Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned on Tuesday in protest of the ongoing war in Iran, stating that Iran posed no imminent threat to the United States. In a resignation letter posted on X, Kent accused Israel and its American lobby of pressuring the Trump administration into starting the conflict.
Kent, a former special forces warrant officer and supporter of Donald Trump, wrote that he could not in good conscience support the war. He claimed that high-ranking Israeli officials and influential American media figures had deployed a misinformation campaign to undermine Trump's America First platform and encourage pro-war sentiments.
Kent's wife, Shannon Kent, a navy cryptologic technician, was killed in a 2019 suicide bombing in Syria. He praised Trump's earlier foreign actions, such as the killing of Qassem Suleimani and defeating ISIS, but argued the president had abandoned that posture.
Trump responded to the resignation at a White House St Patrick's Day reception, saying he did not know Kent well and considered him weak on security. 'When someone says they didn't think Iran was a threat, we don't want those people,' Trump said.
Kent, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2022 and 2024, had been confirmed in July on a partisan 52-44 vote. His tenure was also marked by controversy over his participation in a Signal group chat discussing attacks on Houthi militia.
