(CNN) A State Department official has been placed on administrative leave after being linked to a white nationalist group in a report by a civil rights organization, a source tells CNN.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff have been briefed by the State Department on the case of Matthew Gebert, a foreign affairs officer in the department's Bureau of Energy Resources, after he was identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch initiative on Wednesday, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN on Friday. One of the sources said the committee was learning about the facts of the situation and why he had been placed on leave.

In an extensive report released Wednesday, Hatewatch alleged that Gebert "oversaw the Washington, D.C.-area chapter of a white nationalist organization, hosted white nationalists at his home and published white nationalist propaganda online." According to the report, Gebert used a pseudonym to express "a desire to build a country for whites only."

"That's all that we need. We need a country founded for white people with a nuclear deterrent. And you watch how the world trembles," Gebert, speaking as "Coach Finstock," reportedly said on a white nationalist podcast in May 2018. Hatewatch claims it has matched Gebert to the pseudonyms he used online.

The report said that in August 2017, on that same podcast, "Coach Finstock" said he was prepared to lose his career for the cause of white nationalism.

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