Joe Kent might have to pause his speed running through his media blitz of “strange new respect.”

On Tuesday, Kent – who was currently serving as National Counterterrorism Center director, and who had previously been Tulsi Gabbard’s chief of staff – resigned very publicly, claiming that Iran was not an “imminent threat” and blaming Israel for everything, including the death of his first wife, Navy cryptologist Senior Chief Shannon Kent.

The problem is, of course, that Joe Kent had said very much the opposite of everything he was saying in that resignation letter in years past – and everyone got the receipts.

Joe Kent, meet Joe Kent.

January 2020, Kent posted: Trump's "red line is American loss of life & IR nuke development… I personally think we should have crushed their ballistic & nuke capes, but Trump has a plan, he has definitely earned the confidence of any clear eyed… https://t.co/yZG9KBHmC9 pic.twitter.com/OBys4NLerS

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) March 17, 2026

You can't make this up. https://t.co/WBpkuSzVmJ pic.twitter.com/qsEy2RONEQ

— Wasson Watch Co. (@WassonWatch) March 18, 2026

But that wasn’t going to stop anyone who wanted to hear the narrative that Kent was now putting out. Immediately, he was hailed as a “truth teller” by all the usual suspects on both right and left. He was announced as a speaker at a Catholic convention alongside names like Candace Owens. By Wednesday, a Joe Kent interview with Tucker Carlson was being aired. And this all happened within the first 24 hours of his resignation!

And then the news broke that Joe Kent was under criminal investigation by the FBI.

Semafor dropped the story first, quickly followed by multiple other outlets.

The FBI is investigating former National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent in connection with alleged leaks of classified information, multiple sources with direct knowledge of the matter tell CBS News.

The probe began before Kent resigned this week over the Trump administration’s handling of the war with Iran, the sources said. The FBI’s Criminal Division is handling the probe, which has been underway for some time, one source said.

Former deputy White House chief of staff Taylor Budowich alluded to the issue shortly after Kent resigned, writing on X that Kent was “often at the center of national security leaks” and “spent all of his time working to subvert the chain of command and undermine the President.” He didn’t specify what information Kent was accused of leaking.

Well, there has been plenty of speculation about what Joe Kent may have leaked. For example, remember the Signal chat that got leaked in March 2025 after Jeffrey Goldberg was added to it? Guess who else was on that chat? Joe Kent. So, who put Jeffrey Goldberg’s phone number into the mix? Who leaked the intelligence report in June 2025 after Operation Midnight Hammer that claimed that Iran’s nuclear program had only been delayed by a few months? Who put the idea into the media ecosystem that the United States had not gamed out what a closure of the Strait of Hormuz would look like?

But how convenient that Joe Kent dropped that big splashy resignation letter and immediately gained all sorts of “strange new respect”!

And…there it is.

Kent knew he was under the microscope for allegedly leaking. Likewise, he knew that if he went out in a blaze of glory, hitting all the talking points, the podcast circuit would rally behind him and suggest it’s all a conspiracy. https://t.co/wg2W9RrnuC

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) March 19, 2026

Now, we don’t know if this investigation is going to move quickly, or result in actual criminal charges. We don’t know exactly what Kent is alleged to have leaked – we only know that he was cut out of the information loop because was known to the Trump administration to be “a leaker.” And we don’t know when that alleged leaking took place, or if there were multiple occasions. We also don’t know if those alleged leaks encompass both his time as Tulsi Gabbard’s chief of staff and his role as director at the National Counterterrorism Center, or in just one of those positions. We don’t know what kind of influence his second wife, Heather, has been on him. We don’t know whether we should take him seriously when he claims that he wanted to use his office to investigate Charlie Kirk’s assassination, or if he is merely saying that now for podcast clout.

Joe Kent has worked fast to publicly align himself with the anti-Israel crowd, and make new allies among those who hate President Trump’s foreign policy. He has quite deliberately obfuscated known facts in order to make his personal story more sympathetic to certain crowds. The news of the FBI investigation might put a damper on his “strange new respect,” but it remains to be seen just how much hot water the man himself is currently standing in.

Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click