Conspiracy theorist Frank Wuco has left his senior adviser position at the State Department and returned to being a pundit. Wuco frequently made anti-Muslim and anti-LGBTQ remarks as a right-wing commentator. 

Wuco is a retired naval intelligence officer who initially joined the Department of Homeland Security in January 2017 and became a senior adviser, helping implement Trump’s orders to the agency, including his ban on travelers from some Muslim-majority countries. 

Media Matters first reported on Wuco in March 2017 and noted that he had a history of making anti-Muslim remarks, such as stating on Fox News in 2014 that banning visas from “Muslim nations” is “one of these sort of great ideas that can never happen.” Media Matters later reported further on his anti-Muslim commentary, including his statement that Muslims are dangerous because their core faith purportedly instructs them that they can’t “coexist peacefully with other religions.” Wuco also made anti-LGBTQ remarks, such as claiming that “societies and nations for millennia have suffered greatly” because of LGBTQ acceptance and that those places have no “cultural” and “moral center.”

CNN’s KFile team also reviewed Wuco’s past remarks, including finding that he pushed “claims that former President Barack Obama's memoir was ghostwritten by former anti-Vietnam War radical Bill Ayers, that former CIA director John Brennan had converted to Islam and that Attorney General Eric Holder had been a member of the Black Panthers.” 

On November 27, The Washington Post reported that Wuco had become a senior adviser at the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance. The publication added that during a 2016 radio appearance, Wuco had “suggested dropping nuclear bombs on Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks.”

Military Times Managing Editor Howard Altman tweeted on December 14 that Wuco “has resigned” and “declined comment on the record.” 

Wuco has started making appearances again in the media, where he's been identified as a former Trump administration official. He appeared on the Tampa Bay, Florida, station WFLA on January 3, January 7, and January 8 to discuss Iran. On January 3, Wuco said he was “glad to be back on the air with you guys after such a long break.” He also discussed Iran on WWNC in Asheville, North Carolina, on January 8. 

The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.