White House staffers, it seems, had better hope that they stay in Laura Loomer’s good graces. This week, Loomer—a far-right provocateur who has described herself as “pro–white nationalism” and Islam as a “cancer on humanity”—met with Donald Trump in the Oval Office. After she reportedly railed against National Security Council officials she believed were disloyal to the president, the White House fired six NSC staff members the next day. More firings could be on their way: Yesterday, a person close to the administration told my colleague Michael Scherer that “Loomer has been asked to put together a list of people at State who are not MAGA loyalists.”

Loomer doesn’t have an official job in the Trump administration, and the president has denied that she had anything to do with the NSC firings. But she is one of the president’s confidantes, and she has come to exercise a significant amount of influence over the White House. Lots of people in Trump’s inner circle have unlikely backgrounds (defense secretaries are not usually hired straight from Fox News), but Loomer’s is probably the least likely of them all.