By Aiden Pink August 8, 2017

White House counterterrorism adviser Sebastian Gorka said in an interview Tuesday that the reason President Trump has still not commented about the bombing of a mosque in Minnesota over the weekend is because the investigation hasn’t been finalized — leaving open the possibility that the attack could have been “propagated by the left.”

In an interview on CNBC, Gorka stated that “we’ve had a series of crimes committed, alleged hate crimes by right-wing individuals in the last six months that turned out to actually have been propagated by the left. So let’s wait and see, let’s allow the local authorities to provide their assessment, and then the White House will make its comments.”

Gorka did not indicate which crimes he was referring to, but a series of bomb threats against Jewish community centers at the beginning of this year, which many assumed were the work of far-right criminals, were actually largely done by a left-wing former journalist and an Israeli-American teenager. Jewish organizations had criticized Trump for reportedly suggesting in March that those crimes had been “the reverse” of the right-wing theories to make the president “look bad.”

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

When pressed by CNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle as to why Trump had tweeted criticisms of The New York Times and Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal but not a statement of support for the local Muslim community, Gorka responded that he would not give “social media advice” to a communications expert like Trump. “So just hold your horses, count to 10, and the president will do what he deems fit,” Gorka concluded.

Gorka has been the subject of scrutiny for months over his connections to Nazi-tied Hungarian groups.

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’re in the middle of our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we have a very ambitious goal of $127,000 by April 22.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Make a Passover Gift Today!

$90 $180

$360

Other amount