism bureau were dispersed to regional offices where counterterrorism is one of many priorities. The entire team focused on threat prevention was eliminated. As a senior official who recently left put it, \u201cThey keep saying we can do it all even though they have half an arm now, and no legs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the Iran war started, officials say, some counterterrorism specialists who had been reassigned to immigration have returned to their old roles, creating a whiplash that can disrupt investigations and analysis.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019ve dropped all the cases and have taken people off the target set for an extended period of time, you can\u2019t just drop back in and pick up where you left off,\u201d said Ben Connable, a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who leads the nonprofit Battle Research Group. \u201cThe men and women who are back on that portfolio are going to have to play catch-up, and that conveys risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Department of Homeland Security hasn\u2019t published any\u00a0national terrorism advisory bulletins, periodic updates to alert the public to the current threat level, since September. It has not released the annual Homeland Threat Assessment since Trump returned to office, according to Colin Clarke, executive director of the security-focused Soufan Center, and fellow terrorism scholar Jacob Ware. A DHS spokesperson said updates on the documents \u201cwill be provided following the end of the Democrat DHS shutdown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gorka\u2019s long-awaited strategy, Clarke and Ware said in\u00a0an op-ed, could help clarify White House thinking on how to handle threats when \u201cdefenses are divided, disorganized and under-resourced.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the moment for the Trump administration to demonstrate that it recognizes the stakes,\u201d the researchers wrote. \u201cIn counterterrorism, inattention can be deadly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Winding Path to White House<\/h5>\n

Gorka\u2019s path to the White House began in the cottage industry of self-styled terrorism experts that sprang up after the 9\/11 terrorist attacks.<\/p>\n

He became a regular on a training circuit where speakers received lucrative contracts from international governments and law enforcement agencies to teach about the threat of militant Islamist movements. Many trainers of that era\u00a0maligned Islam\u00a0and backed policies that violated the rights of ordinary American Muslims in the name of counterterrorism, according to civil liberties watchdogs.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor him, counterterrorism is kinetic and it\u2019s against one type of enemy: the jihadist enemy,\u201d said an associate who has known Gorka for two decades.<\/p>\n

Born in the United Kingdom to Hungarian parents, he attended college in London and served as a reserve intelligence soldier in the British military. He later spent time in Hungary, dabbling in nationalist politics and earning a doctorate degree.<\/p>\n

In 2008, Gorka moved to the United States with his American wife, also a counterterrorism specialist, and eventually became a naturalized citizen \u2014 \u201ca legal immigrant,\u201d as he is introduced at events.<\/p>\n

As an instructor at think tanks and military institutes, he pushed an image of Muslims as inherently violent, according to current and former colleagues. They say his fixation on Islamist militancy crosses into a more generalized bigotry, a claim Gorka has dismissed as \u201cabsurd.\u201d He insists that his focus is \u201cthe war inside Islam\u201d between radicals and Western-aligned Muslim leaders. \u201cWe want to see our friends win that war,\u201d he has said.<\/p>\n

A former senior Justice Department official recalled an FBI agent lobbying hard to get Gorka hired as a counterterrorism trainer several years ago. The official \u201cdidn\u2019t feel comfortable clearing him in on my credentials\u201d for an office visit so instead drove over an hour to watch a lecture.<\/p>\n

Gorka\u2019s talk was \u201creductionist\u201d in its portrayals of Islam as locked in a civilizational war with the West, the former official recalled. Immediately after the event, the official advised against hiring Gorka because his teachings potentially violated department principles against bias in training.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came back and said to the U.S. attorneys, \u2018Let\u2019s be careful here,\u2019\u201d the former official said. \u201cThey put a flag.\u201d<\/p>\n

Concerns about Gorka\u2019s approach flared again when he joined the first Trump administration through the MAGA strategist Steve Bannon. Gorka, who had worked at Bannon\u2019s right-wing Breitbart outlet, was appointed to the Strategic Initiatives Group, an in-house think tank at the White House.<\/p>\n

The appointment prompted 55 House Democrats to\u00a0demand his firing in a lettercalling his association with far-right groups \u201cdeeply troubling.\u201d They focused on the Hungarian\u00a0nationalist group Vit\u00e9zi Rend, whose medal Gorka wore on a military tunic to Trump\u2019s inaugural events. Gorka has denied belonging to the organization, which had Nazi ties during World War II, and said the medal honors his father\u2019s escape from communism.<\/p>\n

