Investigating claims White House aide Sergio Gor was a Russian spy

In June 2025, a claim (archived) circulated online that Sergio Gor, director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, was a Russian spy. Gor's role means he helps recruit and select presidential appointments throughout the executive branch of the government.

(X user @KremlinTrolls)

One X user wrote: "Meet alleged Russian spy Sergio Gor. Gor works for Trump, vetting White House employees. Problem is, Gor hasn't been vetted yet, after 5 months."

The claim also appeared on Facebook (archived), Threads (archived), Instagram (archived), TikTok (archived) and Bluesky (archived). Snopes readers searched our site and wrote in to ask about the claim.

However, we found no evidence that Gor was a Russian foreign agent or spy. The claim seemed to have arisen from a combination of two sources: a June 17 New York Post report saying Gor had not been fully vetted and research (archived) into Gor's background that claimed his email address shared a password with several addresses from Russian domains. That research has since been retracted.

According to Maltese and American news outlets, Gor came to the U.S. from Malta in 1999 at age 12. After graduating from George Washington University, he went on to forge a career working for Republican figures that eventually brought him into President Donald Trump's inner circle and earned him the appointment as Presidential Personnel Office director.

Robert Garson, a lawyer representing Gor, called the claims "scurrilous false allegations." Garson said via email: 

The notion that Sergio Gor, a devoted servant to this nation, who has been vetted, not only in this administration but in prior positions, time and again, is a spy is frankly offensive. Mr. Gor has worked in conservative politics for over two (2) decades, including time in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.

The New York Post raised questions about Gor's birthplace and whether it might affect his ability to get security clearance in its June 17 report. An Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and Times of Malta report published on July 8, 2025, said Garson confirmed that Gor's birthplace as Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

We reached out to the White House to ask whether the claim was true and whether Gor could confirm where he was born and await a reply.

Standard Form 86 and retracted research

Claims about Gor's background appeared to circulate after the New York Post report cited unnamed sources in the Trump administration who claimed Gor, despite vetting appointees and staff across the administration, had not been fully vetted himself.

According to the Post, Gor had not yet turned in his Standard Form 86 five months into the Trump administration. U.S. government staff holding "national security positions" defined in the Code of Federal Regulations must submit SF-86 as part of their screening process. The form asks about biographical information, including place of birth and places lived.

Gor's missing SF-86 was unusual, according to anonymous White House sources cited in the Post story. Another anonymous White House source told the Post that Gor had completed but not submitted the form, and it was unclear when he planned to do so. Gor reportedly held an interim security clearance, and White House counsel David Warrington told the Post any allegations Gor did not have an active clearance were "false."

Snopes does not rely on anonymous sources. We reached out to the White House to confirm the statements in the Post report that were attributed to anonymous administration sources and await a reply.

After the publication of the Post report, tech mogul and former Trump adviser Elon Musk said (archived) on X that Gor had "deliberately lied about where he was born on Federal forms" and was (archived) "breaking the law." He also called (archived) Gor "a snake." Musk's posts received hundreds of thousands of views. Snopes could not independently verify Musk's allegations.

Then, on June 20, former Washington Post investigative journalist and computer security expert Brian Krebs made an X post (archived) retracting research (archived) he had previously published on Gor's background that claimed Gor — who formerly used the surname Gorokhovsky according to unnamed White House officials cited by the New York Post — was actually born in Russia in 1980 and used an email address with the same password as several addresses linked to people in Russia. Krebs said in his retraction he posted the research to LinkedIn and Mastodon. 

Snopes viewed the research in the form of archived screenshots shared on Reddit, as Krebs took down all postings before research for this report began. We have not been able to confirm exactly when Krebs first published the research, but a time stamp visible in the first screenshot suggests it was on or around June 18, the day they appeared on Reddit.

Krebs told Snopes he deleted the posts showing his research into Gor's background because they were "no longer supported by the facts" due to "a transposition of a dash with a period." Krebs did not elaborate on where the error happened but emphasized that he no longer stood by his findings. As Krebs used databases for his research that were not publicly available, Snopes was unable to recreate his findings.

