White House advisers have kept Laura Loomer at bay for months. Then, Trump invited her in

(CNN) — President Donald Trump arranged for far-right activist Laura Loomer to join him in the Oval Office this week for an extraordinary meeting that preceded a shake-up of his national security leadership, two sources familiar with their meeting told CNN.

Their sit-down came after Loomer reached Trump by phone, the sources told CNN. As a result of their call, Trump instructed staff to invite her to the White House, the sources added.

Within 24 hours of their meeting, the administration had fired the director and deputy director of the National Security Agency, the United States’ powerful cyber intelligence bureau, as well as staff members on the National Security Council. Loomer had advocated for their dismissal during her conversation with Trump, CNN previously reported.

“This is called vetting,” Loomer wrote on X early Friday, adding of the NSA leaders: “Their firings are a blessing for the American people.”

The stunning series of events recalled Trump’s first term, when informal advisers, fringe figures and longtime associates often bypassed traditional channels to gain direct access to the Oval Office. His aides have insisted the president’s second term would be marked by discipline and structure.

Loomer’s previous inflammatory rhetoric has drawn rebukes from Republican leaders, and her access to then-candidate Trump was limited last fall after her appearances on the campaign trail alongside him prompted internal tensions and public criticism. Now, by securing a White House visit just 72 days into Trump’s second term, Loomer has once again cast a spotlight on the external sources shaping the president’s decision-making in what was supposed to be a closely guarded Oval Office.

And it appears Loomer’s work isn’t finished. In the days since her meeting with Trump, Loomer has publicly accused the president’s advisers of failing to block Republicans whom she sees as unfaithful to Trump from top White House and administration jobs. In response to what she calls a “vetting crisis,” Loomer recently announced she was starting an opposition research firm to dig into the backgrounds of executive branch hires on her own.

“I literally have a binder of receipts,” she said in a recent podcast appearance, “and I know who’s loyal and I know who is disloyal.”

Loomer did not respond to multiple requests for comment. However, she told CNN earlier this week that she would “decline on divulging any details about my Oval Office meeting with President Trump.”

“It was an honor to meet with President Trump and present him with my findings, I will continue working hard to support his agenda, and I will continue reiterating the importance of strong vetting, for the sake of protecting the President and our national security,” she said in a statement Thursday.

CNN has reached out to the White House about the meeting.

As a conservative provocateur who is fiercely loyal to Trump, Loomer has publicly positioned herself as a protector of the president against people she views as insufficiently committed to the MAGA movement and its leader. In social media posts, she shares her deep suspicions of Elon Musk and other tech billionaires who have lately cozied up to the president and is especially critical of Republicans who failed to stand by Trump after his defeat in 2020.

Until this week, she had largely operated from outside the halls of power in Washington — though not for lack of trying. Loomer, who twice ran unsuccessfully for Congress, has spent months attempting to gain access to the West Wing. On social media, she has accused the president’s inner circle of pushing aside her and others whom she considers faithful Trump followers.

While she regularly talks to Trump by phone, sources familiar with their relationship said, senior advisers had until recently largely thwarted her efforts at greater access and had limited her ability to gain an in-person audience with the president. The White House hasn’t approved her attempts to secure a press credential and attend daily briefings, she has said on social media. The press office didn’t respond to a CNN request for comment about the status of her application.

But the president was intrigued by Loomer’s latest overture during their recent phone conversation, the sources familiar with the meeting said, which included detailed critiques of many officials serving in key intelligence agencies. After Loomer presented her case to the president in person — carrying a list of roughly a dozen names she encouraged him to dismiss over their political backgrounds — the White House moved to oust the individuals.

On Thursday, Trump acknowledged meeting with Loomer but downplayed her role in the dismissal of National Security Council staff, calling her “a very strong person” who “recommended some people for jobs.”

“And sometimes I listen to those recommendations, like I do with everybody, I listen to everybody, and then I make a decision,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One.

Hours later, CNN reported that Trump had dismissed two more individuals flagged by Loomer, including the NSA director, Gen. Timothy Haugh, a Senate-confirmed official who also leads US Cyber Command.

But sources familiar with Loomer’s Oval Office visit on Wednesday told CNN the meeting was a one-off, and they insisted her access to the president remained in check.

The firings also came amid intense internal scrutiny of national security operations following the revelation that top administration officials discussed an attack on Houthi rebels in Yemen over a Signal chat that mistakenly included a journalist. While it’s unclear whether this week’s dismissals were related to that incident, Trump and other top administration officials have remained wary behind the scenes of how the intelligence community is operating, CNN previously reported. Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz, who was at the heart of the Signal scandal, was in the room Wednesday while Loomer condemned the staffers on his team.

Still, it’s the second time in recent weeks that Loomer has appeared to claim credit for a Trump decision. Loomer, in a mid-March social media post, accused the son of former President Joe Biden, Hunter, of vacationing in South Africa with the protection of US Secret Service agents. Asked about the allegations several days later, Trump said he “just heard about it for the first time” and would “take a look at that.” Shortly after, Trump wrote on Truth Social he was revoking Hunter Biden’s protective service.

Loomer has long occupied a place on the outer edges of Trump’s inner circle, a position that brought considerable challenges for the Republican’s 2024 campaign. For a time, Loomer accompanied then-candidate Trump on his private plane or met with him at his personal resort clubs, where she would share with him her theories.

When Trump questioned Vice President Kamala Harris’ ethnicity during an especially tense interview at the National Association of Black Journalists convention last summer, an adviser blamed Loomer — who, leading up to Trump’s appearance, baselessly accused Harris on X of hiding her Black heritage — for planting the seed. Asked by CNN last fall, Loomer did not weigh in on whether she influenced Trump’s remarks.

Loomer notably accompanied Trump on his flight to the Republican National Convention last summer, just one day after an assassination attempt against him in Butler, Pennsylvania. And she was among the close allies seen deboarding his private plane ahead of his September debate against Harris.

Her proximity to Trump, though, soon became a source of friction. Democrats pounced and Republicans groaned when she appeared alongside Trump at a memorial service honoring those who died on September 11, 2001. Loomer had previously posted a video claiming that the attack on the World Trade Center towers was an “inside job.” (Loomer, in a phone interview with CNN last year, said, “I’ve never denied the fact that Islamic terrorists carried out the 9/11 terrorist attacks.”)

After the controversy stirred by that appearance, advisers largely curtailed Loomer’s access to Trump for the remainder of the campaign. This week, though, Loomer demonstrated her staying power as she defended Trump’s firing of national security officials.

“Thank you President Trump for being receptive to the vetting materials provided to you,” she wrote on X, “and thank you for firing these Biden holdovers.”

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