An intelligence official confirmed reports that Joe Kent, who resigned Tuesday from his post as director of the National Counterterrorism Center, had been left out of the planning and subsequent briefings on the military action in Iran.
The official told The Daily Wire later on Tuesday that Kent — who asserted in his resignation letter that there was no “imminent threat” directed at the United States by the Iranian regime — had not been privy to the planning and briefings in which such a threat might have been discussed. The official also refuted several reports suggesting that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard had been advised by the White House to fire Kent and had failed to do so.
“NEW: Intelligence official tells @realDailyWire that it’s true that Joe Kent wasn’t part of the planning of the Iran war or briefings on the war,” Daily Wire White House Correspondent Mary Margaret Olohan reported. “It is not true that DNI’s Tulsi Gabbard was asked by the White House to fire Kent, source says— if she had been asked to do so, she would have fired him.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) also suggested during a Tuesday press conference that Kent could not possibly have attended the briefings on Iran.
“I’m on the Gang of 8. I got all the briefings. We all understood that there was clearly an imminent threat, that Iran was very close to the enrichment of nuclear capability, and they were building missiles at a pace that no one in the region could keep up with,” Johnson said. “Iran was building up ballistic missiles at such a rapid pace, and we knew that their plan was to fire them upon Americans.”
“I don’t know where Joe Kent is getting his information, but he wasn’t in those briefings clearly,” Johnson added. “They had exquisite intelligence that we understood this was a serious moment for us. Had the president waited, I am personally convinced, that we would have mass casualties of Americans, service members and others, and our installations would have been dramatically damaged.”
Trump also responded to Kent’s resignation on Tuesday, saying, “I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security.”
