Pop quiz: Who would you rather have running the country’s intelligence services—Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard or far-right weirdo Laura Loomer? That’s a trick question, because you’re stuck with both, and Loomer just managed to torpedo a classified intelligence meeting that she wasn’t even authorized to know about.
Sure, Loomer has no actual job in the administration and should have no more influence on our national intelligence services—or any other part of the government, really—than Grandpa Simpson yelling at clouds. She’s a far-right bigot whose brain has been utterly cooked by conspiracy theories, but she has the ear of President Donald Trump, also a far-right bigot whose brain has been utterly cooked by conspiracy theories.
Democratic Sen. Mark Warner was set to hold an unpublicized, classified intelligence meeting with National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency staff at the agency’s headquarters this coming Friday. Somehow, Loomer got wind of it and went after both Warner and NGA Director Vice Adm. Trey Whitworth, resulting in political appointees canceling Warner’s meeting.
Loomer has been fixated on Whitworth for a while now, demanding that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fire him because he’s in the “deep state” or whatever, and was furious that Whitworth invited Warner, “a rabid ANTI-TRUMP DEMOCRAT,” to an intelligence meeting.
Let’s set aside for the moment the horror of Loomer’s outsized influence generally on this administration and just stare into space for a bit at the notion that if a Democratic senator is not a fan of Trump, they are somehow no longer able to communicate with the intelligence community. Warner is the vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. It is literally his job to conduct oversight of the nation’s intelligence community. But somehow, a woman who once chained herself to the headquarters of Twitter can apparently nix that just by screeching on social media.
Indeed, Loomer isn’t denying her influence. She’s celebrating it over on X.
“Following my exposé of Biden appointed NGA Director Trey Whitworth, who was Mark Milley’s handpicked Director for NGA @NGA_GEOINT, Whitworth’s scheduled September 5th fireside love fest with anti-Trump Democrat Senator @MarkWarner Mark Warner has been CANCELED!” she crowed.
Loomer also told Mark Warner to “cry more, bitch” because this is the world we now live in.
Of course, this isn’t the first time Loomer has used her inexplicable influence to rampage through the government. Lucky for her, DNI Gabbard is more than happy to do her bidding. After Loomer posted a demand that “dozens of anti-Trump officials” lose their security clearances, Gabbard eagerly complied. When Loomer whined to Trump about allegedly disloyal federal staffers, he also eagerly complied, axing them right away. She gets closed-door meetings with Vice President JD Vance and takes trips with Trump.
Loomer’s only failure thus far was when she branched out to attack Vinay Prasad, who had been named the top vaccine regulator at the Food and Drug Administration. She got Prasad ousted, calling him a “Trump-hating Bernie Bro,” but somehow, just a couple of weeks later, Prasad was back.
That’s a minor setback, however. Generally, if Loomer says “Jump,” the Trump administration—including Trump himself—just asks “How high?” She’s Rasputin for the modern age, a behind-the-scenes whisperer with outsize influence. Loomer describes herself as a brave truth-teller and investigative journalist, when really she’s just an unhinged bigot who has the ear of the president, another unhinged bigot. It’s just shadows and lies and unfounded allegations all the way down.
Republished with permission from Daily Kos.
