Vanities / Inside Man
IT PROBABLY STARTED with an ex-cop—
they’re usually ex-cops—asking him
questions about extramarital aairs,
credit card debt, aliases, weekend
getaways to ex-Soviet backwaters—
anything that could have been
used against him. The ex-cop probably
didn’t know a lot about the job
Matthew Gebert was applying for, the
ocials Gebert would brief, the top
secret information Gebert would have
access to. Nor was he a reader of
souls. His job was simply to ascertain
whether the answers on the standard
form, or SF- 86 , that Gebert had lled
out were true. Whatever his background,
he was a part-time employee of a
contractor hired by the Department of
State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security
to process security clearances.
He was probably padding his pension.
It was probably this or Uber.
Diplomatic Security signed o. Gebert
was smart. He had recently been
awarded a presidential management
fellowship, according to an alumni
news update in GW Magazine—he was
a future leader.
Months elapsed. One day, an email
arrived in his inbox: Gebert had been
oered a job at the State Department’s
Bureau of Energy Resources. He became
a civil service ocer. He reported to
important people—deputy secretaries,
political appointees—and these people
reported to really important people. He
attended meetings about the economic
sanctions imposed on Iran and
international oil ows and making sure
the Russians or Indians don’t “fuck us,”
as one former diplomat put it. His
job, like those of his colleagues, was to
advance the national interest.
It was 2013. Gebert’s life was
practically a caricature of a life people
used to live. He was in his early
30 s. He and his wife, Anna Gebert,
née Vuckovic—blonde, of Serbian
extraction—owned a ve-bedroom,
three-and-a-half-bath neocolonial
at the end of a cul-de-sac in a planned
community called Greenway Farms,
in the sprawling epicenter of planned
communities that was Northern
Virginia. Government contractors,
engineers, ex-military. Stepford-ish.
He had a baby, then two more. His
patch of lawn was always mowed.
His kids made friends with other kids,
rode bikes, attended a nearby school.When his son Alex was born, at
Inova Loudoun Hospital, the Stanley
Cup happened to be in the house—a
Washington Capitals coach lived in the
neighborhood—and for 90 minutes
the three-foot-tall, 34 - pound silver
chalice made the rounds, local media
reported at the time. Gebert asked
if he could put Alex in there for a pic,
and with a nod from the coach, his
son, who was literally one day old, was
napping in the Stanley Cup. American
Dream: realized.
At Foggy Bottom, at Greenway
Farms, he was just Matthew Q. Gebert.
“Boring dad government dude,” one of
his colleagues said. People described
him as friendly, straitlaced. He wasn’t
one to socialize outside of normal
work hours, according to colleagues.
He usually left early—he had an
hour-and-a-half commute home. But
that was only half of Gebert. The
other half was a secret, and for several
years it stayed that way.TWO YEARS INTO his job at the State
Department, Gebert started dabbling
in the alt-right—the loosely knit
constellation of white nationalists andState’s RED PILL
For years, State Department
ocial Matthew Gebert’s
white nationalism was a
secret. Then, he was outed
By Peter Savodnik
I
44 VANITY FAIR