Chris Szagola/AP
At a somber memorial service At the event, held Wednesday at the Engine Company 4/Ladder Company 15 fire station in Lower Manhattan, former President Donald Trump appeared to bring a special guest: 9/11 conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer.
The appearance by Loomer, a far-right social media shit poster with a long history of bigotry, follows her trip with Trump to Tuesday’s presidential debate between the former president and Vice President Kamala Harris.
But what was particularly shocking was her attendance at a 9/11 commemoration event. Last year, Loomer shared a video on Twitter claiming the infamous terrorist attack was an “inside job.” Alongside the video, Loomer shared her false belief that the hijackings and subsequent terrorist attacks were merely a ruse to allow the U.S. government to monitor Americans in the future.
“These actions destabilized the Middle East and enabled Alphabet’s agencies to begin their campaign of weaponized government and mass surveillance against the American people,” Loomer wrote in June 2023.
Nearly 3,000 people lost their lives in the 2001 attacks, including more than 2,500 civilians and firefighters at the World Trade Center in New York City, 184 people at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and 40 passengers and crew members of Flight 93, which crashed in an empty field in western Pennsylvania. Thousands more people contracted illnesses believed to be linked to their exposure to the wreckage of the attacks, according to a government program that collects data on survivors.
In addition, more than 240,000 people have been killed in the war zones of Afghanistan and Pakistan since the beginning of the war on terror. Of these, more than 70,000 were civilians.
In addition to spreading lies about 9/11, Loomer has described herself as a “proud Islamophobe.” She has also called Islam a “cancer on humanity.” Although the purpose of her recent trip with Trump is unclear, Loomer appears to be eyeing what could be called an “inside job” in a second Trump administration after nearly landing a job in his 2024 campaign.
