East was also a national security hawk, and was a member of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism along with Orrin Hatch and Jeremiah Denton. The committee is notable for its accusations of Soviet infiltration of left-wing think tanks, publications and activist groups such as the Institute for Policy Studies and the magazine Mother Jones. East's primary national security staffer on the committee, Samuel T. Francis, later a prominent columnist for "The Washington Times", has been cited as an intellectual fore-bearer of the alt-right movement.