Senate confirms former Washington congressional candidate Joe Kent to counterterrorism post

Jim Brunner, The Seattle Times on Jul 30, 2025

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The U.S. Senate has confirmed former Washington congressional candidate Joe Kent as director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

In a 52-44 vote Wednesday, Senate Republicans pushed through Kent's nomination to be the top counterterrorism official within the U.S. intelligence community, brushing off objections from Democrats over his associations with white nationalists and involvement in this year's Signalgate scandal.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, praised Kent for his two decades of military service, including 11 combat deployments as an Army Special Forces soldier, and a stint at the CIA.

“Mr. Kent has dedicated his career to fighting terrorism and keeping Americans safe," Cotton said.

He cited Kent's personal sacrifice, pointing to the death of his first wife, Shannon Kent, a Navy cryptologist, who died in a terrorist bombing in Syria in 2019.

The vote was party-line, with all Senate Republicans except Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina voting to confirm Kent and all Democrats voting against him.

Democrats strongly opposed Kent's nomination to the counterterrorism position, pointing to his repeated promotion of false or unproven conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said she was "deeply alarmed" that Republicans were insistent on confirming Kent, calling him "a conspiracy theorist who espouses white supremacist views" and is "patently unqualified for the job.

Kent, who was nominated by President Donald Trump in February, ran twice for Congress in southwest Washington's 3rd Congressional District, losing in 2022 and 2024 to Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.

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