Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned on Tuesday in protest of the war in Iran, accusing Israel and its American lobby of pressuring the US into conflict.
In his resignation letter posted on X, Kent wrote: 'I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.'
Kent, a former special forces warrant officer and supporter of Donald Trump, praised the president's first-term actions such as killing Qassem Suleimani and defeating Isis but criticised what he called a 'misinformation campaign' by Israeli officials and American media that he said deceived Trump into believing Iran was an imminent threat.
Trump responded at a St Patrick's Day reception, saying he had read Kent's statement and claiming he 'didn't know him well'. The president added: 'I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security... When someone says Iran was not a threat, we don't want those people.'
Kent, whose wife Shannon was killed in Syria in 2019, previously ran unsuccessfully for Congress in Washington state. His tenure was also marked by controversy over his involvement in a Signal group chat discussing Houthi attacks, which was accidentally shared with a journalist.
