Kentuckian considering Democratic Senate run gets security clearance revoked
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Ex-CIA officer Joel Willett claims Tulsi Gabbard revoked his clearance for politics.
- Willett links clearance revocation to reports he may run for Senate as a Democrat.
- Laura Loomer says she flagged Willett due to past anti-Trump positions and actions.
A former CIA officer and government contractor from Kentucky is claiming his national security clearance was revoked by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard for political reasons.
Joel Willett, CEO of Washington-area technology contractor Cybermedia Technologies, said Gabbard removed him at the behest of President Donald Trump, claiming the decision was influenced by Herald-Leader reporting earlier this month that he was considering a run for U.S. Senate in Kentucky as a Democrat.
In an interview with National Public Radio Thursday morning, Willett said he believes he was one of 37 people whose security clearance was revoked this week because of the rumblings around his potential candidacy.
“My name surfaced in the press as a potential candidate for Senate in Kentucky. And it appears to me the correlation of these two events, you know, can’t be overlooked. This appears to be an attempt by an administration to weaponize the government against people that it sees as political opponents,” Willett said.
Prior to his security clearance revocation, the Herald-Leader was the only outlet to report Willett’s name as a potential 2026 candidate.
Willett, 41, is a Louisville native and former CIA officer detailed to the White House situation room during Democratic President Barack Obama’s second term. He told NPR the revocation of his clearance has “employment implications” for him because of his work as a government contractor.
“I joined the Army when I was 17 to keep this country safe. Did the same thing at the CIA. It was the honor of a lifetime to serve my country. Tulsi Gabbard just revoked my security clearance because she serves one man,” Willett posted on X.
He went on to offer personal criticism of Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman and 2020 presidential candidate who became a key Trump surrogate during the 2024 election cycle.
“Having Tulsi Gabbard revoke your security clearance is like having a serial drunk driver revoke your driver’s license,” he wrote.
Willett confirmed his interest in the U.S. Senate seat in a statement to the Herald-Leader on Thursday.
“It’s very hard to stand on the sidelines and watch a corrupt system steam roll the people I grew up with — and persecute those I served with — for speaking out against it. So yeah, I’m strongly considering it,” he wrote.
Currently, only House Minority Floor Leader Pam Stevenson, D-Louisville, is running as a Democrat to replace outgoing Sen. Mitch McConnell.
Republicans are generally considered favorites to win federal races in Kentucky — no Democrat has won a U.S. Senate election since Wendell Ford in 1992 — and three high-name ID Republicans are vying for the GOP nomination.
Logan Forsythe, a personal injury attorney and former U.S. Secret Service agent from Western Kentucky, now based in Lexington, is also rumored to be eyeing a run as a Democrat.
Another player in the revocation of Willett’s clearance is Laura Loomer, a right wing influencer who holds sway with Trump, focusing on rooting out people in the administration’s orbit she deems disloyal to the president.
Loomer claimed in a social media post that she was the one who brought Willett’s name to the administration’s attention because of his interest in the race and the fact that he co-signed a 2019 letter supporting impeachment hearings against Trump during his first term.
“Now, he is going to lose all of his government contracts. If you hate Donald Trump, you shouldn’t be allowed to use your security clearance to make money as a government contractor under Trump’s administration,” Loomer wrote.
She punctuated her post with a statement directed toward Willett: “Cry more!”
This is not the first time Willett has been critical of Trump. He has written opinion pieces in Kentucky and Washington responding to Trump’s comments about the intelligence community during his first term.
During the 2019 fiasco surrounding a whistleblower allegation that Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former President Joe Biden’s son, Willett responded in the Washington Post with an op-ed detailing his experiences. He had sharp words for Trump at the time.
“What’s sadly becoming normal is Trump’s willingness to attack any individual or institution that challenges his behavior as ‘partisan’ or part of some ‘deep state’ conspiracy. It has become this administration’s reflex,” Willett wrote.
