Trump fires 6 national security officials after Oval Office meeting with conspiracist Laura Loomer

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump fired six National Security Council (NSC) officials after an extraordinary meeting in the Oval Office with far-right activist Laura Loomer, who laid out a list of people she believed were disloyal to the president, US officials said April 3.

The firings were described by one of the US officials, who had direct knowledge of the matter. The decision came after Ms Loomer vilified the staff members by name during the meeting on April 2, when she walked into the White House with a sheaf of papers attacking the character and loyalty of numerous NSC officials.

Mr Michael Waltz, the national security adviser, joined later in the meeting and briefly defended some of his staff, though it was clear he had little if any power to protect their jobs.

It was a remarkable spectacle: Ms Loomer, who has floated the baseless conspiracy theory that the Sept 11 attacks were an “inside job” and is viewed as extreme even by some of Mr Trump’s far-right allies, was apparently wielding more influence over the staff of the National Security Council than Mr Waltz, who runs the agency.

A longtime supporter of Mr Trump who has frequently spoken of her desire to work with him, Ms Loomer was one of Trump’s most vicious online enforcers during the 2024 campaign.

The account of the White House meeting with Ms Loomer and the subsequent firings is based on interviews with eight people with knowledge of the events. They asked for anonymity to discuss confidential meetings and conversations.

The people fired included Mr Brian Walsh, the senior director for intelligence; Ms Maggie Dougherty, the senior director for international organisations; and Mr Thomas Boodry, the senior director for legislative affairs. None could be reached for comment.

Mr Waltz was not fired, nor was one of Ms Loomer’s top targets, deputy national security adviser Alex Wong. Apart from the firings, several other officials who had been detailed to the council were reassigned back to their home agencies over the weekend, even before the White House meeting.

Ms Loomer, reached by phone, declined to comment. After The New York Times reported on details of the meeting, she confirmed on the social platform X that she had attended the meeting but would not provide details.

A White House spokesperson did not respond to an email seeking comment, and NSC officials said they would not comment on personnel matters.

Ms Loomer has been part of a group effort by some allies of Mr Trump to disparage members of the White House staff whom they consider too hawkish, too eager to commit US troops around the world and fundamentally at odds with Mr Trump’s “America First” foreign policy.

The agitators have used the phrase “neocon” – short for neoconservative – to describe many of those staff members working for Mr Waltz.

The roughly 30-minute meeting with Ms Loomer was also attended by Vice President JD Vance and other senior officials including the chief of staff, Ms Susie Wiles; the head of the personnel office, Mr Sergio Gor; and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whose brother died in the Sept 11 attacks.

A spokesperson for Mr Lutnick did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Ms Loomer was seated directly across the desk from the president. Also in attendance was Republican Representative Scott Perry, who was one of Trump’s biggest allies in his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.

Mr Perry brought a separate list of staff concerns he wanted to discuss with the president, and his planned meeting with Mr Trump collided with Ms Loomer’s, one of the people briefed on the events said.

Mr Perry did not respond to a text message seeking comment.

It is unclear what the firings mean for Mr Waltz, who has a tenuous hold on his own job. Mr Trump has so far declined to terminate Mr Waltz after he inadvertently

invited The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Mr Jeffrey Goldberg

, into a Signal group chat in which top officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, shared sensitive details about forthcoming military strikes against Houthi terrorists.

But senior officials who have discussed Mr Waltz privately with the president say that Mr Trump’s reluctance to fire his national security adviser is more a matter of him wanting to avoid bad publicity than a sign of confidence in Mr Waltz.

Mr Trump has made clear to his staff that he does not want to give the media the satisfaction of seeing Mr Waltz fired. He also does not want to start the cycle of firing top officials that plagued his first term, they said.

To some in the government, the firings have felt arbitrary. Most if not all of the officials who have been targeted by Ms Loomer were put through a personnel vetting process run by the Trump administration.

The fact that Ms Loomer met with the president in the Oval Office was first reported by the newsletter Status, but the details of what was discussed had not been revealed.

It was not clear how she was invited to such a sensitive meeting with the president.

