The National Security Agency did indeed monitor Tucker Carlson’s private communications, confirming the Fox News host’s tip from a whistleblower. The revelation comes out indirectly via an Axios “scoop” from reporter Jonathan Swan.
“Tucker Carlson was talking to U.S.-based Kremlin intermediaries about setting up an interview with Vladimir Putin shortly before the Fox News host accused the National Security Agency of spying on him,” sources told Axios.
“Those sources said U.S. government officials learned about Carlson’s efforts to secure the Putin interview,” Axios said. “Carlson learned that the government was aware of his outreach — and that’s the basis of his extraordinary accusation, followed by a rare public denial by the NSA that he had been targeted.”
“Axios has not confirmed whether any communications from Carlson have been intercepted, and if so, why,” Axios continues.
Jonathan Swan, often considered the gold standard for ‘objective’ reporting, engages in defensive spin, impugning Carlson’s accusation and those who might believe him.
“Carlson’s charges instantly became a cause célèbre on the right, which feasted on the allegation that one of America’s most prominent conservatives might have been monitored by the U.S. intelligence community,’ Swan writes. It is as if such an accusation is completely unprecedented. However, it follows upon revelations of NSA spying under the Obama administration, spying on AP journalists and then Fox News journalist James Rosen, illegal FISA-authorized Trump campaign surveillance, and unmasking of Trump transition team members.
“An NSA spokesman declined to comment and referred Axios back to the agency’s earlier, carefully-worded, statement,” Swan wrote on Twitter. “In other words, the NSA is denying the targeting of Carlson but is not denying that his communications may have been incidentally collected.”
This essentially confirms that his communications were intercepted or else the NSA would flat-out deny it. However, since no one can access the NSA to verify if this happened, this may be the closest we get to safely inferring it.
Nonetheless, we can parse the agency’s unprecedented press release that is tantamount to a non-denial denial.
https://twitter.com/alexsalvinews/status/1410026424329768961?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1410026424329768961%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftrendingpolitics.com%2Fbreaking-nsa-effectively-confirms-through-media-leak-that-tucker-carlson-was-spied-on-knab%2F
“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’,” the NSA said.
“This allegation is untrue. 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 continued. “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,” the statement added.
Tucker Carlson, nonetheless, made such an allegation in late June on his prime time cable television show.