Joe Kent Is a Better Conspirator Than Conspiracy Theorist

A Thorough Look at the "Jews Killed Charlie" Theory

On March 17, the then little known Joe Kent resigned from his position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center and immediately hit the talk show circuit. He appeared first on those podcasts most amenable to his message, namely that “we started this war [with Iran] due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.” Having served 11 combat tours, Kent is a certified patriot and one not easily dismissed.

That said, certain podcasters featured Kent quickly enough to raise suspicions about whether he had coordinated his media appearances in advance of his resignation. Some of these same podcasters were less interested in Kent’s geopolitical musings than they were about his presumed inside dope on the assassination of conservative icon Charlie Kirk.

As Kent told Tucker Carlson, in June 2025 he encountered Kirk in the White House west wing. Speaking “very loudly.” Kirk reportedly told Kent, “Joe, stop us from getting into a war with Iran.” The US began its two-day assault on Iranian nuclear facilities on June 22. On June 24, the US brokered a ceasefire between Iran and Israel, ending all hostilities after 12 days. One assumes this June encounter, if real, took place before June 22.

A vocal critic of President Trump’s relationship with Israel, Carlson, according to Trump, called and apologized “because he thought he said things that were a little bit too strong, and I appreciated that.” This call came after Israel began bombing Iran but before the attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Those like Kent who accuse Israel of manipulating Trump forget that it was Trump who brokered the end of the 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran. More to the point, Trump publicly excoriated Israel for breaking the terms of the cease fire. “I’m not happy about that, Israel,” he told a press gaggle on June 24.

The American involvement in June was so swift and successful that criticism from the anti-interventionist right was muted in the succeeding months. During those months, Kirk continued to live his life openly and bravely. An evangelist for Christian conservatism, Kirk faced potentially hostile audiences on a regular basis on a wide range of issues, aggravating his critics at every stop, his transgender critics most notably.

Kirk was living dangerously, a danger he had long recognized. In April 2018, he texted podcaster Candace Owens about his premonitions. “If I tell you the true prophecy I know in my gut it’s really sad,” Kirk wrote, adding, “But I hope its wrong. Anyway I am not sure if I will live to see the end of this revolution. Since the beginning of TPUSA I knew in my gut that I might get wiped out at any time. I cannot explain it.” That fateful day came on September 10, 2025, when Kirk was assassinated in full view of thousands at Utah Valley University.

The day prior, September 9, Kirk had participated in a group chat with eight other friends and supporters. After Kirk’s murder, his executive producer Andrew Kolvet shared the chat messages and other information with Kent, who he was told could be trusted. When Kent asked that the chat be made public, Kolvet declined, choosing not to compromise the privacy of those involved.

“But then,” said Kolvet, “fast forward another week or two, and they were made public. So that’s what I know, is that Joe suggested that they be made public, I declined, then they were made public. Can I 100% categorically say that he leaked them? No. But those are the facts.”

The recipient of the leaked chat was Candace Owens. For Owens, a connoisseur of all things Jewish, it was like finding a pony under her tree on Christmas morning. On October 7 she released screen shots from this WhatsApp exchange. What intrigued Owens were Kirk’s expressed frustration with his Jewish donors who were “playing into all the stereotypes.” Kirk complained that they were pushing him to “leave the pro-Israel cause.” Said Kirk, “I cannot and will not be bullied like this.”

Whether or not he was the leaker, Kent saw Kirk’s frustrations with his Jewish donors as a possible clue in solving Kirk’s murder. As Kent told Carlson, Kirk was “vocally advocating for us not to go to war with Iran and to rethink at least our relationship with Israelis and then he’s suddenly and publicly assassinated and we’re not allowed to ask any questions about that. That’s a data point.”

In the days after Kirk’s murder and before the case against accused killer Tyler Robinson became clear, Kent could have speculated in good faith about possible Israeli involvement. But once Kent saw the ample evidence against Robinson—he admittedly has—his continued speculation suggests a larger issue.

To connect the September 9 group chat to the September murder, Kent had to ignore the testimony of Kirk’s Jewish friend, Josh Hammer, who participated in the September 9 chat with Kirk. Disgusted with Owens, Hammer posted a screenshot of his communications with Kirk from two hours after the group chat on September 9.

“Thank you for all your help today guys,” wrote Kirk.

“Good luck as the campus visits start,” Hammer responded. “Don’t hesitate to let me know (or any of us know) how we can help.”

An unnamed participant chimed in, “Say hi to your Antifa friends.”

Commented Hammer, “The notion that Charlie Kirk was ‘turning’ on his career-long friendships with the Jewish people and the Jewish state of Israel—as opposed to (sarcastically!) blowing off steam in a private group chat setting—is an egregious lie and is belied by the facts.”

But Joe Kent is not a guy easily deterred by facts. In his resignation letter, he argued that the Jewish lobby lied Trump into going to war with Iran, “the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women.”

Except the Israelis did not draw us into the Iraq war. A useful source on this is reporter and Israel critic Peter Beinart. I cite Beinart because he is unlikely to lie on Israel’s behalf, having been accused by his critics of routinely “spouting intellectually dishonest arguments in order to demonize the Jewish state.”

Beinart described Kent as a “brave man,” whose letter “contains some essential truths.” That conceded, Beinart took serious issue with Kent’s evidence, writing “[Kent’s] assertion that Israel was responsible for US wars in Iraq and Syria is false, and evidence of a dangerously conspiratorial worldview.” Beinart provided ample evidence to prove Israel resisted American involvement in both Iraq and Syria, including the fact that woke whipping boy Benjamin Netanyahu was long out of power when the US invaded Iraq.

Kent acknowledges that the evidence against Tyler Robinson is strong, but, as he told Michael Shellenberger, he had “always found the lone shooter narrative to be challenging.” Kent never says outright that Israel conspired with Robinson, but he always implies it. So strong, in fact, are Kent’s suspicions about Israeli involvement that he has volunteered to testify on behalf of Tyler Robinson, the man accused of killing Kirk. Kolvet and other Kirk intimates worry that Kent’s testimony will get Robinson off the hook. “The level of betrayal that I currently feel is dramatic and extreme,” said Kolvet.

Fueled by Candace Owens’s imaginative dot-connecting, too many otherwise smart people are entertaining the notion that the Mossad somehow found their way to the furry world of Tyler Robinson and his transgender roommate Lance Twiggs and used Robinson as their “patsy.” Their best evidence is the group chat from September 9, the day before the assassination. Some suggest, never say outright, that Kirk’s comments about Israel set the Manchurian Candidate plot in action.

I use the word “entertain” advisedly. Almost no one declares Israel helped assassinate Charlie Kirk, not even Joe Kent. Like Kent, they dangle the idea and imply the DOJ refused to investigate this possibility for fear it would be true. No, if the FBI did not dive in head first it was because the Israelis were no more likely to have killed Charlie Kirk than they were to have kidnapped Nancy Guthrie. A sound conspiracy theory has to be plausible. This one is not.

Imagine the plot from the Israeli perspective. The risk of being found out would so outweigh any imaginable reward—and what would that be?—that no sane leader would ever even float the idea.

No, Kirk sensed who his killers would be, and his intuition proved correct. Said Kolvet, “I heard over the course of the last two years of Charlie’s life, probably about 50 references of how he knew the transtifa was gonna come after him and he was worried about that. That’s the truth, never mentioned one time about the Jews, okay? Never once.”