Fox News host Tucker Carlson told his national television audience Monday that the National Security Agency (NSA) “is spying on him” in an effort to get his show canceled.
Carlson said his team received their information from a government whistleblower who warned the NSA was “monitoring our electronic communications and is planning to leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air.”
The host offered no evidence of the alleged spying but said the unnamed whistleblower repeated back information on a story Carlson’s team is working on that came directly from his own text messages and emails, according to a transcription of the host’s remarks by Fox News.
“There’s no other possible source for that information, period,” Carlson said.
Carlson accused the NSA of secretly gathering the information for political reasons.
“The Biden administration is spying on us. We have confirmed that,” he said. “This morning we filed an FOIA request of Freedom of Information Act request asking for all information that the NSA and other agencies have gathered about this show. We did it mostly as a formality. We’ve also contacted the press office at both NSA and the FBI. We don’t expect to hear much back. That’s the way that usually goes.”
“Only Congress can force transparency on the intelligence agencies and they should do that immediately. Spying on opposition journalists is incompatible with democracy. If they are doing it to us, and again, they are definitely doing it to us, they are almost certainly doing it to others. This is scary and we need to stop it right away,” Carlson said at the end of his show.
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However on Tuesday, in a rare public response to Carlson’s allegations, the NSA issued a statement.
“On June 28, 2021, Tucker Carlson alleged that the National Security Agency has been ‘monitoring our electronic communications and is planning to leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air.’ This allegation is untrue,” the NSA said.
“Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the Agency and the NSA has never had any plans to try to take his program off the air,” the statement continues.
“NSA has a foreign intelligence mission. We target foreign powers to generate insights on foreign activities that could harm the United States. With limited exceptions (e.g. an emergency), NSA may not target a US citizen without a court order that explicitly authorizes the targeting.”
A statement from NSA regarding recent allegations: pic.twitter.com/vduE6l6YWg
— NSA/CSS (@NSAGov) June 30, 2021
Carlson repeated his claims against the agency on Tuesday, saying the statement released by the NSA “does not deny” the allegations he made during his show Monday night, according to The Hill.
“Did the Biden administration read my personal emails? That’s the question that we asked directly to NSA officials when we spoke to them about 20 minutes ago in a very heated conversation,” he said. “Did you read my emails? And again, they refused to say … ‘We can’t tell you, and we won’t tell you why we can’t tell you.’ My emails. And the message was clear: ‘We can do whatever we want.’ “
While aboard Air Force One with President Biden on his trip to Wisconsin Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki fended off a reporter’s question about the NSA spying on Carlson but instead referred the reporter to the intelligence community.
“Tucker Carlson said that NSA is spying on him, is the administration aware of any espionage or listening efforts on U.S. citizens by the NSA, and is Tucker Carlson one of them?” the reporter asked.
“Uh, well, the NSA, as I think you’re well aware, I’m sure everyone’s aware, uh, everyone on this plane is aware, I should say, is uh, an entity that focuses on foreign threats and individuals uh, who are tr-attempting to do us harm on foreign soil. So, uh, that is the, their, uh, purview, um, but, uh, beyond that I would point you to the intelligence community,” Psaki said.
LISTEN: Psaki addresses Tucker Carlson’s claims that the NSA is “spying on him.” pic.twitter.com/mUVBs1znfl
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) June 29, 2021
Several media outlets noted the press secretary did not outright deny Carlson’s allegations.
Carlson’s Fox News show “Tucker Carlson Tonight” is the number one cable news show, according to the ratings company Nielsen. Carlson’s show averages 2.94 million viewers followed by “Hannity” with 2.63 million, while The Rachel Maddow Show which airs on MSNBC garners some 2.52 million, according to Deadline.com.
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