From eo) “Subjects| RE: (No SUB}EET Date: 2017/08/15 13:14:10, Priority: Normal ‘Type: |Note Thanks! From: Taylor, Miles Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2017 1:03:49 PM To: Gorka, Katie Subject: RE: (No Subject) We are actively working w OPA to push back hard. M Miles Taylor Counselor to the Secretary meland Security (b)(6) From: Gorka, Katie Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2017 1:02:56 PM To: Taylor, Miles ‘Subject: FW: (No Subject) Do we ignore or do we push back? From: Hoffman, Jonathan Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2017 12:38:34 PM To: Gorka, Katie Subject: FW: Just want to make sure you are aware of the below. Getting additional media focused on the narrative.From: Burke, Jenny Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2017 11:49 AM To: Hoffman, Jonathan[o\6) Ce: Media Inquiry Subject: Controversial Trump Aide Katharine Gorka Helped End Funding For Group That Fights White Supremacy Life After Hate works to de-radicalize neo-Nazis. The Trump administration decided it wasn’t a priority. By Jessica Schulberg WASHINGTON — Weeks before a violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, led to three deaths and 19 injuries, the Trump administration revoked a grant to Life Afier Hate, a group that works to de-radicalize neo-Nazis. ‘The Department of Homeland Security had awarded the group $400,000 as part of its Countering Violent Exiremism program in January, just days before former President Barack Obama left office. It was the only group selected for a grant that focused exclusively on fighting white supremacy. But the grant money was not immediately disbursed. ‘Trump aides, including Katharine Gorka, a controversial national security analyst known for her anti-Muslim rhetoric, were already working toward eliminating Life After Hate’s grant and to direct all funding toward fighting what the president has described as “radical Islamic terrorism.” In December, Gorka, then a member of Trump's transition team, met with George Selim, the DHS official who headed the Countering Violent Extremism program until he resigned last month, and his then-deputy, David Gersten.Gorka told Selim and Gersten she didn’t agree with the Obama administration’s approach to countering violent extremism — particularly the way the administration had deseribed the threat of extremism, according to Nate Snyder, an Obama administration DHS counterterrorism official who was an adviser on Countering Violent Extremism efforts and was given a readout of the meeting. The Trump administration has repeatedly criticized the previous administration for avoiding terms like “radical Iskam” out of concern that it could alienate Muslims in the U.S, and abroad. “That was sort of foreshadowing what was going to come,” Snyder said of the December meeting. Gorka and Selim did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Gorka and her husband, Sebastian Gorka, also a Trump White House official, have collaborated on numerous writings about the threat of radical Islam. Though they have a large following within far-right circles — they both have bylines at Breitbart News — mainstream _national security experts are either unfamiliar with or critical of their work. ‘The day after Trump won the election, Sebastian Gorka certitude, the jettisoning of concepts such as CVE.” id, “I predict with absolute Once Trump entered the White House in January, the office of then-DHS Secretary John Kelly ordered a full review of the Countering Violent Extremism program. Kelly’s office ‘wanted to re-vet the groups receiving a portion of the $10 million Congress had appropriated for the program — even though DHS had already publicly announced the ‘grant recipients, While that review was underway, DHS and the FBI warned in an internal intelligence bulletin of the threat posed by white supremacy. White supremacists “were responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks from 2000 to 2016 ... more than any other domestic extremist movement,” the two agencies wrote in a May 10 document obtained by Foreign Policy. Members of the white supremacist movement “likely will continue to pose a threat of lethal violence over the next year,” they concluded.