A White House that prides itself on loyalty tests keeps running into the same problem. Every new controversy prompts people to question who the Trump administration is actually vetting and who it is simply waving through.
That tension burst into public view again this week when one of President Donald Trump’s most outspoken allies, far-right activist and self-described “white advocate” Laura Loomer, sounded the alarm over former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
In doing so, she appeared to make an argument that many of Trump’s critics have been making for years — that the president’s own hiring process may be far less rigorous than his supporters claim.
And if one of the president’s closest allies is publicly declaring that key officials reached the highest levels of government without adequate scrutiny, critics argue the problem may not simply be the nominees. It may be the system that put them there in the first place.
On Monday, Loomer made headlines after reacting to a Washington Post investigation examining Gabbard’s ties to Chris Butler, a religious leader she once described as her guru. While Loomer intended to criticize Gabbard and the people she claims pushed her into Trump’s orbit, critics quickly seized on her comments as an admission that the administration’s screening process may be fundamentally flawed.
“The lack of vetting inside the Trump administration is truly a crisis,” Loomer wrote on X.
She added: “We all know who forced Tulsi Gabbard onto Trump: Tucker Carlson and Roger Stone.”
Loomer’s remarks followed a Washington Post investigation by reporter Jon Swaine that examined more than 25,000 pages of emails and documents provided by former Gabbard campaign aide Rebecca Saltzburg. The report explored whether Butler, founder of the Science of Identity Foundation offshoot Hare Krishna group, exerted significant influence over Gabbard’s political career during her years in Congress.
Swaine wrote that the documents appeared to contain extensive guidance on legislation, media appearances, policy positions, and political strategy. According to the report, some memos instructed Gabbard on everything from foreign policy messaging to television presentation.
“Their content was extraordinary,” Swaine wrote.
Among the documents was a 173-page dossier titled “TG Issues,” which reportedly offered advice on a wide range of topics. According to the report, some entries included blunt directives such as “Start introducing bills” and “Need to get on it and hit hard. Stop being weak.”
The Post also reported that Gabbard used language nearly identical to that contained in various memos during television appearances. After comparing dozens of interviews between 2014 and 2016, the newspaper found that Gabbard used wording from the documents almost verbatim on 24 occasions.
The revelations sparked criticism from several commentators and former national security officials who questioned how someone facing such allegations rose to become the nation’s top intelligence official.
“I still can’t believe Trump nominated her to this role, and I’m sure we still haven’t even scratched the surface on all the mess she probably made during her tenure,” said Nadav Pollak, a former Israeli intelligence analyst and research fellow at the Washington Institute, according to the Post. “She was a national security threat from the get go,” he continued, perhaps in reference to her well-known antipathy toward going to war with Iran.
“We began warning people about Tulsi Gabbard being a national security risk before 2020,” said Travis Akers, a retired Navy intelligence officer.
John Jackson, a U.S. veteran, former GOP lawyer, and geopolitical analyst, according to his social media profiles, also pointed to broader concerns raised by the report.
“These events raise severe questions as to how Gabbard got a security clearance while in the military and ended up as the Director of National Intelligence,” Jackson told the Post. “It further raises the question of how many other politicians, political positions, and otherwise are simply manufactured out of whole cloth or otherwise the subject of outside influence. Clearly, the background check and vetting processes are broken.”
But while Loomer intended her criticism to focus on Gabbard and those she claims promoted her, many social media users argued that her comments implicated Trump himself.
“I agree with you… you shouldn’t be anywhere near the White House either!” one commenter said of Loomer.
Another wrote: “Trump hires with unquestioned loyalty in mind. Qualifications and experience are distant considerations, and only if that choice comes back to help him personally. There is nothing new here under the sun here with the exception of Donald being completely shameless in his second-term. He’s learned that competency and respect = obstacles in his first-term.”
A third commenter was even more direct: “Loomer is too stupid to realize it but she’s just making the case that trump is incompetent”.
The criticism carries weight because Loomer herself has played a role in personnel decisions surrounding Trump. In April 2025, Laura Loomer met with Trump and urged him to remove National Security Council staffers she considered disloyal, prompting reports that the administration dismissed several officials afterward. News reports at the time described the meeting as influential in triggering a wave of firings.
Gabbard, who left her position as director of national intelligence last month to care for her husband as he battles a rare form of bone cancer, has not publicly addressed the Post’s findings.
Her chief of staff previously dismissed the allegations, telling the newspaper that “the attacks on Director Gabbard’s faith and loyalty are not only false — they are a blatant example of anti-Hindu bigotry.”
