Tucker Carlson Reportedly Sought Putin Interview Prior to Claiming NSA Was Monitoring Him
A new report says Tucker Carlson was seeking an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin prior to his public comments claiming that the National Security Agency was monitoring his communications.
Axios’ Jonathan Swan reported Wednesday that Carlson “was talking to U.S.-based Kremlin intermediaries” about arranging an interview, and that sources said government officials “learned about Carlson’s efforts.”
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.
Putin has done interviews with American media outlets in the past, including NBC’s Keir Simmons this year and Fox News’ Chris Wallace in 2018.
Carlson said on his show last week that the NSA “is monitoring our electronic communications and is planning to leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air.” The NSA put out a rare statement responding to Carlson and saying he “has never been an intelligence target.”
Swan reports that when reached for comment the NSA pointed back to that statement, writing, “The NSA is denying the targeting of Carlson but is not denying that his communications were incidentally collected.”
“It is unclear why Carlson, or his source, would think this outreach could be the basis for the NSA’s surveillance or a motive to have his show canceled,” he reports.
Carlson’s claim was met with a fair amount of skepticism, while some congressional Republicans backed investigations into the matter. On Wednesday morning, Carlson appeared on Fox Business and claimed to Maria Bartiromo that the NSA leaked the contents of his email to journalists “in an effort to discredit me.”
A Fox spokesperson told Axios, “We support any of our hosts pursuing interviews and stories free of government interference.” Carlson himself gave a statement to Axios saying, “As I’ve said repeatedly, because it’s true, the NSA read my emails, and then leaked their contents. That’s an outrage, as well as illegal.”
