Joe Kent, the recently resigned director of the US National Counterterrorism Center,” is a delusional, antisemitic conspiracist. This is readily apparent from his Mar. 17 resignation letter, which centers on his belief that Israel and “its powerful American lobby” are manipulating the United States into starting wars.
There are many important angles to this story, including how Kent was ever entrusted with the position, given his lengthy history of promoting conspiracy theories and rubbing shoulders with racist extremists like Nick Fuentes.
Another important angle: how Western journalists and media outlets who find Kent too toxic for an open embrace – but share the disposition to blaming Israel for all that ails the world – have reported on his resignation. Because his conspiratorial thinking isn’t far off from their own, the narrative he built in his letter echoes what has been featured throughout mainstream media.
Consider how several major networks reported on the resignation.
Some, such as NBC News, simply failed to inform their audience on Kent’s credibility, or rather, lack thereof. While quoting Kent’s rationale about “Israel and its powerful American lobby,” readers were left unaware of Kent’s loony beliefs, or that later in his letter, he also absurdly implied that Israel “manufactured” the civil war in Syria in which his wife was killed by Islamic State terrorists.
Flirting with Kent’s conspiracy theory
Other outlets were more manipulative, flirting with Kent’s conspiracy theory while trying to avoid the appearance of endorsement. CNN’s Zachary Cohen wrote that Kent’s resignation “renews questions, which the administration has long struggled to answer, about why the US launched the [war] in the first place.”
Four Washington Post journalists similarly write that Kent’s “resignation comes amid growing questions as to why the US went to war with Iran,” claiming that “Trump’s explanation of the strategic rationale continues to shift.” They then all but openly endorse Kent’s conspiracy theory, citing two anonymous “people familiar with the decision-making” (whatever that means) who “said that Israel began a coordinated effort to pressure the US into striking within the very first weeks after the new Trump administration took office.”
Each reporter worked to breathe life into the same conspiracy woven by Kent by misleading their audience. The US has not shifted its strategic rationale or struggled to explain why it struck Iran. In fact, administration officials from President Trump to Secretary Rubio to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Caine have been remarkably consistent, citing the same goals: eliminating Iran’s nuclear and military capabilities, especially its ballistic missile threat, and creating the conditions for the Iranian people to rise up against the regime.
Given Iran’s decadeslong history of attacks on and bellicose rhetoric toward the United States and Israel, as well as its ideological commitment to continuing to export its violent ideology across the world, the justification for these goals is readily apparent.
But instead of accurately relaying these official statements, both CNN and The Washington Post chose instead to relay only their own inaccurate interpretations, or narratives, of the statements. Only this way could Kent’s conspiratorial ramblings maintain a false appearance of credibility. Only this way can the narrative be built despite the facts.
Kent’s conspiracy theory connecting disparate dots only works by skipping over the inconvenient ones. In a normal world, mainstream journalism would be reporting on those inconvenient dots, not playing the same deceptive game. From my perch as a media researcher at CAMERA, I find this to be less and less the reality in today’s world.
David M. Litman is the US Media Research Manager at the media-monitoring organization CAMERA.