FBI investigates counter-terrorism chief who quit over Iran war, angering Trump

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WASHINGTON – The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has opened an investigation into Mr Joe Kent – who was pilloried by the White House after he quit as the top US counterterrorism official over the Iran war – for possibly leaking sensitive intelligence, according to two people with knowledge of the situation.

The investigation predated the resignation on March 17 of Mr Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, according to those people, who discussed a continuing investigation on condition of anonymity.

Disclosure of the inquiry, which was reported earlier by Semafor, came after a coordinated Trump administration effort to discredit Mr Kent as untrustworthy and disloyal.

The FBI and the Justice Department under Mr Trump have frequently targeted the President’s critics and political enemies for criminal investigations, often without sufficient evidence to obtain or sustain a criminal indictment.

“Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation,” Mr Kent wrote in his public resignation letter to US President Donald Trump, which landed as the President was grappling with the economic and geopolitical fallout from the Iran war.

Mr Kent, the first senior member of the administration to quit over the war, claimed that the attack on Iran was “due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby”.

He was interviewed on March 18 by Mr Tucker Carlson, a close friend, on his popular online podcast. Mr Carlson, who gained notoriety for a sympathetic interview with a white nationalist in 2025, has been one of the most visible conservative opponents of the war and a vocal critic of Israel.

Mr Kent’s critics have long accused him of promoting an anti-Semitic and anti-Israel worldview.

Yet, his resignation widened a rift among Republicans over the war and the US relationship with Israel.

Mr Trump, who, as president, is sensitive to the right-wing media sphere, quickly rebuked Mr Kent after his resignation, saying: “It’s a good thing that he’s out because he said Iran was not a threat.”

In his appearance with Mr Carlson, Mr Kent effusively praised the President and his previous policies, including past acts of aggression towards Iran, such as the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani in 2020, and the US bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities in 2025.

But Mr Kent also repeated his claims that there was no evidence of an imminent attack from Iran before the war began, and that the US had been drawn into the conflict by Israel.

He called on Mr Trump to bar Israel from striking Iran, and to stop supplying Israel with defence systems if it refused.

“He has to address the main issue,” Mr Kent said. “The main issue is what the Israelis are doing. And he needs to – very forcefully, and probably with a new team of diplomats – go to the Israelis and say: ‘You’re done. We will defend you. We will make sure that, you know, ballistic missiles aren’t rained down upon you. However, you are done going on the offence because this is our war’.”

Mr Kent is not an ordinary war critic.

He has long had a penchant for conspiracy theories, suggesting without evidence that FBI agents could have been responsible for orchestrating the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. He has dismissed allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election, saying that such accusations were part of the “Russia hoax”.

In his appearance with Mr Carlson, the two promoted unfounded claims that Israel may have been involved in an attempted assassination of Mr Trump in 2024, as well as the killing of right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk in 2025. NYTIMES