Laura Loomer, the far-right activist and self-described Trump administration “loyalty enforcer,” has had another busy stretch.
Last Friday, April Falcon Doss, the general counsel of the National Security Agency, was fired after Ms. Loomer spotlighted conservative attacks of her previous work, including for the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Democratic staff.
Then the Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine official, Dr. Vinay Prasad, resigned on Tuesday after a post by Ms. Loomer on social media, in which she pointed out his past statements disparaging President Trump and describing his following as a “cult.”
On Wednesday, the Army secretary, Daniel Driscoll, ordered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to rescind the employment offer it made to a cybersecurity expert and Army veteran, Jen Easterly. Ms. Easterly, who has worked for both Republican and Democratic administrations, had drawn Ms. Loomer’s ire for serving as the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency under President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
They are the most recent examples of government officials being “Loomered,” in Ms. Loomer’s own parlance. A podcaster and influencer who expresses fierce fidelity to Mr. Trump, Ms. Loomer has flexed the power of her broad social media following and her access to the White House to target those whom she views as insufficiently loyal.
While it is difficult to know the extent of her reach, multiple officials across the administration have been pushed out after ending up in Ms. Loomer’s sights. This year, she called for a purge of the National Security Council, targeted top officials at the National Security Agency and even went after a career federal prosecutor in Los Angeles.
Kevin Carroll, a former C.I.A. officer who is now a lawyer representing intelligence officials fired by the Trump administration, said Ms. Loomer’s unfettered influence was dangerous.
“You have a person, from outside of the government of no national security experience and with extreme views, having de facto hire and fire authority over some of the most senior and important positions in the United States government,” Mr. Carroll said.
“Eventually, when all of the qualified people are driven out and only the people acceptable to Laura Loomer remain, there could be an extremely bad result for the United States in some international crisis,” he added.
Asked to comment on concerns that Mr. Carroll and others have about Ms. Loomer’s effect on personnel decisions, a White House spokesman, Kush Desai, did not directly respond, instead saying that Mr. Trump had “assembled the best and brightest talent to put Americans and America first.”
A senior administration official said the recent departures were not necessarily tied to Ms. Loomer’s public criticisms, but declined to elaborate. Mr. Trump has publicly praised Ms. Loomer as “a fantastic woman, a true patriot” and “amazing.”
For her part, Ms. Loomer — who was denied jobs in both Mr. Trump’s campaign and in his administration — has said that she is determined to prove that she is a better judge of personnel than the president’s own staff.
“I was raised to dress for the job you want, and even if you don’t have the job, pretend that you do,” Ms. Loomer said in an interview this summer. “I want to do vetting, so I’m going to do the job I want.”
Ms. Loomer now appears to have other officials on her radar. Late last week, she was seen walking through the West Wing, cradling a large stack of documents that she had brought into the White House.
She has recently directed her criticism at a senior Pentagon official, Tom Rakusan, citing an excerpt from a new book that recounts his work at the C.I.A. countering Russia around the time of the 2016 election.
Mr. Rakusan, a C.I.A. veteran, is an expert on Russia and looked critically at Moscow’s efforts to manipulate American politics. Ms. Loomer’s focus on him caused consternation among current and former officials, who said that he is a fan of Mr. Trump and supportive of his agenda.
The C.I.A. declined to comment. The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.
Ms. Loomer has claimed credit for the removal of at least three senior officials from the National Security Agency: General Timothy Haugh, the former director; Wendy Noble, his deputy; and now Ms. Doss, the agency’s top lawyer.
U.S. officials said Ms. Doss’s removal, and the voluntary retirement of two other top lawyers at the N.S.A., had created a noticeable gap in expertise at the agency, whose lawyers must routinely review and approve spying operations.
This week, in his first interview since being fired, General Haugh was reluctant to address the circumstances of his dismissal, saying only that he had served at the pleasure of Mr. Trump.
“I don’t and did not expect an explanation, and from the second I was told I was no longer serving in the role, the focus shifts to the leaders the president has put in the capacity,” General Haugh said.
The impact of losing such expertise appears to trouble Ms. Loomer less than the prospect of having officials in government she thinks cannot be trusted. In ferreting out those she believes to be disloyal, Ms. Loomer relies on hundreds of tips that she says she receives weekly through her website, as well as encrypted emails.
Ms. Loomer said in an interview on Wednesday that she recently received a tip on her website about past remarks by Dr. Prasad, who was the top vaccine and gene therapy official at the F.D.A. and had the backing of the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
She said she spoke by phone to the tipster, whom she described as an administration official in one of the health-related government agencies, and then began listening to Dr. Prasad’s podcasts, where he had said of Mr. Trump in 2020, “I hate him too,” and a year later joked about using a stuffed toy of the president as a voodoo doll. Dr. Prasad, whose resignation was confirmed on Tuesday by the Health and Human Services Department, declined to comment.
Inside the F.D.A., there were mixed reactions on Wednesday to his abrupt departure and worries about who else could be targeted by Ms. Loomer, according to current and recently departed F.D.A. staff members.
Ms. Loomer insists that she is not an “absolutist” when it comes to “auditing” the record of current or prospective government officials.
This year, she openly supported Jared Isaacman, a billionaire tech entrepreneur, to be Mr. Trump’s NASA administrator, despite Mr. Isaacman having made contributions to Democrats.
Mr. Trump ultimately withdrew Mr. Isaacman’s nomination, telling others at the time that he did so because of the entrepreneur’s ties to Democrats. Without directly criticizing Mr. Trump’s decision, Ms. Loomer posted on X that “he would have been a fantastic NASA Administrator.”
“Isaacman never made derogatory comments about President Trump and has an exceptional talent that’s hard to replicate,” Ms. Loomer said on Wednesday. “But when someone like Vinay Prasad insults the president’s character and calls into question the sanity of his supporters, then that’s somebody who’s not going to be a fit for the Trump administration.”
Helene Cooper contributed reporting.