Senate Republicans confirmed Joe Kent on a party-line vote to serve as President Donald Trump's director of the National Counterterrorism Center, The New York Times confirmed on Wednesday.
Kent, a former Army Green Beret who has lost multiple bids for Congress in Washington State, was confirmed 52-44 "despite his promotion of conspiracy theories, including that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Mr. Trump. He has said that the F.B.I. played a role in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and should be dismantled ... Mr. Kent has also attracted scrutiny over his associations to white supremacists and far-right extremist organizations."
"He later sought to distance himself from extremist groups as a congressional candidate, telling one news outlet ahead of Election Day in 2022 that he did not support them," a report noted — although he proceeded to lose that race to Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.
In particular, Kent sat for an interview with Greyson Arnold, a Nazi apologist who has complained about the “Jewish led colored hordes of the Earth." He also did a podcast with Nick Fuentes, who heads up the white supremacist "Groyper" movement — and during that interview, they speculated together on the "ideal ratio" of non-white or non-Christian people in America.
Kent has already been serving in the Trump administration on an acting basis, where he has had a controversial tenure.
For instance, The Times reported, while operating as acting chief of staff to the director of national intelligence, he "ordered a senior analyst to redo an assessment of the relationship between Venezuela’s government and a gang after intelligence findings undercut the White House’s justification for deporting migrants, according to officials."