Former National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) Director Joe Kent alleges the FBI shut down his efforts to explore whether the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, was tied to an Iranian-directed plot.
According to the Daily Caller, Kent contends that the Bureau prematurely concluded that 20-year-old would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks acted alone, without fully examining potential links to an Iran-backed scheme disrupted just one day earlier. The former Trump administration official, who resigned his post on March 17 over disagreements related to the Iran war, outlined his claims during a Thursday appearance on The Young Turks with host Cenk Uygur, raising fresh questions about the Biden administrations handling of politically explosive national security threats.
Initially, we were just told, Hey, Crooks, lone gunman, he was killed. And then Crooks was kind of an enigma, and we just didnt hear much more about him, like there was literally nothing about the guy, Kent told Uygur, describing the scant information made public about the 20-year-old shooter. Crooks was killed by a Secret Service sniper moments after he opened fire on Trump at the Butler rally, an event that immediately sparked concerns about security failures and possible foreign involvement.
Kent argued that the timing of the Butler attack demanded a far more aggressive inquiry into possible Iranian links, given that a separate plot to kill Trump had just been disrupted. Two days prior to Crooks taking the shot in Butler, there was a guy named Asif Merchant who was hired by the Iranians to come here and assassinate President Trump in retaliation for killing Qasem Soleimani, Kent said, adding, When Merchant came over here, obviously the FBI, was all over him.
Authorities arrested Merchant on July 12, 2024, one day before Crooks attempt on Trumps life, and he later admitted to acting as an agent of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. A federal grand jury convicted Merchant on March 6, underscoring that Tehrans regime had, at minimum, an active interest in targeting the president.
Kent said his concern was straightforward: whether the government had truly exhausted all leads connecting the two incidents. My basic question was, Have we done our due diligence to make sure that there was no linkage between the two events?' Kent told The Young Turks host, suggesting that a responsible counterterrorism posture would demand a thorough scrub of any possible overlap.
He further claimed that outside investigative work had unearthed more about Crooks than federal authorities initially disclosed. Fast forward a couple months, and Tucker Carlsons investigative journalist finds a lot of online presence from Thomas Crooks, digs up a lot more than it appears the FBI dug up, the former counterterrorism chief noted, referring to a Carlson documentary on Crooks released in November 2025.
Kent said those findings prompted him to push for a renewed intelligence review of Crooks background and possible foreign ties. And so I wanted to go back and make sure that we checked all that through intelligence channels and really researched into what we had learned through Tuckers investigative journalism about Crooks online persona again, just to check to see if there was foreign ties and to check to see if theres any linkage between the Merchant plot because maybe we didnt wrap all of it up and what took place there in Butler, he added.
According to Kent, that is precisely when the FBI intervened to shut down further inquiry. The FBI did not tolerate this at all, Kent said. They basically said, Hey, theres nothing else to see here and stopped us from investigating any of those potentials, to my knowledge.
Uygur, no ally of Trump or of hawkish Iran policy, nonetheless acknowledged how unusual that response appeared on its face. See, that is incredibly strange, Uygur chimed in. Because Merchant is theoretically working with the Iranians. That would help the talking point about, Oh my God, the Iranians tried to murder the president. You got to strike back.'
The host pressed further, questioning why an administration that has publicly opposed Iran would not want to fully explore any possible connection. So, why wouldnt we want to investigate further if hes [Crooks is] connected to Iran? the host asked. Joe, my sense of it from having read what I read thats public, is that Id be surprised if he [Crooks] was connected to Iran. It sounds like youre saying that he definitely was.
Kent pushed back on that characterization, insisting his position was not that Crooks was definitively tied to Tehran, but that the government had a duty to find out. My argument was, Hey, lets make sure that this wasnt a broader Iranian plot. Why wouldnt we look into everything? And then we were stopped,' Kent said, framing his dispute with the Bureau as a matter of basic due diligence in the face of a hostile foreign power.
Uygur, for his part, underscored the apparent contradiction between the administrations public posture on Iran and the alleged reluctance to probe a potential link in an assassination attempt on a president. That is intensely strange from an administration that is obviously opposed to Iran, so opposed we went to war, Uygur replied. Iran tries to take a shot at the president. That guy is arrested, a day later, then somebody does take a shot at the president, and they say, Dont look at the link.'
When contacted for comment, the FBI did not issue a new detailed statement but instead pointed the Daily Caller News Foundation to a Wednesday post on X by Assistant Director for Public Affairs Ben Williamson. A number of people have asked for response to this so here it is: Joe Kent is being a dishonest hack, Williamson said in the post, which he issued in response to the DCNFs earlier exclusive on Kents separate allegation that the FBI director blocked further investigation into the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Williamson dismissed Kents claims as outside his authority and expertise, stressing that the NCTC is not a law enforcement body. He [Kent] worked for the NCTC which is not a law enforcement or investigative agency he had ZERO role or 1811 investigative authority in this. This is like me saying I was blocked from playing receiver for the Commanders its an issue of having no business or frankly ability doing something, not an issue of access, Williamson said in the post. Furthermore, FBI actually made an early exception and allowed NCTC to assess intelligence reports, and International Terrorism returned zero connections. None.
The FBI spokesman went on to accuse Kent of fabricating narratives for personal gain and warned that his rhetoric could hinder justice in the Kirk case. Joe Kent kept making things up anyway. The shameless media tour hes on reeks of being desperate for attention and the baseless conspiracy theories hes spreading about the admin, particularly Charlies murder, could very well make it more difficult to get justice for our friend. If he had any shame, Joe Kent should be ashamed of himself, the Wednesday post, which did not address the attempted assassination of Trump, concluded.
Kents allegations, the Bureaus sharp denial, and the unresolved questions about Crooks motives and connections highlight a deeper concern for many on the right: whether federal law enforcement applies equal zeal when threats target conservative leaders and President Trump. With Iran openly hostile to the United States and previously implicated in plots against Trump, the refusal to fully explore potential links between an admitted Iranian agent and a near-fatal attack on a commander-in-chief will likely fuel further skepticism about the Biden administrations priorities and the FBIs willingness to follow every lead, wherever it may point.
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