Alana Goodman writes for the Washington Free Beacon about a high-profile departure from the Trump administration.
The director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, resigned on Tuesday with a long-winded letter denouncing Operation Epic Fury and arguing that the president initiated military action against Iran “due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.” The same forces, he said, were responsible for his late wife’s 2019 death in “a war manufactured by Israel,” though records show she died in an ISIS attack during the Syrian civil war.
Kent, in a resignation letter to President Donald Trump that he then posted to social media, said he supported the America First foreign policy the president had campaigned on, citing the strike that killed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Qassem Soleimani, though he said at the time the strike would lead to “endless war.”
“[H]igh-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran,” Kent said Tuesday.
Trump said at a press conference Tuesday that, while Kent was a “nice guy,” it is a “good thing that he’s out.”
“I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security,” the president said.
Former Trump White House aide Taylor Budowich slammed Kent as a “crazed egomaniac who was often at the center of national security leaks, while rarely (never?) producing any actual work.”
Kent’s resignation comes three weeks after the United States and Israel launched a joint military operation against Iran that has destroyed the terror state’s navy and air force, destroyed its missile and drone programs, and killed Iranian dictator Ali Khamenei and most of his top leaders.
It also comes in the wake of several attacks in the United States in recent weeks.
