Report: Trump’s Top Counter-Terrorism Advisor a Member of Far-Right Nazi Connected Group...

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/gorka-denies-membership-order-vitez-adl-anne-frank-center

Gorka Denies Belonging To Group Tied To Nazi Ally As Jewish Groups Speak Out

White House aide Sebastian Gorka on Thursday denied a report in The Forward alleging that he belongs to a Hungarian knightly order founded by a Nazi-allied leader who oversaw the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust.

In a statement to Tablet, Gorka said he never joined the Vitezi Rend, or Order of Vitéz, and only wore a medal associated with the order to commemorate his father.

“I have never been a member of the Vitez Rend,” Gorka told Tablet. “I have never taken an oath of loyalty to the Vitez Rend. Since childhood, I have occasionally worn my father’s medal and used the ‘v.’ initial to honor his struggle against totalitarianism.”

Members of the Order of Vitéz, which was founded by openly anti-Semitic Hungarian admiral and statesman Miklós Horthy, are permitted to publicly use the initial “v.” to acknowledge their commitment to the group. The Forward noted that Gorka included it both in his 2008 doctoral thesis and in his 2011 testimony before the House Armed Services Committee.

The publication also spoke to two current members of the group who say Gorka swore a lifelong loyalty oath to become a member. Those members said Gorka belonged to the “Historical Vitezi Rand,” one of two splinter organizations that claimed to carry on the group’s legacy after its original iteration was banned in 1947.

The Forward reported that Gorka did respond directly to its request for comment. Neither Gorka nor the White House responded to TPM’s follow-up requests.

Gorka previously drew scrutiny for wearing the Order of Vitéz medal to a Trump inaugural ball and for his ties to members of Hungary’s anti-Semitic Jobbik party. He has maintained that the medal was awarded to his father in 1979 for his work as a spy for the British in Soviet-era Hungary.

Several Jewish groups, which have previously criticized Gorka’s affiliations with the Order of Vitéz and with Jobbik, spoke out about the Forward’s report.

Steven Goldstein, executive director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, called for Gorka’s resignation and condemned the “grotesque anti-Semitism that has infected the Trump White House.”

“How many ducks in the Trump White House must walk, talk and quack Antisemitically [sic] before our country wakes up and sees the greater problem?” Goldstein said in a statement posted to the organization’s Facebook page.

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said he was “deeply disturbed” by the allegations about Gorka’s formal membership in the Order of Vitéz.

“If true, he needs to renounce his membership immediately and disavow their exclusionary message of hate,” Greenblatt said in a statement. “At a time of rising anti-Semitism around the world, it is essential for Mr. Gorka to make clear that he rejects the policies of far-right and nativist organizations such as Vitézi Rend and Jobbik, which have a long history of stoking anti-Semitism and intolerance in Hungary.”

 

[SneakDZA]

Remember this is the guy that said he's seen no evidence of systemic racism existing in the U.S.

 

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/sen...equest-investigation-gorka-immigration-status

3 Dem Senators Call For Investigation Into Background Of Sebastian Gorka

Three Democratic senators on Friday asked for an investigation to determine whether White House aide Sebastian Gorka "falsified" his U.S. citizenship application by “failing to disclose his membership in a Hungarian neo-Nazi organization.”

In a letter to the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Ben Cardin (D-MD) cited a report from the Forward that alleged Gorka belongs to a group descended from a knightly order founded by a Nazi-allied, World War II-era Hungarian leader. Though Vitézi Rend, or the Order of Vitéz, is now defunct, two members of an existing offshoot told The Forward that Gorka swore a lifelong loyalty oath to the group.

“We note that this Administration has expressed a special interest in ensuring that those with extremist views do not exploit our immigration laws,” the senators wrote. “We are deeply concerned by reports that Dr. Gorka concealed the material fact of his membership in the Vitézi Rend, a far-right anti-Semitic Hungarian organization, when he applied for U.S. citizenship.”

The U.S. State Department previously refused entry to members of the Order of Vitéz because of its association with Miklós Horthy, the Nazi-allied Hungarian admiral and statesman, according to the report. The Forward posited that Gorka, who was born in the United Kingdom, would have been legally obligated to note membership in the order’s descendant group on his U.S. citizenship application.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) on Friday asked President Donald Trump to turn over Gorka’s immigration information to prove he “did not enter this country under false pretenses.”

These calls from lawmakers ratchet up the heat on Gorka, who has said that his father received a medal associated with the Order of Vitéz and that he occasionally wears it to celebrate his father's anti-communist efforts in Hungary.

He told Tablet that he has “never been a member of the Vitez Rend” or “taken an oath of loyalty” to the group, although he neither confirmed nor denied membership in a subsequent statement the White House provided to the Forward.

 

[KingFreeman]

 

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/report-gorka-vitezi-rend-andras-horvath-piliscsaba
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/s...-linked-vitezi-rend-proud-wearing-its-n742851

Spox: Group Founded By Nazi Ally 'Proud' To See WH Adviser Wearing Its Medal

The spokesperson for a Hungarian ultranationalist group, whose founder oversaw the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews during World War II, said he was "proud" to see White House counterterrorism adviser Sebastian Gorka wear the group's medal, as he did at an inaugural ball on Jan. 20.

"When he appeared on U.S. television ... with the medal of the Vitez Order ... it made me really proud," Vitezi Rend spokesman Andras Horvath told NBC News, the network reported Saturday.

Gorka has said that he wears the medal in honor of his late father, who was a member of the group, and his struggle against the post-war communist rule of Hungary. Horvath told NBC that Paul Gorka, Sebastian's father, was at "an advanced level" of the Vitezi Rend, also called the Order of Vitez.

The current White House staffer pointed NBC to a statement he gave to the online publication Tablet, in which he denied ever being a member of, or pledging loyalty to, the order.

That statement, made to Tablet on March 16, came after another publication, The Forward, reported that two leaders in Vitézi Rend told them that Gorka was a sworn member of the order.

Hungarians who used to know Gorka, including a local political ally of his, also told NBC that Gorka was a member of the order, though the network clarified they did not offer any proof aside from their recollection of him making no effort to hide his membership.

"Everybody knew that he was member of the Order of Vitez," Csaba Gáspár told NBC. He ran against Gorka for mayor of the small town of Piliscsaba in 2006. He came in second place, Gorka came in third.

''I knew that Sebastian Gorka was a member of Vitezi Rend, even then," geologist Gabor Solti told the network. He ran for town council on Gorka's ticket in 2006.

Solti eventually served as mayor of Piliscsaba from 2009 to 2010, NBC reported, and Gáspár served from 2010 to 2014.

"It was common knowledge he was a Vitezi,"Erika Laszlo told NBC. She chaired a Piliscsaba environmental group during the 2006 election.

The Forward also reported, on April 3, that Gorka and the political party he led at the time, New Democratic Coalition, had in 2007 supported another far right party's effort to form a ultranationalist militia that was later banned for violating the rights of minorities. Two members of the militia were found guilty in a number of racist murders of Roma people in 2008 and 2009.

Gorka has also recently faced questions about his service in the British Army, after a Jezebel investigation found multiple wildly differing characterizations of his time in what was then called Unit 22 of the Territorial Army.

https://twitter.com/benjaminnorton/status/850752139785797632
https://twitter.com/alastairjam/status/850661139658747904
https://twitter.com/aymanm/status/850698560152776704

 

[Copper]

Systematic racism doesnt exists says the nazi...

How can any black person with any self worth support this bullshit?