Katie Gorka is a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security. In a series of emails obtained by the Huffington Post, Gorka argued that groups like Antifa represented the “actual threat” to the United States. Gorka’s emails have been taken to mean that she believed Antifa posed a greater threat to the United States than white supremacists.
In 2017, when the Department of Homeland Security was working on a strategy to combat hate groups, Gorka was asked to come up with a list of groups fighting against hate. She replied that she didn’t know of any such groups and added, “it would also be important to get the data on the actual threats right now, because my understanding is that the far-left groups (Antifa, or anti-fascist) are currently on the rise.”
Here’s what you need to know about Katie Gorka:
1. She Successfully Lobbied to De-Fund an Anti-Extremist Organization, Because the Organization Had Tweeted Against Trump
Also in 2017, Gorka pushed successfully to remove federal funding from a group called Life After Hate. Life After Hate was founded by a group of former extremists who wanted to abandon the “hate groups” they had been members of and turn their lives in a new direction. The group’s mission statement says, “Life After Hate is dedicated to inspiring individuals to a place of compassion and forgiveness, for themselves and for all people.”
According to the emails obtained by the Huffington Post, Gorka urged the Department of Homeland Security to take away the funding they had been giving to Life After Hate. She lobbied to remove the grant because, she said, the group’sfounder had once tweeted, “f*ck you, a**hole” at President Trump. TGorka said the tweet showed the founder’s “vulgarity and lack of professional maturity.”
2. She Is Married to Former Trump Aide Sebastian Gorka
Sebastian Gorka is a former White House aide and former Fox News contributor. He was widely criticized by progressives while he worked for the White House, with many people arguing that he was an anti-semite who was carrying out an anti-Muslim ideology. Gorka has sung the praises of his wife, Katie, who he describes as being on the same page as he is. The two often co-author papers and work together on research projects. Speaking at the David Horowitz Freedom Center in 2016, Gorka said,
“When I was asked to write a book – “Defeating Jihad” is my first book – I thought, “Well, this is easy.” I eat, drink and sleep this stuff. My wife, Katie, is an expert on Jihad as well. Our pillow talk is the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda. Don’t worry, it’s okay.” He added that Katie’s influence had made his book much better than it would otherwise have been: “When I told my wife, she said, “Are you crazy? I mean don’t you want to sell books or we just want to sell them to wonks? You just want to national security experts? I said, “No, I’d like some people to read it.” So, she gave me some very sage advice, and this is to all you budding authors out there: If you want the people to read your book, especially Americans, you must have a good story. You have to connect.”
3. Liberals Say Katie Gorka Is ‘More Dangerous’ Than Her Husband
Sebastian Gorka was widely slammed by liberals during his time in the White House. But after he left the White House, some progressives began to say that his wife, Katie Gorka, was just as “dangerous” to the liberal agenda as he was. “Katie is much more dangerous than Sebastian,” Eric Rosand, a former senior State Department official, told Buzzfeed. “She played a significant role in denying CVE grant funding to groups that work to de-radicalize neo-Nazis and other far right extremists and Muslim-American groups that work to build resilience against violent extremism, but without the involvement of the police.”
4. She Has Spent Most of Her Career Studying ‘Radical Islam,’ Extremist Ideologies, & Counter-Terrorism
Gorka joined the Department of Homeland Security in 2017. Prior to that, she headed the Threat Knowledge Group, where she was tasked with, according to her LinkedIn page, “providing counter-terrorism training and subject matter expertise to federal law enforcement and US military, especially on current and future threats, terrorism, information operations.” Gorka also spent five years as the Executive Director of the Westminster Institute, which she described as a “nongovernmental think-tank focusing on radical Islam, with primary responsibility for all meetings, publications, and seminars of the Institute, as well as fundraising and management.”
5. She Attended Boarding School in Connecticut & Went on to Earn a Degree from the London School of Economics
Gorka attended the Hotchkiss School, an elite boarding school in Connecticut. The school offers a classical education for students in grades 9 through 12.
Gorka earned a BA in Comparative Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, before going on to earn a Masters degree at the London School of Economics.