Former President Donald Trump has been roundly criticized by friends and foes alike this week for palling around with far-right online personality Laura Loomer, mostly notably for inviting the 9/11 conspiracy promoter as his guest to New York City and Pennsylvania memorials.
Loomer, 31, has been a longtime fixture of the MAGA right, especially among a then-nascent group of online activist and commentary sites that share dubious conspiracy theories. After an Arizona childhood, she studied journalism at Miami’s Barry University.
That’s where her far-right exploits—with an especially Islamophobic bent—began in earnest. In 2014, she tipped a local right-wing politics blog to the fact that an imam was invited to a 9/11 memorial on campus.
