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Joe Kent, facing FBI probe, shares inside scoop on Iran war after resignation bombshell: ‘Israel forced Trump to strike’
Top US counterterrorism official Joe Kent resigned on Tuesday, citing concerns about the justification for military strikes in Iran.
Joe Kent, the top US security official who recently resigned over the war in Iran, is reportedly facing an FBI investigation over allegations of leaking classified information.
The investigation into Kent, former National Counterterrorism Center Director, is focused on allegations that he improperly shared classified information, Semafor reported, citing four people with direct knowledge of the investigation. Track latest in US-Iran war here
The investigation pre-dates his departure as the head of the National Counterterrorism Center on Tuesday, the above-mentioned people said, with one of them describing it as being months-long.
The FBI has yet to comment on the report.
‘Israel forced Trump’s hand': Kent shares inside scoop
A day after dropping the resignation bombshell. Joe Kent said on Wednesday that he and other senior officials with doubts about the airstrikes “were not allowed” to share them with President Donald Trump.
Speaking on Tucker Carlson's show, Kent said the president relied on a small circle of advisers in making his decision to strike Iran. Kent claimed Israel forced Trump's hand despite what he said was no evidence that Iran posed an imminent threat to the US.
“A good deal of key decision makers were not allowed to come and express their opinion to the president,” Associated Press quoted Kent as saying in the interview.
"There wasn’t a robust debate,” he said, offering an inside glimpse into Trump's decision on US-Israel February 28 strikes.
As head of the National Counterterrorism Center, Kent looked after an agency tasked with analysing and detecting terrorist threats, with his work being overseen by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Gabbard on Wednesday said that it was up to Trump – and Trump alone – to decide whether Iran posed a threat.
Kent said no intelligence suggested that Iran was working to develop nuclear weapons, and that he believes Israel was able to force the US to act by promising to act first, potentially putting US interests in the region at risk, the AP report mentioned. He said Israeli officials and US media pundits helped make the argument that Iran was a threat.
“The Israelis drove the decision to take this action,” Kent told Carlson. He cited comments from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and House Speaker Mike Johnson suggesting that Israel’s plans prompted the US to take action.
Kent, who has previous connections to right-wing extremists, said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials personally lobbied Trump, often with information that US officials couldn’t confirm.
“When we would hear what they were saying, it didn’t reflect intelligence channels,” Kent said. His claim that an “Israeli lobby” was behind Trump's decision to launch the war has drawn criticism from Jewish groups and others who said it amounted to antisemitism.
