Joe Kent, director of the US National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), resigned Tuesday saying he could not “in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran” after President Donald Trump ordered military action. In a post on X, Kent argued Iran posed no imminent threat and said the United States had been pushed into the conflict by pressure from Israel and its American supporters.
A 45-year-old special forces veteran with roughly two decades of military service, Kent thanked Trump and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard for the opportunity to serve. In a resignation letter to the president he urged a change of course: “You can reverse course and chart a new path for our nation, or you can allow us to slip further towards decline and chaos. You hold the cards.”
Kent is a close ally of Gabbard and previously served as her acting chief of staff. In announcing his departure he accused “high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media” of deploying a misinformation campaign to encourage a war with Iran. That claim — and his reference to Jewish-American influence over media — drew scrutiny because it echoed an antisemitic trope, and because Kent has documented ties to figures on the right outside mainstream conservative circles.
During two unsuccessful congressional campaigns Kent hired controversial operatives: he employed consultant Graham Jorgensen, associated with the Proud Boys, in 2022 and has had ties to Joey Gibson, founder of the Christian nationalist group Patriot Prayer. At his Senate confirmation hearing for the NCTC post, Kent acknowledged that a consultant had arranged a call with far-right influencer Nick Fuentes, an avowed white nationalist and Holocaust denier who dined privately with Trump in 2022.
Before entering government service, Kent promoted conspiracy theories including assertions that federal agents instigated the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack and the false claim that Donald Trump — not Joe Biden — won the 2020 presidential election. He has said he rejects racism and bigotry and has disavowed some past associations, but he has continued to repeat election-related and January 6 conspiracies. Prior to his resignation he had been viewed as one of the most prominent Trump loyalists in government.
After leaving the military in 2018, Kent worked as a paramilitary officer for the CIA. He was a frequent guest on conservative media and served as a counterterrorism adviser to Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign. Kent has said his opposition to U.S. interventionism hardened after his first wife, Navy cryptologist Shannon Smith, was killed by an Islamic State suicide bomber in Syria in 2019; he has described her death as reinforcing his belief that politicians mislead the public to keep the United States engaged in foreign wars.
Kent later focused on cartel-related work. Under Gabbard, he helped reshape intelligence analyses that were used to support deportations of South American gang members under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act by arguing links between smugglers and then-Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. When Trump nominated him as NCTC director in February 2025, the president highlighted Kent’s work on jihadist threats and cartel-related security. The NCTC, created after the 9/11 attacks, analyzes terrorist threats and maintains the government’s terrorist watch lists.
Speaking at a White House St. Patrick’s Day reception, Trump said he had read Kent’s resignation letter but suggested he did not know Kent well and called him “weak on security, very weak on security.”
Edited by: Dmytro Hubenko