Katharine Gorka is reportedly slated to be named the new press secretary at Customs and Border Protection.
CNN reports acting CBP commissioner John Sanders said Gorka, a political appointee at the Department of Homeland Security and wife of former deputy to the president Sebastian Gorka, is expected to take the position.
{mosads}A DHS spokesperson said, “Katie has been a valuable member of the DHS team, helping to advance the Department’s mission of preventing targeted violence and countering terrorism, regardless of ideology. We look forward to her continued service with the Department in her new position at CBP as we work to secure the border and enforce our nation’s immigration laws.”
CNN notes that in the role, Gorka will be the public face of the agency that President Trump often brings into attention with his focus on his immigration policy and self-deemed border crisis.
Gorka and her husband have written for the right-wing website Breitbart, where she’s been at the center of controversial statements about immigration and about Islam.
The pair have been seen as major drivers of the president’s focus on Islamic terrorism. Sebastian Gorka has repeatedly argued that the Muslim faith is at the heart of the jihadist threat.
In a 2014 piece, Katharine Gorka wrote on Breitbart that, “To date, American and Western leaders have preemptively shut down any debate within Islam by declaring that Islam is the religion of peace and that terrorism has nothing to do with Islam. In so doing, Western governments have effectively shut the door on those Muslims who dare to dissent, who suggest reform rather than radicalism as the solution to Islam’s ills.”
“The result is that the Islamists are running the show, from Iraq to Syria to Libya to Iran,” she wrote.
Gorka has been with the Trump administration since its beginning, according to CNN which reports Gorka was considered to lead the Department of Homeland Security terrorism prevention office. An administration official did not want her past controversies to be a distraction in that position, CNN reports.
Sebastian Gorka left the White House in August 2017.
Updated at 3:40 p.m.