Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Reuters
In 2022, fringe right-wing congressional candidate Joe Kent had a little trouble convincing the far right that he was the genuine article and not, in fact, a deep-state plant.
This go-around, the “America First” conservative appears to be getting ahead of that narrative as he makes another run for Congress. This time, he’s shoring up his radical credentials by calling to gut the FBI.
The FBI, Kent suggested in a video last month, is essentially operating “as a secret domestic intelligence agency,” which will “continue to take us down this road towards total authoritarianism.” He has repeatedly called to defund the agency, even as it faces mounting threats from the MAGAsphere, and has pushed the false claim that “deep state” infiltration was to blame for the Jan. 6 attack.