Ex-CIA officer targeted by Tulsi Gabbard to join Kentucky US Senate race as Democrat
A Louisville native with a deep background in the CIA, is joining a growing field of Democrats aiming to replace Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell in 2026.
Joel Willett is leaning on his personal story in the campaign. The Jefferson County native told the Herald-Leader in an interview Tuesday that he was the first in his family to attend college. He joined the military months after the 9/11 attacks, launching a career in public service that led him to the CIA and later as a contractor serving national security agencies.
“Growing up like I did, you can’t sit on the sidelines and watch the system continue to steamroll working-class people. I am running to this fight, and I don’t care how hard it is, and I wouldn’t care if it was a fool’s errand because I believe, that passionately, that we need to fight credibly for working-class values everywhere,” Willett said.
Willett, 41, is the third Democrat with a professional campaign to enter the fray, and the GOP side is rife with political heavyweights. On Sept. 15, new candidate Logan Forsythe announced his own Democratic campaign for Sen. Mitch McConnell’s seat.
His announcement comes shortly after he had grabbed headlines in Kentucky and in the national press for his scuffle with Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who revoked his security clearance in mid-August.
“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 at the time.
He was referencing President Donald Trump.
“I don’t have some political machine behind me,” Willett said. “I’m not a part of a political dynasty or anything like that.
“But as soon as somebody like me raises their hand to try to jump in the fight, what did this administration do? It weaponized the federal government; it weaponized the security clearance process to try to shut me out. It showed that ‘anybody who’s going to dissent, anybody who’s going to try to hold us accountable, we are going to send the weight of the federal government after you.’ Whatever their intentions were, it only made me more motivated to jump into this fight,” he said.
Willett’s launch video emphasizes he did not shy away from the actions taken by the administration. Willett interviewed with media outlets local and national following the revocation of his security clearance and criticisms from influential right-wing figures like Laura Loomer.
In the video, Willett mentions that both of his parents suffered from addiction to opioids, an improving but rampant issue in Kentucky. His father, he told the Herald-Leader, passed away in 2019 as the result of a fentanyl overdose.
He also narrates his path from the military to the White House’s situation room in his role with the CIA. He more recently served as the CEO of a government contractor, employing “hundreds.”
He told the Herald-Leader he recently stepped down from his job to focus on running for Senate. His last job was as CEO of Washington-area technology contractor Cybermedia Technologies.
The campaign video ends with a tagline: “I’m not a billionaire. I’m not a politician. I’m just a Kentucky guy who fought like hell to get here. If you give me the chance, I will fight like hell for you.”
The focus of his campaign, he said, are some of the issues most Democrats are focused on in the Trump era: Health and affordability.
Despite Trump’s huge electoral successes in Kentucky, winning in 2024 by more than 30 percentage points, Willett predicts he can win over conservative Kentuckians with an appeal to their pocketbooks, railing against tax cuts that benefit the wealthy.
“I trust the voters of Kentucky to understand what their interests are. So, I think I would just ask people to focus on their bottom line. Do you see people in government really fighting for you when Donald Trump has increased his wealth by $4 billion by some estimates since January? That doesn’t really feel like he’s looking out for working-class people in the state,” Willett said.
He also said that he’d try to make building more houses a top issue. Rising home prices are a particular issue in the Lexington community, with the median home selling for $274,000 and rising.
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“We’re not getting big things done in this country anymore, and I think it’s because our political system has been captured by people close to power who, frankly, couldn’t give a damn if there was more affordable housing in Lexington,” Willett said.
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 a guest column detailing his experiences.
He had sharp words for Trump at the time, bemoaning the president’s “willingness to attack any individual or institution that challenges his behavior.”
Willett told the Herald-Leader he moved back to Kentucky this summer.
With residency playing a role in candidate attacks in other races across the country, Willett’s response goes something like this: He was born, raised and educated in Kentucky, and his rearing here led him to opportunities elsewhere; but he’s back to fight for the state now.
“The first time I ever left this state was when I joined the military, and that was in service to my country. I came back to Kentucky after that again to complete my education, and the state sent me off to public service and made it possible for me to go and help keep this country safe in DC,” he said.
“The state is home, and home has had an indelible pull on me.”
Willett plans to emphasize he’s about “getting big things done.”
He said that vision of America has been lost in recent years.
“This is the country that split the atom. This is the country that has been the economic driver and economic powerhouse of the world since my grandparents’ generation, and this is a country that used to be able to get big things done,” Willet said.
This story was originally published September 17, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
