President Donald Trump and Sebastian Gorka.
Sebastian Gorka, a controversial White House adviser who works on national security issues, is reportedly leaving his role in the White House, according to multiple reports.Citing an unnamed senior administration official, the Washington Examiner reported Sunday that Gorka would leave soon for a new role dealing "with the 'war of ideas' involved in countering radical Islamic extremism."
CNN senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta later tweeted that he had confirmed the report.
The new role, according to the Examiner, will include an appointment to a federal agency.
The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Gorka found himself under fire in March when the Forward published a story alleging that Gorka is a sworn member of a Hungarian far-right group known as Vitézi Rend, which is listed by the State Department as having been "under the direction of the Nazi Government of Germany" during World War II.
Gorka is widely disdained within the national security field, and several national-security experts have cast doubt on his credentials, questioning whether he has the experience to give advice in the White House.
"Gorka does not have much of a reputation in serious academic or policymaking circles," Stephen Walt, a professor of international affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, told Business Insider's Pamela Engel. "He has never published any scholarship of significance and his views on Islam and US national security are extreme even by Washington standards. His only real 'qualification' was his prior association with Breitbart News, which would be a demerit in any other administration."
Gorka was an editor at the far-right website Breitbart before joining the White House and is reportedly close with White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, the former head of the news organization.
Known for his fringe opinions on Islam, Gorka has said accepting Muslim refugees would be "national suicide," that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the US government, and that religious profiling of Muslims is "a synonym for common sense."
Pamela Engel and Sonam Sheth contributed reporting to this story.