Staunch Trump supporter and right-wing activist Laura Loomer is calling for for Earl Matthews to lose his nomination to serve as the top lawyer for the Pentagon.
Matthews was appointed by President Donald Trump to serve as general counsel for the Department of Defense, having appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday for his nomination hearing.
But in a series of X posts on Tuesday and Wednesday, Loomer said Matthews would work to “undermine” both Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
“We are about to have a General Counsel for the DOD who is friends with Trump haters John Bolton and General [Mark] Milley, who agrees with Dems over J6 and who supported Biden’s initiative to rename military bases named after Confederates,” Loomer posted on X on Wednesday. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.“
Loomer was pointing to Matthews’s previous work with former national security adviser John Bolton and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, who have both criticized Trump since his first administration ended. Loomer asserted that Matthews’s “proximity to Milley and his admiration for Milley raises a concern regarding loyalty” to Trump.
She also accused Matthews of blocking Hegseth from volunteering as a member of the National Guard at former President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021 over learning he had a tattoo of a Latin phrase that has become popular among right-wing groups.
“Is it a good idea for the next General Counsel for the DOD to be a Hegseth hater given the fact that Hegseth is the Defense Secretary?” Loomer posted on X.
Matthews released a statement calling Loomer’s attacks “ridiculous.”
“The notion that I am a so-called Bolton-Milley guy seeking to undermine the president’s policies is ridiculous,” Matthews wrote. “I firmly support the policies of the president, and if I didn’t he would not have nominated me. To be clear, I do not blame Laura Loomer, she is only doing what others have asked her to do. Ask yourself, who benefits from the removal of Earl Matthews?”
Loomer’s attacks on Matthews comes just a week after Loomer met with Trump and aired doubts over several National Security Council staffers’ loyalties to Trump. She made accusations of vetting failures at the NSC. Trump called her a “great patriot” and proceeded to fire several NSC staffers, though the president later denied she had anything to do with the firings.
Loomer, who founded opposition research firm Loomer Strategies, has been making efforts to win a contract to do vetting from the Presidential Personnel Office.
However, several Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee remain unimpressed by Loomer’s assertions.
TRUMP FIRES NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL STAFFERS AFTER LAURA LOOMER RAISES LOYALTY CONCERNS
Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), a retired Marine Corps veteran, shared with Politico that Matthews had been properly vetted.
“I thought he did well in his hearing,” Sullivan said. “That matters more to me — what he was saying and his focus.”
