Donald Trump's National Counterterrorism Center director, Joe Kent, abruptly announced his resignation on March 17 over Operation Epic Fury, asserting that Israel wrongly convinced America to strike Iran's regime, the same regime that has been killing Americans for half a century. A clue as to why Kent made this decision — so contradictory to many of his previous stated views — could come from his second wife's past connection with a virulently anti-Israel, pro-terror website.
I have admired Joe Kent and his late wife Shannon for years, and was happy when he joined the Trump administration at the National Counterterrorism Center. After all, he lost his first wife to a Muslim suicide bomber in Syria — who else could have a more personal stake in countering terrorism? And for the first year, Kent had done good work, including uncovering thousands of terrorists the Biden administration welcomed in from Afghanistan. He seemed to be the right man for the job.
But here's where Kent's second wife comes in. Heather Kaiser Kent is also a veteran, but somehow her experience in the military didn't convince her of the unadulterated evil of Islamic jihad versus Israel, which is our one buffer against Islamic terror in the Middle East. And it seems she has swayed Joe to her opinion so that he now contradicts his own former views and is even willing to overlook the fact that Shannon died thanks to jihad. Last year, Joe Kent said that Iran posed an imminent threat to the USA. This year, Joe Kent says: "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."
Kent continued to rant in his resignation letter about "high-ranking Israeli officials" supposedly spreading "misinformation" that "sowed pro-war sentiments" based on "a lie." Worst of all, he blamed Shannon's death not on the Islamic jihadis who really killed her, but on Israel, claiming the Iraq war was "manufactured by Israel."
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Donald Trump has explicitly contradicted the claim that Israel pressured him into the strike, incidentally, saying he was the one eager to set the date for Operation Epic Fury after it became clear to him based on evidence he had that Iran's regime was about to hit us, as they have done before. But here’s Heather Kaiser Kent's profile on a virulently anti-Israel website, Grayzone, where she contributed at least as recently as 2023:
Heather Kaiser is a former military intelligence officer and veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She is an independent researcher and analyst for defense, intelligence, and political matters. Heather earned a bachelor's in geopolitics from the United States Military Academy at West Point and earned a degree in sculpture from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Since the 2020 riots, she has returned to research and analysis of current events for organizations such as American Contingency and Grayzone.
For example, the top headline on Grayzone as of about 8:30 p.m. EST on Tuesday was, “Apple buys Israeli ‘pre-speech’ tech firm implicated in Gaza genocide.” The article accused Israel multiple times of committing apartheid and genocide in Gaza, both wildly false claims that have been repeatedly debunked. In fact, the article reads like deranged Hamas propaganda, chock-full of blood libels against Israel.
Equally disgusting is an article that denies the horrendous massacre of Iranian freedom protesters in January. “Meet the former fashion blogger and shady doctor behind the ‘30,000 dead’ Iran psy-op,” Grayzone chuckles. Actually, Iranian sources, including exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, put the death toll at over 40,000. Even Iranian regime officials have admitted to the 30,000 number. Another Grayzone article excitedly claims, “Grayzone report prompts Google to suspend ad account of Atlanta influencer used to recruit Iranians for Mossad.”
The website even got in on the anti-Trump propaganda over the arrest of Venezuelan narcoterrorist dictator Nicolás Maduro: “Behind the DOJ’s politicized indictment of Maduro: a CIA-created ‘network’ and coerced star witness.”
To be fair, there does not seem to be a published article from Heather Kaiser Kent on Grayzone since 2023, but her recent reposts and posts on social media (see @HeatherKaiserWA on X) are all opposed strenuously to conflict with the Iranian regime. In 2024, she relayed propaganda straight from Hamas and even labeled as such, and in 2025 she asserted multiple times that there was no good reason for the USA to join Israel in striking Iran, calling it “sickening.” Interestingly, she has criticized pro-Hamas protestors, but that has not apparently affected her views on Israel and Iran. So I’m going to go out on a limb and say she hasn’t changed her views much in three years since Grayzone published her.
And if that’s so, it would explain a lot about why Joe Kent abruptly quit the Trump administration while vilifying Israel.
