ArcaMax

Laura Loomer, the right-wing influencer and conspiracy theorist who describes herself as "pro-white nationalist" and who is so far out there that she herself could not make it through the vetting process for a job in either the Trump campaign or the Trump administration, has some new scalps to add to her collection. She is the self-appointed enforcer of total loyalty, above all else, to Donald Trump, someone Trump has publicly described as "a fantastic woman, a true patriot" and "amazing." She is also a beautiful woman, which some speculate is the real reason Trump keeps her around, gives her free access to the West Wing and listens to her diatribes about officials who she deems insufficiently loyal.

She is on a roll. Last week, it was April Falcon Doss, the general counsel of the National Security Agency, who was fired after Loomer went after her because she had previously done work for the Democratic staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Her next victim was on Tuesday, when the FDA's top vaccine official, Dr. Vinay Prasad, resigned after Loomer went after him for statements from five or more years ago praising Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders and describing himself as a "political liberal."

Then on Wednesday, Army secretary Daniel Driscoll ordered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to revoke the job offer it had made to Army veteran Jen Easterly after Loomer went after her for serving as the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency under President Joe Biden -- even though she had also worked as a cybersecurity official under President George W. Bush.

Earlier this year, she was directly responsible for a purge at the National Security Council and the National Security Agency and even the firing of a career prosecutor in Los Angeles who was working up a case against a major Trump donor (which has since been dropped by the office). As Loomer herself likes to boast, they were all "Loomered."

The resignation of Prasad is particularly telling because it came despite the fact that HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. privately supported him. Prasad is an anti-vaxer. During the pandemic, he earned the support of right-wingers by attacking social distancing and masking. During his brief time at the FDA, he had already limited the use of Covid vaccines and had strengthened the warnings about a rare cardiac side effect of vaccinations -- none of which made enough of a difference for Loomer -- or Trump.

"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," Kevin Carroll, a former CIA official, told The New York Times. "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."

"I was raised to dress for the job you want, and even if you don't have the job, pretend that you do," Loomer told an interviewer. "I want to do vetting, so I'm going to do the job I want."

She's doing it, unfortunately. The blame belongs to Trump. The price will be paid not only by those she targets, but also by those she drives away from public service. And by all of us.

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To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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