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The White House fired at least five key aides on the National Security Council staff Thursday, a day after activist Laura Loomer visited the Oval Office and urged President Donald Trump to remove certain people whose views she deemed disloyal.
The firings, occurring barely two months into Trump's return to Washington, marked the first major culling of Republican political appointees in his nascent second term, and people with knowledge of the shake-up said the number of dismissals could grow. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the president's personnel decisions.
It appeared Thursday's action was intended to target staff perceived to be insufficiently devoted to advancing Trump's aims, either because they worked previously in organizations that also included former officials who served in Democratic administrations or because they were suspected of being "neocons" whose worldview aligns more closely with the GOP's forebears than Trump's "America First" agenda.
Trump acknowledged the move, telling reporters traveling with him aboard Air Force One that, "We're always going to let go of people - people we don't like, or people that take advantage of, or people that may have loyalties to someone else."
He called Loomer "a great patriot" who makes recommendations on people and "sometimes I listen to those recommendations," but he denied that she was involved in the NSC dismissals.
Loomer, an influencer who has the president's ear, frequently makes inflammatory anti-Islam and anti-immigrant comments on social media as well as conspiratorial statements, including that "9/11 was an Inside Job!"
During last year's presidential debate, she said on X that if Vice President Kamala Harris won "the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center" - a reference to Harris's Indian ancestry.
Loomer's visit to the Oval Office was first reported by the New York Times. Axios reported earlier on the firings.
During her meeting with Trump, Loomer went over a list of up to 10 names of NSC aides who she believed should be dismissed, according to two people familiar with the matter. National security adviser Michael Waltz was in the meeting and tried to defend his staff as Loomer attacked each of them in detail, these people said.
Loomer has waged a public and private campaign against several Waltz aides who passed through the White House hiring process in what she has suggested in social media posts was a "VETTING FAILURE," an implicit criticism of Waltz's judgment.
"POTUS continues to be undermined & put at risk due to a lack of vetting in his administration," Loomer said in a post on X, referring to the president of the United States.
She has accused Waltz's senior director for Asia, Ivan Kanapathy, of disloyalty because of his past employment at Beacon Global Strategies alongside critics of Trump. She has also directed her criticism at Waltz's deputy, Alex Wong, because his wife worked at the Justice Department during the Obama and Biden administrations.
Neither Wong nor Kanapathy immediately responded to requests for comment.
Reached by phone, Loomer said she has long conducted opposition research on her own initiative and was "very happy to see that there is a swift response to my report," adding "hopefully this will inspire Michael Waltz to do better.''
Asked if she felt Waltz should be fired, Loomer said: "That's President Trump's decision. But if he is going to be getting another chance, and if President Trump still has faith in him, hopefully he will start to take [staff] vetting more seriously.''
The firings follow a controversy involving Waltz's mistaken inclusion of a journalist in a group chat on the commercial app Signal that involved high-level planning for a military strike in Yemen. He also has used his personal Gmail account to conduct government business, The Washington Post reported this week, and another senior aide discussed highly sensitive matters over his personal Gmail. Waltz's team also has regularly coordinated other national security business on Signal, Politico reported this week.
Those fired in Thursday's purge include Brian Walsh, a director for intelligence and a former staff director on the Senate Intelligence Committee; Thomas Boodry, a senior director for legislative affairs who served as Waltz's legislative director for part of the time that Waltz was in the House; and David Feith, a senior director for technology and national security who had served in the State Department handling policy planning and Asia matters, according to four people familiar with the matter. Maggie Dougherty, a senior director for international operations, also was dismissed, said three people familiar with the matter.
Feith, who former senior U.S. officials said distinguished himself for his work on export controls, declined to comment. Boodry, Walsh and Dougherty did not respond to requests for comment.
A fifth person, a career official who was not a political appointee, also was let go on Thursday, said a U.S. official.
More dismissals look to be in the offing, several people said.
"People are incredibly anxious," one person familiar with the matter said. They don't know what to expect."
Separately, two NSC aides who were held over from the Biden administration and worked on issues related to South Asia were let go last week.
Loomer said that she hopes to see more stringent personnel vetting in Trump's second term.
"My focus," she said, "is on perfecting the arts of opposition research and intel gathering for the sake of having a loyalty test, and having actual set standards, which is something that we really didn't see much of in the first administration where people who openly trashed the president or undermined him were constantly given positions."
Trump in his first term dismissed a slew of national security officials, including an FBI director, key White House advisers, a defense secretary and a secretary of state. Others resigned in opposition to his policies and objectives.
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