As Donald Trump’s director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, Sergio Gor has been called “the most powerful man you’ve never heard of.”
His role gives him access to the intimate secrets of those who want to work for Trump.
But until Tuesday, the country where he was born was itself a secret.
Now the 38-year-old has been revealed to have been born in Tashkent, which is now in Uzbekistan but at the time was part of the Soviet Union—making Gor a Soviet citizen at the time.
He had previously declined to divulge his birthplace, except to say he was not born in Russia, the New York Post reported.
The eyebrow-raising disclosure that he was not from Russia, but a Soviet republic, came from a joint investigation by The Times of Malta and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). It reported that Gor was born Sergio Gorokhovsky on Nov. 30, 1986 in Tashkent by matching his name and date of birth to notarized Maltese property record. Gor’s lawyer then confirmed the news, as did the White House.
Gor’s background has been of increasing interest in D.C. since the New York Post reported in June that he had yet to be vetted for a permanent security clearance—despite overseeing the appointments of about 4,000 executive-branch staff to implement Trump’s agenda.
The Post reported that Gor criticized the need for all appointees who need security clearances to pass vetting known as Standard Form 86, or SF-86, a 100-page set of questions required, which include where the applicant was born and if they have foreign connections.
He said that he was worried about the “deep state” weeding out Trump’s picks.
White House Counsel David Warrington told the Beast in a statement that Gor had now “completed” his form and had a security clearance—which is not the same as saying he has submitted the form and passed the check, or that he has a full, rather than interim, security clearance. “Mr. Gor is fully compliant with all applicable ethical and legal obligations,” he said. “His SF-86 form has been completed, and his security clearance is active, any insinuation otherwise would be completely false.”
Gor had told people that he was proud to be Maltese, without apparently mentioning that he was not born there, the New York Post reported. He attended middle and high school on the Mediterranean island and is fluent in its language. His family immigrated to the U.S. when he was a teenager.
After becoming a citizen, he worked his way up the political ladder and landed a job with Republican Senator Rand Paul (Ky.) In 2018, he accompanied the senator to Moscow in a “fact-finding trip to research, discuss and explore issues related to Russia and the U.S.” He had also traveled to Moscow the year before, according to leaked Russian border records.
Gor left Paul’s office to work as chief of staff on the Trump Victory Finance Committee for the 2020 election. He also co-founded a conservative publishing company, Winning Team Publishing, with Donald Trump Jr.
“Sergio Gor’s life, as a legal immigrant to the United States who has built a very successful career, is the embodiment of the American Dream,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to the Daily Beast. “Sergio has led the effort in staffing President Trump’s Administration with the best and brightest imaginable talent. Sergio is a trusted and loyal advisor on the President’s team.”
The post Top Trump Aide Finally Confirms He Was Born a Soviet Citizen appeared first on The Daily Beast.
