‘Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation’: Trump-appointed intelligence official resigns over Iran war | CNN Politics

A senior US intelligence official appointed by President Donald Trump abruptly announced he is stepping down from his post on Tuesday, citing misgivings about the administration’s war with Iran. Joe Kent, who had been serving as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, posted his resignation letter on X, contradicting the administration’s basis for launching the war and imploring Trump to end it. “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” Kent wrote in the 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.” The resignation is the highest-profile rebuke yet of the war effort from a Trump administration insider and staunch supporter of the MAGA movement, albeit one who instantly drew criticism for alleged antisemitism. It reflects how the conflict is roiling some of Trump’s most high-profile MAGA supporters, like Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, even though rank-and-file Republicans largely back the president. It also renews questions, which the administration has long struggled to answer, about why the US launched the effort in the fi