Gorka\u2019s\u00a0qualifications for the job\u00a0also came under scrutiny. Critics dug out and posted his dissertation, which was pilloried by other academics for a\u00a0simplistic chart\u00a0that placed terrorism on a spectrum somewhere between \u201cpeacekeeping\u201d and \u201cthermonuclear war.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/figure>\n
Gorka at the Values Voter Summit in 2017\u00a0Mark Peterson\/Redux<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He eventually was ousted in August 2017, days after Bannon, in an internal power struggle. In his\u00a0resignation letter, Gorka blamed his departure on the idea that \u201cforces that do not support the MAGA promise are \u2014 for now \u2014 ascendant within the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reporters\u00a0spotted him\u00a0outside loading his belongings into the back of a Mustang convertible with vanity plates \u201cART WAR.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Dream Job<\/h5>\n

Gorka\u2019s comeback symbolizes the hard-right swing of Trump\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n

Even some prominent conservatives were shocked by Gorka\u2019s return. Michael Anton, who also served in the last Trump administration,\u00a0reportedly withdrew\u00a0from consideration for a senior national security role rather than work alongside him.<\/p>\n

The jabs don\u2019t seem to faze Gorka, who tells a story of standing outside the White House in January 2025, ready to swipe his badge the moment it was activated after Trump\u2019s swearing-in. He has referred to his role as a dream job.<\/p>\n

\u201cI pinch myself every single day,\u201d Gorka\u00a0told\u00a0the \u201cTriggernometry\u201d podcast.<\/p>\n

The counterterrorism director\u2019s responsibilities include coordinating policy for external threats as well as leading efforts to free wrongfully detained Americans around the globe. Gorka can be remarkably candid and mercurial for a senior official with such a sensitive remit, according to hours of his public remarks reviewed by ProPublica.<\/p>\n

He has exploded at journalists (\u201cGo to hell!\u201d) and cut off interviews when he didn\u2019t like the questioning (\u201cWe\u2019re done!\u201d). He repeats anti-immigrant tropes and boasts that \u201cJudeo-Christian civilization is the ultimate form of human existence.\u201d He has urged Christians and Jews to\u00a0buy guns\u00a0to defend themselves \u201con the front line of the war between civilization and barbarity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gorka\u2019s public remarks also offer behind-the-scenes glimpses of working for a boss he calls \u201cthe most consequential American president\u201d of modern times. At one event, he pulled out his phone to let the audience hear his ringtone: Trump delivering his classic \u201ctired of winning\u201d line.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/figure>\n
Sebastian Gorka, then host of Salem Radio Network\u2019s \u201cAmerica First\u201d program, argues with Playboy\u2019s White House reporter, Brian Karem, after President Donald Trump delivered remarks on citizenship and the census in the Rose Garden in 2019.\u00a0Jabin Botsford\/The Washington Post\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gorka has said his workday begins with a drive to the White House while listening to his favorite podcast, hosted by pro-Trump military historian Victor Davis Hanson. Upon arrival, he has to turn in his cellphone before spending up to 12 hours a day in \u201cmy SCIF,\u201d the acronym for the secure chambers where senior officials discuss classified matters.<\/p>\n

On Thursdays, he convenes an interagency discussion of the latest threats. He name drops \u201cMarco,\u201d \u201cKash\u201d and other friends in senior roles: \u201cThey ask me as I bump into them in the West Wing: \u2018Have you killed more jihadis today?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In his office, Gorka keeps a globe on his desk and a large poster of the Twin Towers on the wall, an ever-present reminder of 9\/11. His team\u2019s custom lanyards are printed with \u201cWWFY & WWKY\u201d in honor of a Trump line: \u201cWe will find you and we will kill you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Cloud of \u201cred mist\u201d<\/strong><\/h5>\n

On Gorka\u2019s watch, targeted militants don\u2019t simply die.<\/p>\n

They are \u201chuman filth\u201d who are \u201cobliterated,\u201d he tells audiences, describing bodies stacked \u201clike cordwood\u201d after receiving \u201ceternal justice\u201d from the Trump administration\u2019s \u201chammers of hell.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before the Iran conflict, Gorka was focused on a revival of the \u201cwar on terror\u201d in parts of Africa and the Middle East. He claims U.S. strikes have killed more than 750 militants he has described as \u201cleading jihadis\u201d with \u201cAmerican blood on their hands or who were plotting attacks against Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we know where you are, anywhere in the world, we can kill you within 72 hours if the president says so,\u201d he boasted last spring.<\/p>\n

