US official who resigned over Iran war under investigation, suspected of leaking information to podcaster Tucker Carlson
At the time of his resignation, on Tuesday, Joe Kent was a “known leaker” suspected of leaking data including to conservative Carlson, another critic of the Iran war and Israel, writes the American website Axios.
The former head of the US Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, had been under investigation for months for leaking classified information when he resigned on Tuesday, citing the Iran war.
Kent announced his resignation accusing Israel of tricking President Donald Trump into starting war with Iran, even though Tehran was not an “imminent threat” to the US.
Immediately after his resignation, administration officials said he was a “known leaker” and had been barred from briefings with the president.
The Semafor website reported that Kent had been under investigation before his resignation, a fact independently confirmed by Axios.
“He resigned because he is under investigation and he knew it”
One of the sources said Kent was suspected of leaking information to Tucker Carlson and another conservative podcaster. The same source said the FBI was also looking into leaked information related to Israel and Iran.
Little is known publicly about the investigation targeting Kent. However, Axios writes, citing a source, that the official had been under surveillance for months.
“He will try to say that this (the investigation) was in retaliation for his resignation,” the source said, “but it's the exact opposite: he resigned because he was being investigated and he knew it.”
“Joe Kent was right”
On Wednesday, Kent gave a two-hour interview to Carlson, an ally and critic of the Iran war and Israel.
Carlson defended Kent on his show and said he was paying the price for having previously predicted that a war with Iran would be a disaster.
“Joe Kent was right. Therefore, Joe Kent must be destroyed,” Carlson said. “And there is, of course, this ongoing attempt to do this, to discredit Joe Kent as a puppet of the Islamists or an informant,” Carlson said.
In conflict with the FBI
Kent clashed with the FBI last year when it tried to access investigative files into the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the New York Times reported.
Kent believed a “foreign agent” might have been involved in the assassination, he said on Carlson's show Wednesday, and he didn't understand why the FBI wouldn't want more help in the investigation to find other suspects.
An official familiar with the scandal said the reason was simple: “It's not a conspiracy. Kent's got crazy ideas. We caught the killer. And what we didn't need was a guy coming up with ridiculous alternative theories about foreign hit squads that the defense would have used to get the killer off the hook.”
The first senior official in the Trump administration to resign amid the war
Joe Kent resigned on Tuesday, saying Tehran did not pose an imminent threat to the United States.
“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran was not an imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war because of pressure from Israel and its powerful lobby,” Joseph Kent wrote in a letter to Trump published on X.
Kent charged that “senior Israeli officials and influential members of the American media have waged a disinformation campaign that has completely undermined the 'America First' platform and sowed pro-war sentiment to encourage a war with Iran.”
This campaign, he said, “was used to mislead you into believing that Iran was an imminent threat to the United States and that if you struck now, there would be a clear path to a quick victory.”
