FBI Braces for Blowback in Joe Kent Investigation

FBI Director Kash Patel has privately indicated a desire to make public as much information as possible about material allegedly leaked by Joe Kent, who resigned this week as director of the National Counterterrorism Center, according to a law enforcement source.

Patel believes declassifications could head off accusations that the timing of the investigation into Kent makes it appear as if the administration is retaliating against him for quitting his post and publicly breaking with the White House over its war in Iran, the source said.

The FBI is investigating alleged leaking of classified information by Kent, according to two government officials. Once the investigation is complete, the findings would be sent to the Justice Department, which would decide whether to file criminal charges.

The law enforcement source stressed that FBI counterintelligence was already working on a criminal investigation before Kent abruptly quit in protest over the U.S.-Israeli war on Tuesday.

The defection of Kent — a former Green Beret commando with strong MAGA credentials who specifically warned years ago about the dangers of a U.S. war with Iran — has set off a firestorm in Washington.

“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,” he posted on X.

A law enforcement source said FBI agents had determined Kent shared secret government information with disaffected MAGA media figures, like Tucker Carlson.

A second administration official said that Kent leaked classified information from a server to a member of the media.

Neither the FBI nor Carlson immediately responded to requests on Thursday.

Kent went on Carlson’s popular online show Wednesday, his first public appearance since his departure. On the show, Carlson highlighted Kent’s longstanding view that a U.S. war with Iran would be disastrous and would strengthen China’s relative global power. Carlson pointed to a January 2024 interview he conducted where Kent said Iran was still Persia and “has always been an empire,” and that initial American military gains would give way to a protracted and difficult war.

Carlson framed the situation as one in which powerful government figures are caught in a lie and trying to silence a truth-teller, casting the leak accusations against Kent as a smear meant to distract from bad policy.

On Wednesday’s show, Carlson asked Kent whether Iran posed an “imminent threat,” which would support President Donald Trump’s public justification for initiating the war.

“Was Iran on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon?” Carlson asked.

“No, they weren’t three weeks ago when this started, and they weren’t in June either,” Kent said, referring back to the administration’s strike on three Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities last summer.

Trump has long stated that he felt Iran, whose governing regime has called for the annihilation of Israel’s 10 million residents, could not be permitted to have a nuclear weapon. Kent argued to Carlson that Israeli influence has shifted U.S. policy into not allowing Iran to conduct any nuclear enrichment.

Kent sees Israel as an expansionist destabilizer in the Middle East that dragged the United States into war — a view that is increasingly shared by America First conservatives and some progressive Democrats. But that view is also paired with his belief that Israeli influence has caused other, older regional conflicts.

Policy experts have pointed out inconsistencies in Kent’s argument. Charles Lister, who has written extensively about Syria during and after its civil war, criticized Kent’s claim that Israel was to blame for the rise of the armed Islamist group ISIS and the Iraq War.

“That’s quite the conspiracy theory — and a wild misunderstanding of reality — to say the least,” he wrote Thursday.

The matter is personal for Kent. Kent was married to Shannon Kent, a senior chief petty officer and Navy cryptologist who was killed while deployed in Syria in 2019. In his open letter this week, he described himself as “a Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel.”

The Trump administration has sought to tamp down leaks from government officials, reportedly using polygraphs in various agencies to catch people who they believe shared sensitive or classified information.

Dan Caldwell, a former top adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and two of his colleagues were fired last year from the Department of Defense over Hegseth’s accusations that they were behind leaked information. After a lengthy investigation, Caldwell is now serving in a new position under the Director of National Intelligence — a sign that those allegations were not substantiated.