John Bolton’s Deputy Draws Ire of Jewish, Muslim Groups

Trump supporters defend appointment of Fred Fleitz to National Security Council post

By Dion Nissenbaum, WSJ

National security adviser John Bolton last month. Critics say Mr. Bolton’s appointment of Fred Fleitz as his deputy might indicate that the national security adviser is moving toward a more confrontational approach to Islam. Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg News

WASHINGTON—Jewish and Muslim groups are objecting to the appointment of a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst to a top White House post because of his controversial views of Islam.

The Anti-Defamation League, Council on American-Islamic Relations and other groups said Fred Fleitz shouldn’t serve as chief of staff to national security adviser John Bolton because he has advanced what they call Islamophobic views.

As a conservative analyst, Mr. Fleitz has called for the U.S. to formally declare war on a broadly defined Global Jihad Movement; suggested that most mosques in America are incubators for subversion or violence; and denounced some interfaith dialogue efforts in America as a move by “stealth jihadists” to undermine the country’s democratic values.

Mr. Bolton’s decision to bring Mr. Fleitz into the key White House role suggests that the new national security adviser might be moving back toward a more confrontational approach to Islam such as that favored by President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, Mike Flynn, critics said.

“The appointment of Fred Fleitz speaks volumes about the administration’s prioritization of fearmongering and racism over actual national security issues,” said Scott Simpson, public advocacy director for Muslim Advocates, a Washington-based group.

Mr. Fleitz didn’t directly respond to requests for comment. But the Trump administration defended Mr. Fleitz on Thursday and a senior administration official characterized the criticism of him as “a deliberate smear campaign from the left against the Trump administration.”

Until this week, Mr. Fleitz served as senior vice president for policy and programs at the Center for Security Policy, a conservative think tank that has been called a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil-rights group, because of its views of Islam.

Frank J. Gaffney, founder of the Center for Security Policy, blasted critics of Mr. Fleitz.

“Far from being concerned that terrorist fronts and their enablers are in hysterics because Donald Trump has entrusted these key roles to Fred Fleitz, the American people should be delighted with this fresh evidence that the president is determined to keep his promise to make America safe, as well as great again,” he said.

The senior administration official suggested that the criticism was the byproduct of left-leaning groups embittered by Mr. Fleitz’s long-running critique of their work.

Mr. Fleitz spent nearly two decades with the CIA and served as Mr. Bolton’s chief of staff when he was undersecretary of state for arms control. Since 2011, Mr. Fleitz has been a conservative commentator, analyst and researcher.

In 2015, he was one of several co-authors of “The Secure Freedom Strategy: A Plan for Victory Over the Global Jihad Movement,” a book that laid out a call for the U.S. to formally declare war on the movement and to embark on clandestine operations to destroy it.

The authors said that 80% of American mosques are “incubators of, at best, subversion, and, at worst, violence and should be treated accordingly.”

The authors also suggested that a “majority of Muslims and Islamic authorities” support efforts to impose Islamic law across the world.

Critics of Mr. Fleitz suggested that his elevation to the key post could signal a return to a more confrontational approach to Islam by the National Security Council.

But administration officials said Mr. Fleitz was unlikely to play a significant role in shaping policy because he was expected to focus largely on administrative issues in his role as chief of staff and executive secretary.

At the start of the Trump administration, Mr. Flynn hired a number of people at the National Security Council holding provocative views on how to address Islamic extremism. When Mr. Flynn was forced to resign after less than a month on the job, he was succeeded by Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who shied away from using the term “radical Islamic terrorism,” a term Mr. Trump embraced on the campaign trail.

Mr. Trump named Mr. Bolton to succeed Gen. McMaster in March. Mr. Bolton has moved slowly to install his own team at the National Security Council.

Write to Dion Nissenbaum at dion.nissenbaum@wsj.com