In the example Gorka shares most often, he briefed the president on a militant recruiter in Somalia who had been under surveillance for over a year during President Joe Biden\u2019s administration. On the spot, he said, Trump ordered the fighter killed. Around 30 hours later, on Feb. 1, 2025, Gorka says, he watched live from the White House Situation Room as a U.S. strike vaporized the fighter into \u201ca cloud of red mist,\u201d a description he has repeated at least half a dozen times.<\/p>\n

He sometimes screens declassified video of the militant being blown to pieces, as several State Department staffers found out when they watched him speak last year. Unsettled, they tried to rush out after the event but were corralled to flank Gorka in a photo op. \u201cI look like a hostage,\u201d one person in the picture said.<\/p>\n

The staffers \u2014 since pushed out of government by cuts \u2014 said they had expected Gorka\u2019s bravado but were horrified by his glee over what they described as a \u201csnuff film.\u201d Many other personnel expressed similar concerns that issues requiring level-headed professionalism were entrusted to someone they regarded as a volatile ideologue openly preaching bloodlust.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s trying to show off\u201d to the president, one longtime counterterrorism official said. \u201c\u2018I nuked another 100 jihadis \u2014 pay attention to me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/figure>\n
Gorka speaking at the Rod of Iron Freedom Festival in 2022\u00a0Mark Peterson\/Redux<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gorka\u2019s claims of battlefield victories are often exaggerated or misleading about who was targeted and why, according to security officials and counterterrorism analysts. They say there are fewer than 10 \u201cleading\u201d Islamist militants in the world, and the idea of killing hundreds is absurd. The White House did not address a question about whether the numbers are inflated.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the word \u2018leading\u2019 that gets me,\u201d said Clarke, of the Soufan Center. \u201cI have no doubt they\u2019re killing people, but they\u2019re probably foot soldiers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reports of civilian casualties\u00a0from U.S. operations also muddy the death tolls, especially in Somalia and Yemen. But the Trump administration has shown little interest in investigating; it\u00a0gutted a Pentagon office\u00a0tasked with addressing civilian harm.<\/p>\n

Take the \u201cred mist\u201d strike, for example. It targeted Ahmed Maeleninine, an Islamic State group recruiter who was hiding out in a cave complex in Somalia. Gorka said the Biden administration had surveilled Maeleninine for more than a year without striking. That\u2019s true, said one former counterterrorism official with direct knowledge of the intelligence involved, but there was more to the story.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe left out the part about the women and children,\u201d said the official, who recently left government. \u201cI knew the reason we hadn\u2019t gone after him before was because he had his wife and children around him 24\/7. Now, maybe they got lucky and found one time where they got a clear strike.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Africa Command, which oversees the military\u2019s Somalia operations, said in announcing the February 2025 strike that \u201capproximately 14 ISIS-Somalia operatives were killed and no civilians were harmed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

New urgency<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Gorka\u2019s formal title is deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council.<\/p>\n

The role was upgraded from \u201cspecial assistant\u201d in recent years, though officials say the powers of the office have weakened since the days of early counterterrorism czars like Richard Clarke, who served under three presidents and revealed that senior leaders had ignored repeated warnings about al-Qaida before the 9\/11 attacks.<\/p>\n

Christopher Costa, a retired Army intelligence officer who spent a year in the same job under the first Trump administration, described the role as \u201cthe convening authority for all things counterterrorism for the president of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was rolling up your sleeves,\u201d Costa recalled. \u201cIt was more than just policy work \u2014 it was mitigating current threats.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iranian threats\u00a0against U.S. targets have brought renewed attention to the lack of a Trump counterterrorism doctrine.<\/p>\n

Gorka has been tight-lipped about the contents of his strategy. Officials who typically would\u2019ve been involved in interagency discussions say they haven\u2019t been consulted. One person briefed on a working draft summed it up as \u201cSunnis. Shiites. Cartels.\u201d Others said they expected the addition of far-left antifascist militants, a tiny subset of the extremist threat that receives\u00a0disproportionate attention\u00a0from the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

Gorka told another colleague he was writing the document himself, without traditional input from partner federal agencies. \u201cThere was no \u2018U.S. government strategy\u2019 involved,\u201d the colleague said. \u201cIt might as well have been a new book he was writing.\u201d<\/p>\n

At his recent Council on Foreign Relations appearance, Gorka was asked \u2014 again \u2014 when the strategy would be released. He glanced at his staff and shifted in his seat.<\/p>\n

He confided that he had \u201cput my life\u2019s work into this massive document\u201d but had received feedback in recent days to \u201cCut it down, Gorka!\u201d He said he would make trims and send the draft back to senior aides in hopes of getting a presidential signoff.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep your fingers crossed,\u201d Gorka told the audience.\n\n<\/svg><\/p>\n<\/div>\n