She has rotated in and out of favor with Mr Trump. During the 2024 race, Ms Loomer said that “the White House would smell like curry” if Ms Kamala Harris were elected, a jab at her Indian heritage.

During the Republican primary campaign, in which she served as Mr Trump’s attack dog against Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, Ms Loomer floated the baseless notion than DeSantis’ wife, Casey, had lied about having breast cancer.

Mr Trump distanced himself from Ms Loomer in the campaign’s final stretch after he invited her on his plane to travel to a series of events commemorating Sept 11, which caused an outcry because of her conspiratorial views about the attacks.

Still, Ms Loomer has remained in contact with some of Trump’s aides and has, for the most part, fiercely defended the president while blitzing perceived opponents and enemies with searing attacks shared with her 1.5 million followers on X.

She has complained in recent weeks that she has not received an invitation to sit in the “new media seat” at White House press briefings, despite having applied unsuccessfully for a press pass.

Her visit to the White House this week seemed to signal a return to good graces for Ms Loomer, who in recent weeks has launched a string of social media attacks against Trump administration officials, including Mr Wong, the deputy national security adviser.

Mr Trump has spoken somewhat sympathetically about Mr Wong in some of his private conversations with advisers.

But Ms Loomer, in posts on X, questioned Mr Wong’s loyalty to the administration because his wife, Candice, had worked at the Justice Department during the Biden and Obama administrations. Mrs Candice Wong was also a career prosecutor and Justice Department official during Mr Trump’s first term and a clerk for Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Ms Loomer has referred to Mrs Candice Wong, whose father is of Taiwanese descent and worked for what was a British-owned satellite-making company based in Hong Kong, as a “Chinese woman” and alleged that the family was part of a conspiracy.

She speculated that Mr Alex Wong was responsible for adding Goldberg to the Signal chat “on purpose as part of a foreign opp to embarrass the Trump administration on behalf of China.”

Last week, Ms Loomer singled out an assistant US attorney in Los Angeles, Mr Adam Schleifer, who had unsuccessfully run for Congress as a Democrat in 2020. Less than two hours after she called him a “Trump hater” who should be fired on social media, Mr Schleifer was terminated.

Since then, she has publicly called for the dismissals of Ms Maria Proestou, a deputy assistant secretary of the Navy; Mr Ivan Kanapathy, the National Security Council director for Asia; Mr Amer Ghalib, the mayor of Hamtramck, Michigan, who is Mr Trump’s nominee to be the US ambassador to Kuwait; and Ms Katrina Fotovat, the head of the State Department’s Office of Global Women’s Issues. In at least one case, Ms Loomer tagged Mr Gor, the White House’s head of personnel.

In addition, Ms Loomer said the LGBTQ+ liaison at the Veterans Affairs Department’s Center for Minority Veterans should be fired, as well as an unidentified staff member working in the NSC’s intelligence office who she said was transgender and “hates President Trump.”

“If you are aware of this person and have their name, please send it to me and I will post their identity,” Ms Loomer wrote on X on March 29. “The American people deserve to know who this Trans Biden holdover is that is embedded in our intel community.”

In March, she started her own research and vetting firm, called Loomered Strategies, that she said would provide high-level opposition research for hire.

The term refers to what she and others call “getting Loomered,” which is when she targets someone, either in ambush-style interviews or online. She has also tried to dig up dirt on officials from outside the administration, either because they have gotten in Mr Trump’s way or because she questions their loyalty.

In recent weeks, she has claimed that two federal judges who issued rulings blocking Mr Trump’s efforts to deport noncitizens were compromised because of the activities of their adult children.

Still, at times she has worked against some people Mr Trump considers allies, including Elon Musk, whom she criticised last year over his support for visas for high-skilled immigrants.

Some of Trump’s far-right allies consider Ms Loomer a useful tool for attacking common enemies. And the president has mostly been admiring of Ms Loomer’s tactics. Speaking at an event at Mar-a-Lago, he once singled her out in the crowd.

“You don’t want to be Loomered,” Mr Trump said. “If you’re Loomered, you’re in deep trouble. That’s the end of your career in a sense. Thanks, Laura.” NYTIMES