A spokesperson for Constella Intelligence, whose databases Krebs used in his research, told Snopes via LinkedIn that it was "not directly involved in the investigation regarding Sergio Gor" but had shared and since removed Krebs' posts citing its data.

However, despite Krebs' retraction, rumors swirled online that Gor was a Russian spy.

Gor's rise to the White House

According to Gor's Wikipedia page, he was born Nov. 30, 1986. This was also the birthdate reported by the OCCRP and Times of Malta from a notarized Maltese property record, and corroborated by Gor's former school.

Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where Garson confirmed Gor was born, was part of the Soviet Union in 1986, which tallied with a 2024 report in the online magazine The Dispatch citing people who had "known Gor personally" saying he was born in the Soviet Union. Snopes did not view the documents that formed the basis of the OCCRP and Times of Malta's report, though Garson confirmed to Snopes that parts of the report relating to Gor's birthplace were "factual."

Reports in Maltese media dating back to 2008 said Gor moved from Cospicua in Malta to the U.S. in 1999. According to one report in 2021, Gor maintained fluent Maltese language skills. Ian Borg, deputy prime minister of Malta, told the Post that Gor spent "nearly a decade" of his early childhood in Malta. 

According to The Dispatch, Gor then attended high school in suburban Los Angeles. We found unofficial records of a Sergio Gorokhovsky at Canoga Park High School (now Canoga Park Senior High) in Canoga Park, California, northwest of Los Angeles. According to those unofficial records, Gorokhovsky graduated in 2004. We reached out to several members of this class through an alumni Facebook group to ask them to confirm whether this was the same Gor now working in the White House and await a reply.

Social media users also circulated a screenshot (archived) from a website (archived) listing Canoga Park FFA chapter officers. FFA is the California Future Farmers of America, a high school leadership program focused on agricultural education. The website listed Sergio Gorokhovsky as Canoga Park Chapter President in 2000-01. This period would have spanned Gor's freshman year of high school if he graduated in 2004. Snopes did not independently confirm that the Gorokhovsky listed on this website was Sergio Gor. 

In 2008, Gor spoke (at 3:00) at an event as president of the Young America's Foundation George Washington University chapter. This is also where reports said he attended college. Young America's Foundation describes itself as a "leading organization for young conservatives."

According to The Dispatch, after leaving college Gor worked for Republican U.S. Reps. Randy Forbes, Michele Bachmann and Steve King. He then worked at Fox News, befriending then-contributor and host Kimberly Guilfoyle. Guilfoyle began dating Donald Trump Jr. in 2018, but the couple appeared to have split in late 2024.

After working for Republican Sen. Rand Paul, a job that included a much-discussed 2018 trip to Russia, Gor moved firmly into Trump's circle. Charlie Kirk, an author whose book was published by Winning Team Publishing, a publishing company founded by Gor and Donald Trump Jr., said Gor was unwavering in his support after Trump lost reelection in 2020 and the ensuing Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. "Sergio was there when other people ran away," Kirk told The Washington Post.

Gor appeared to maintain his close ties to Trump through to the 2024 presidential election. Gor's super PAC Right for America, the funding of which earned him the nickname "the Patio Panhandler" at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, raised more than $72 million for Trump's reelection campaign, according to OpenSecrets. 

In sum …

Our investigation found no evidence that Gor was a foreign agent working for Russia. The claim appeared to have grown from a New York Post report and retracted research. According to his lawyer, Gor was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, then part of the Soviet Union.

At the time of this writing, the White House had not returned a request for comment on whether Gor had submitted or would submit the SF-86 security clearance form that, according to anonymous officials the Post cited, he had reportedly already filled out. Given that Gor had allegedly filled out the form, it did not appear that he was exempt from completing it.

According to White House officials cited in the Post report, Gor held an active interim security clearance. Garson, a lawyer for Gor, further said Gor "has been vetted" in the Trump administration, though it was unclear whether this vetting applied to his current role or involved submitting the security clearance form.

Gor is not the first member of the Trump administration with rumored ties to Russia. Previously, we investigated a claim that Darren Beattie — a senior official in the U.S. State Department — had personal ties to the Kremlin.