The White House has responded to allegations made by Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the National Security Agency is spying on him.
But in its response the White House would not say definitively if the NSA was spying on the electronic communications of Carlson.
“Tucker Carlson said that NSA is spying on him, is the administration aware of any espionage or listening efforts on US citizens by the NSA, and is Tucker Carlson one of them?” a reporter said to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.
When asked directly if the NSA is spying on Tucker Carlson, Jen Psaki doesn't confirm or deny the allegation the federal government is monitoring him. This is a terrible look for the Biden administration.
AUDIO: pic.twitter.com/y9bcXyAGjq
— David Hookstead (@dhookstead) June 29, 2021
The press secretary did not give a definitive answer but, rather, gave a description of what the NSA’s job is.
“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,” she said.
This came a day after Carlson announced that a whistleblower informed him that he was being spied on, but no evidence has been produced to corroborate his story.
“The war on terror now ongoing for 20 years has pivoted, it is now being waged against American citizens, opponents of the regime. We saw this on display at January 6 and told you a couple of weeks ago based on the language of public at available indictments at the FBI has poor knowledge of the riots of the capital that day and the agents we spoke to confirm that is true,” he said.
“The FBI had sources in that crowd, confidential sources, that’s 100% certain. But is not just political protest the government is spying on coming yesterday we heard from a whistle-blower within the U.S. Government who reached out to warn us that the NSA, The National security agency is monitoring our electronic communication and is planning to leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air.
It is important to note that Carlson’s claims that the FBI was involved in the incident on January 6 at the Capitol have been fact checked by several news organizations, such as USA Today, that have rated the claim to be false.
“That’s a shocking claim and ordinarily we would be skeptical of it, it’s a crime. Not a third world country, things like that should not happen in America but unfortunately, they do and in this case, they did. The whistle-blower who is in a position to know repeated back to us information about a story that we are working on that could have only come directly from my texts and emails. There’s no other possible source of that information,” the host said.
“They did it for political reasons. The Biden administration is spying on us. We have confirmed that. This morning, we filed an employer request asking for all information that the NSA and other agencies have gathered about the show. We did it mostly as a formality and contact of the press office of both NSA and the FBI you 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.
“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,” he said.
We do not know if Carlson’s claims are true or not but the White House should have been prepared with an answer.