The White House on Wednesday sought to distance itself from Joe Kent, a top counter-terrorism official who resigned in protest of the Iran war, by depicting him as not involved in U.S. intelligence assessment.
“He was not someone who was involved in the President Daily Brief, part of the president’s intelligence briefings over the last several months, have not seen him here at the White House for quite some time,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
“And the president feels it’s deeply disappointing that after the president gave him an opportunity in this administration to serve the American people that he would resign with a letter filled with falsehoods, accusing the president of the United States of being controlled by a foreign country — that’s both insulting and laughable all at the same time,” she said.
Mr. Kent is the only senior member of the administration to quit over the war.
In a searing resignation letter posted on X, Mr. Kent said Iran did not pose a threat to the U.S., and accused Mr. Trump of kowtowing to pressure from Israel to attack Iran.
“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” Mr. Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, wrote in his resignation letter. “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.”
Sen. Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, called Mr. Kent’s comments “virulent antisemitism” and said the federal government’s intelligence community is better off without him.
The president said he always thought that Mr. Kent was “weak on security.”
“When somebody is working with us that says they didn’t think Iran was a threat—we don’t want those people,” the president told reporters Tuesday.
